ABSTRACT
In the two decades after 1865, the recently reunited United States had to figure out how to be one nation again at the same time that the challenges of Southern society took center stage. What would freedom mean for African-Americans? Who would rule in the Southern states? Would it be the old coalitions of plantation owners, the same ones who had supported the Confederacy? Could traitors get pardons and become politicians and leaders of the nation they had recently abandoned?
