W. W. Norton & Company
The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
Key Metrics
- Eric Foner
- W. W. Norton & Company
- Hardcover
- 9780393652574
- 9.4 X 6.4 X 0.9 inches
- 1.15 pounds
- History > United States - Civil War Period (1850-1877)
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. They established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed the privileges and immunities of all citizens. The federal government, not the states, was charged with enforcement, reversing the priority of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, these revolutionary changes marked the second founding of the United States.
Eric Foner's compact, insightful history traces the arc of these pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre-Civil War mass meetings of African-American colored citizens and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late nineteenth century. A series of momentous decisions by the Supreme Court narrowed the rights guaranteed in the amendments, while the states actively undermined them. The Jim Crow system was the result. Again today there are serious political challenges to birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection of the law. Like all great works of history, this one informs our understanding of the present as well as the past: knowledge and vigilance are always necessary to secure our basic rights.
Author Bio
Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History, specializes in the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and 19th-century America. He is one of only two persons to serve as President of the Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, and Society of American Historians.
He has also been the curator of several museum exhibitions, including the prize-winning "A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln," at the Chicago Historical Society. His book, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery won the Pulitzer, Bancroft, and Lincoln prizes for 2011. His latest book is Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad.
Professor Foner's new, free, online courses on THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION will be available this academic year, beginning in mid-September, from Columbia University at ColumbiaX.
Education
Ph.D. — Columbia University, 1969
B.A. First Class — Oriel College, Oxford University, 1965
B.A. — Columbia College, 1963
Source: Columbia University
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