Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877

The late 1800s saw the rise and the fall of the Reconstruction era. The era, formerly sparked by President Abraham Lincoln during the ending of the Civil War, ended with President Rutherford B. Hayes’s call to withdraw northern federal troops from the South. According to Eric Foner, the author of Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, the Reconstruction Era was clearly a failure due to the racism of the white South.

While the original goal of the Reconstruction was to aid and improve the South and, in many aspects, it did, the Reconstruction failed with respect to racial equality. This failure to promulgate racial equality was mostly due to racism. After the end of the Reconstruction in 1877, the relationship between