RousseauX
Donor
My point is that racism was common to both North and South even though slavery and a planter aristocracy wasn't. A harsher Reconstruction in the defeated South would do absolutely nothing to change this.
It would change the balance of power in the southern political system.
During the reconstruction you had black senators, congressmen etc because the blacks of the period had real actual franchise and thus political power.
Racism isn't as much of an issue when blacks can fight back on a political level.