The Reconstruction was badly bungled on both sides. Many Southerners even today object far more to what happened to the South "as soon as the war ended"[1], tha

The Reconstruction was badly bungled on both sides. Many Southerners even today object far more to what happened to the South "as soon as the war ended"[1], than to the war itself. This is not a justification of Jim Crow and the like of course, but an account of how the folks in the South who wished to "violently suppress and oppress the formerly-enslaved" for their own benefit managed to get away with it, despite having just lost a war with the North over that very issue. [1] Well, not quite; the "Radical Reconstruction" was a bit of a later development. But then, the truly nasty politics on the other side, with a "Redeemer" movement working together with violent, paramilitary organizations (including the 1st 'Klan') to ensure that white Southern democrats would dominate the South and impose overt white supremacy, was itself enabled and triggered by a backlash to the Radical Reconstruction.