re: #113 sagehen

Johnson more than Grant.

Grant was the one who re-invaded the South to take on the KKK, and to enforce the 1875 Civil Rights Act. Had some pretty good success with it, too… that’s why the South was so determined to end Reconstruction. (and the Republicans betrayed him and Lincoln when they made the corrupt bargain around the 1876 election — Florida’s electoral votes were up in the air, and party bosses negotiated that they’d let R-Hayes have it if he’d agree to remove federal troops and not enforce that CRA. D-Tilden was happy enough to lose the white house, since they were getting everything they’d wanted to use it for.)

One really depressing thought in all of this is how long a military occupation of the Confederacy would have had to last if the exit condition for the troops was honest and widespread public support for civil rights and a de-Confederatization of Southern elites. A century of occupation seems like the bare minimum.