Answer:
Federal and state governments failed to
secure the rights guaranteed to former slaves
by constitutional amendments.
Explanation:
- Radical Republican governments were
unable or unwilling to enact land
reform or to provide former slaves
with the economic resources needed
to break the cycle of poverty.
- State Republican parties could not
preserve black-white voter coalitions
that would have enabled them to stay
in power and continue political
reform.
- Racial bias was a national, not just a
southern, problem. Northerners
became more absorbed in westward
expansion and industrialization than
with the problems of the former
slaves.
- The Supreme Court undermined the
power of the 14th and 15th
Amendments.
At the end of Reconstruction, former slaves
found themselves once again in a
subordinate position in society. The historian
Eric Foner concludes: “Whether measured by
the dreams inspired by emancipation or the
more limited goals of securing blacks’ rights
as citizens…Reconstruction can only be
judged a failure.”
