Book Reviewed: The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution, by Eric Foner

The constitutional, political, and social issues after American Civil War (four stars)

This is an historical account of the constitutional, political, and social crisis after the Civil War. United States was faced with an enormous task of ending the slavery constitutionally and offering a solution to institutional racism. The constitutional amendments; Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth were adopted between 1865 and 1870 to guarantee freedom to former slaves and offer equality and citizenship rights. The 13th ended slavery. The 14th made anyone born in the U.S. a citizen and a state in the union can't deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The 15th gave the vote to black men but not any women. What followed their adoption was the way the constitutional power was eroded by state laws and supreme court decisions throughout the late 19th and first half of 20th centuries. The full benefits of these amendments were not realized until the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The reconstruction amendments were nullified in the south, step-by-step with the compliancy of the Supreme Court of the United States. Violent groups like KKK resorted to violence to deprive blacks of their rights. This challenge to the 14th was direct but Supreme Court interpreted that it is not a state action, and the private individuals committing private acts of violence should be handled by state laws. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the states. There were additional challenges associated with slave states like Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, which had nearly three-quarters of a million slaves. Since the Proclamation was a war measure against the Confederacy, the states that were in the Union retained the constitutional protections of slavery.

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that the separate but equal facilities in South is constitutional, which suggested that separation is not a form of prejudice or discrimination. It opened the door to all sorts of laws that the Southern states would pass requiring segregation in every phase of life. This became central to the Jim Crow Laws in the 20th century South.

This is an exciting book written by Columbia University Professor Eric Foner who has researched this material much of his academic life. The interpretation of constitutional amendments by states and court systems is highly engaging. United States was born with a belief in individual liberty and reconstruction was intended to create a new republic. But it was created in a harsh environment of racism.