"In the aftermath of the Civil War and the defeat of the Confederacy, there was a moment–ever so brief–filled with promise and hope for a future of equality for former slaves. But the promise of Reconstruction withered, largely due to the failure of the Union leadership to bring the former Confederate states into line."
Which makes me wonder what should the US have done differently during the reconstruction era following the Civil War?
Reconstruction required the re-making of a slave society into a non-slave society. That meant that Southerners had to give up their deeply held belief in a very stratified society in which they were on top, and allow the freedmen equality. Or, at least, more equality: because most Americans , in general, did not believe that the freedmen were the equals of white Americans.
Initially, Grant and the Republican Congress were willing to impose the new order upon the south with the Freedman's Bureau, and back up the bureau with military force. They were willing to use that force to suppress the KKK, and intervene in riots- at least, some of the time. But that became more difficult- white southerners were willing to continue to use violence and also maneuvered politically to retain their superiority and suppress the freedmen. Essentially, the North gave up when an economic recession made the expense of the effort seem too great. And, of course, because most Northerners did not care that deeply about civil rights for the freedmen.
If Grant and his Republican advisers had been willing to risk the loss of Ohio in the 1873 election and had persevered in support of the Freedman's Bureau, that would have helped. It is easy to imagine this being done: he was a very popular man, and if he had actually campaigned for the country to stay the course, perhaps then Reconstruction would have lasted long enough for the South to give up on maintaining most of its hierarchy, and perhaps have become only as racist as the North.
But Grant had never been much of a politician, capable of moving a crowd with a stirring speech, and after his bitter experience of finding that his close associates and even family could be tempted into corruption, he began to shed his lofty goals and became a functionary. What if he had won the 1873 election anyway, after sticking to Reconstruction? Could he have persevered much longer in the South anyway? Could he have brought in more troops and had a greater effect with a real military occupation? Would that have created more resentment, and more resistance? These are unknowns. But we can at least go to that one decision in 1873, and say that , from that decision, the US commenced giving up on Reconstruction, and it should not have.