The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time. The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. They established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed the privileges and immunities of all citizens. The federal government, not the states, was charged with enforcement, reversing the priority of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, these revolutionary changes marked the second founding of the United States. Eric Foner's compact, insightful history traces the arc of these pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre-Civil War mass meetings of African-American "colored citizens" and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late nineteenth century. A series of momentous decisions by the Supreme Court narrowed the rights guaranteed in the amendments, while the states actively undermined them. The Jim Crow system was the result. Again today there are serious political challenges to birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection of the law. Like all great works of history, this one informs our understanding of the present as well as the past: knowledge and vigilance are always necessary to secure our basic rights.

About the Author :
Eric Foner is the author of many award-winning books on the Civil War and Reconstruction, including the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. He is the 2020 recipient of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for lifetime achievement. He is DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. Donald Corren is an audiobook narrator and a New York actor with leading credits on and Off-Broadway, as well as numerous television appearances. On Broadway, he costarred with Judy Kaye in the critically acclaimed production of Souvenir, and replaced Harvey Fierstein in the seminal production of Torch Song Trilogy. His Off-Broadway appearances include The Soap Myth, Dietrich & Chevalier, The Last Sunday in June, Stephen Sondheim's Saturday Night, and the original New York production of Tomfoolery. His television credits include eight seasons as forensic tech Medill on NBC's Law & Order, as well as his current role as Dr. Kurian on Syfy's Z Nation.

Review :

"[The Second Founding] should land on the desk of every federal jurist....[It] presents a sobering picture of the use and misuse of history in legal battles over race. But it is hopeful too. Change is possible with more truthful and expansive historical knowledge."

"[A] potent study."

"Copies of this book should be spread around the Capitol, because the battles of contemporary Washington are but a second act to the struggles prompted by Foner's Second Founding."

"Demonstrates [Foner's] talent at unearthing insights about the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, in particular how Americans defined and acted on the ideals of freedom and democracy."

"Donald Corren's commanding narration is a perfect match for this important audiobook...Corren's urgent tone conveys the high stakes involved...The outcome of these negotiations is considered by historians to be as significant as the founding itself, and Corren makes the listener care about each battle along the way."

"Foner brilliantly shows that the federal government's actions in the nineteenth century continue to resonate today."

"Foner has a knack for looking at past conflicts through the lens of the present, without allowing the present to distort the past."

"Lucid and succinct."

"Mr. Foner makes his case with brio and erudition."

"Reflects Foner's rigorously researched, now mainstream view that Reconstruction was 'a massive experiment in interracial democracy."