Reconstruction Time Again

"The Fourteenth Amendment went into the Constitution in 1868 with vague language guaranteeing citizens of the United States the 'privileges and immunities' pertaining thereto. It turned out the Supreme Court would read that phrase to exclude pretty nearly every right worth having. By the time the nation adopted a voting rights amendment in 1870, it was already too late. The country that had won its war had no commitment to securing the peace, and the South's white supremacist redeemers, emboldened by the feeble opposition they met, had established themselves as the power and later the law in the old Confederacy."

In The American Prospect, Eric Rauchway reviews two recent books about Reconstruction, Nicholas Lemann's Redemption and Garrett Epps's Democracy Reborn.

And Edward L. Ayers in Slate praises Lemann's book as one that bridges popular and academic history.