Editing Reconstruction era (section)

===The "failure" issue===
Reconstruction is widely considered a failure, though the reason for this is a matter of controversy.
* The [[Dunning School]] considered failure inevitable because it felt that taking the right to vote or hold office away from Southern Whites was a violation of republicanism.
* A second school sees the reason for failure as Northern Republicans' lack of effectiveness in guaranteeing political rights to Blacks.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}
* A third school blames the failure on not giving land to the freedmen so they could have their own economic base of power.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}
* A fourth school sees the major reason for the failure of Reconstruction as the states' inability to suppress the violence of Southern Whites when they sought reversal for Blacks' gains. Etcheson (2009) points to the "violence that crushed black aspirations and the abandonment by Northern whites of Southern Republicans".<ref>{{cite book |first=Vernon |last=Burton |chapter=Civil War and Reconstruction |editor-first=William L. |editor-last=Barney |title=A Companion to 19th-century America |date=2006 |pages=54–56}}</ref> Etcheson wrote that it is hard to see Reconstruction "as concluding in anything but failure". Etcheson adds: "W. E. B. DuBois captured that failure well when he wrote in ''Black Reconstruction in America'' (1935): 'The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.{{'"}}<ref>{{cite journal |first=Nicole |last=Etcheson |title=Reconstruction and the Making of a Free-Labor South |journal=Reviews in American History |volume=37 |issue=2 |date=June 2009|pages=236–242 |doi=10.1353/rah.0.0101 |s2cid=146573684 }}</ref>
* Other historians emphasize the failure to fully incorporate Southern Unionists into the Republican coalition. Derek W. Frisby points to "Reconstruction's failure to appreciate the challenges of [[Southern Unionism]] and incorporate these loyal Southerners into a strategy that would positively affect the character of the peace".<ref>{{cite book |last=Frisby |first=Derek W. |title=The Great Task Remaining Before Us: Reconstruction as America's Continuing Civil War |date=2010 |publisher=Fordham University Press |isbn=9780823232024 |editor-last=Cimbala |editor-first=Paul |location=New York |page=9 |chapter=A Victory Spoiled: West Tennessee Unionists During Reconstruction}}</ref>

Historian Donald R. Shaffer maintained that the gains during Reconstruction for African Americans were not entirely extinguished. The legalization of African American marriages and families and the independence of Black churches from White denominations were a source of strength during the [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow]] era. Reconstruction was never forgotten within the Black community and it remained a source of inspiration. The system of [[sharecropping]] granted Blacks a considerable amount of freedom as compared to slavery.{{sfnp|Zuczek|2006 |loc=Vol. 1 pp. 20, 22}}

Historian [[Eric Foner]] argues:<ref>{{harvp|Foner|1988|p=604}} reprinted in: {{cite book |editor-first= Francis G. |editor-last= Couvares |display-editors= etal |title= Interpretations of American History Vol. I Through Reconstruction |edition= 7th | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=DVNhXPy6suoC&pg=PA409 |date= 2000 |page= 409 |publisher= Simon and Schuster |isbn= 978-0-684-86773-1}}</ref>
{{blockquote|1= What remains certain is that Reconstruction failed, and that for Blacks its failure was a disaster whose magnitude cannot be obscured by the genuine accomplishments that did endure.}}

Historian [[Annette Gordon-Reed]] described in an October 2015 article for ''[[The Atlantic]]'' magazine the effects if Reconstruction had not failed.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Gordon-Reed |first1=Annette |title=What If Reconstruction Hadn't Failed? |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/what-if-reconstruction-hadnt-failed/412219/ |access-date=May 5, 2024 |publisher=The Atlantic |date=October 26, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231114185238/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/what-if-reconstruction-hadnt-failed/412219/ |archive-date=November 14, 2023}}</ref> However, in 2014, historian Mark Summers argued that the "failure" question should be looked at from the viewpoint of the war goals; in that case, he argues:{{sfnp|Summers|2014|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=2-1wBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA4 4]}}
{{blockquote|1=If we see Reconstruction's purpose as making sure that the main goals of the war would be fulfilled, of a Union held together forever, of a North and South able to work together, of slavery extirpated, and sectional rivalries confined, of the permanent banishment of the fear of vaunting appeals to state sovereignty, backed by armed force, then Reconstruction looks like what in that respect it was, a lasting and unappreciated success.}}