What could have led to a more successful Reconstruction, and how would that impact us today?

Ideally though with a better Reconstruction part of that is an expanded Freedmen's Bureau that would make up for some of that.


For how many though? I could imagine a few thousand being helped to go west, but they'd be a drop in the ocean compared with the total number of Freedmen. And of course any policy, to stand a serious chance of adoption. must cost the taxpayer little or nothing.
 
No trouble about taking Native American land, but homesteading generally required you to have some money for animals and equipment, whereas the average Freedman would have only the clothes he stood up in.

At first, yes. However, in the military government-labor union development-plantation system collapse-formation of smallholders period we'd seen several years pass.
 
At first, yes. However, in the military government-labor union development-plantation system collapse-formation of smallholders period we'd seen several years pass.

But was military government ever going to last several years? Everyone involved - Andrew Johnson and his Congressional opponents alike - was eager to get civil governments up and running asap. They disagreed only on what kind of civil governments, though that difference was fierce enough to trigger a ding dong battle. .
 
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