Second Founding by Eric Foner: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

Did the Civil War lead to a Second Founding of the United States? Eric Foner in his book with that title on the Reconstruction amendments and his other books on the Reconstruction era argues forcefully that the Civil War was a political turning point for this country. Before the Civil War, each state determined its own racial policies, but the politics of slavery, then white supremacy, proved so repugnant to the North that it passed these three amendments.

As Eric Foner puts it, “Together with far-reaching congressional legislation meant to provide former slaves with access to the courts, ballot box, and public accommodations, and to protect them against violence, the Reconstruction Amendments greatly enhanced the power of the federal government, transferring much of the authority to define citizens’ rights from the states to the nation.” Each amendment specifically gave the US Congress the authority to enforce these amendments by appropriate legislation.

What were these Reconstruction Amendments?
• Thirteenth Amendment, ratified January 31, 1865: Slavery is abolished, except for convict labor.
• Fourteenth Amendment, ratified July 9, 1868: Everyone born or naturalized is a citizen of the US. All citizens are guaranteed due process under the law
• Fifteenth Amendment, ratified February 3, 1870: All citizens have the right to vote.

In addition, we will also discuss:
• Presidential Reconstruction under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson
• Abraham Lincoln and his Presidential Campaign of 1864
• Emancipation Proclamation
• Congressional Reconstruction under Radical Republicans, including Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner
• Lincoln’s 1864 Presidential Campaign
• Convict Leasing, aka Chain Gangs
• White Supremacy and Ku Klux Klan
• Ulysses Grant and his Presidential Campaign of 1868
• Freedmen’s Bureau
• Great Financial Panic of 1873
• Presidential Election of 1876
• Compromise of 1877
• Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney and Dred Scott Decision
• Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, the Great Dissenter, for the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896
• Brown V Board of Education case of 1954

Please see our blog on the Second Founding:

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This is original content based on research by Bruce Strom and his blogs. Images in the Public Domain, many from Wikipedia, some from the National Archives, are selected to provide illustration. When images of the actual topic or event are not available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

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