The focus in The Thin Light of Freedom is much more on what's happening on the ground rather than in congress, so Capitol Men will almost certainly have loads of different material because the focus is so different. Unfortunately it didn't actually focus that much on Congress – the title's a bit misleading – though it did focus on the black leaders who managed to get elected positions (though not all in Congress) during the brief years that Reconstruction actually worked, and the white supremacists who lead to their downfall.
I keep thinking that if the federal government had been a bit more forceful, more willing to call in the troops to enforce the new legal civil rights, it could have worked out – but they probably would have needed to maintain that for an entire generation, to bring up new Southerners more used to the new status quo, and there's no way they could have gotten the electoral support for that. The North too, was tired and bored and just didn't want to deal anymore.
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Date: 2019-10-29 08:25 pm (UTC)Unfortunately it didn't actually focus that much on Congress – the title's a bit misleading – though it did focus on the black leaders who managed to get elected positions (though not all in Congress) during the brief years that Reconstruction actually worked, and the white supremacists who lead to their downfall.
I keep thinking that if the federal government had been a bit more forceful, more willing to call in the troops to enforce the new legal civil rights, it could have worked out – but they probably would have needed to maintain that for an entire generation, to bring up new Southerners more used to the new status quo, and there's no way they could have gotten the electoral support for that. The North too, was tired and bored and just didn't want to deal anymore.