Summary Of Give Me Liberty By Eric Foner

The Redeemers were a group of democrats who won the votes of southern white males. Texas, Tennessee, and North Carolina are examples of states who had a majority of white population and therefore voted for these democrats. This group of democrats labeled themselves “the Redeemers” because they thought they saved the white population. In Give Me Liberty! by Eric Foner, it is stated that the Redeemers thought they were saving the south from “corruption, misgovernment, and northern and black control”(584). The racial reconstruction of the United States, after the Civil War, failed because of southern control after the Bargain of 1877, the decline of the economy, and President Johnson's presidential actions.
After Grant's term as president, the

Eric Foner states that “some 2,000 African-Americans occupied public offices during Reconstruction represented a fundamental shift of power in the South and a radical departure in American government”(575).The offices and positions they held were in every level of government, including, the House of Representatives, Senators, a Governor, and many held positions in local offices. The change from African American being treated as a possession of white men to being in control of some part of the government was a major change in the United States

The plan declared that if ten percent of the south agreed to Lincoln’s plan, then the south would be able to rebuild their state constitution and ignore the war debts. The only condition of the ten percent plan was that the state constitutions had to include the thirteenth amendment. The south would have to give African Americans the right to vote before they are able to make their own state constitutions. Lincoln’s ten percent plan did not have a straightforward goal for the African Americans. After Abraham Lincoln's death, the Vice President Andrew Johnson succeeded into Presidency. Johnson was loyal to the Union but did not agree completely with Lincoln’s view on the freedom of African Americans since he was from Tennessee. Andrew Johnson wanted to reconstruct the nation but did not think the freedom of African Americans had anything role in it. Johnson pardons confederate leaders and lets the southern states incorporate Black Codes into their state constitutions. Eric Foner explains that “what aroused the most opposition to Johnson’s Reconstruction policy were the Black Codes, laws passed by the new southern governments that attempted to regulate the lives of the former slaves”(565). The Black Codes kept African Americans freedom limited, which is not what the republicans wanted.Johnson lost the support of the republicans because he did not uphold the