Was Radical Reconstruction a success or a failure? Why?
To integrate Southern culture and values into the larger American culture and society. In part, the South fought the Civil War believing that its “way of life” was incompatible with Northern and American culture. But not everyone agreed that these were the four major tasks of Reconstruction. The debate among historians about the success or failure of Reconstruction arises in part because there is no common agreement on what the larger goals of Reconstruction were. Before we can understand the debate over Reconstruction, we need to understand some of the larger historical events that shaped it. Historians often divide up Reconstruction into three historical phases or period: Three Phases of Reconstruction 1) Presidential or Southern Reconstruction from 1865 to 1867 2) Congressional or Radical Reconstruction from 1867 to 1877 3) Redemption or Home Rule from 1877 to 1965 In order to understand this debate, we need to first understand historians’ changing views of Reconstruction. There are
