IRB Media Summary of Eric Foner's Reconstruction

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Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 The Emancipation Proclamation was signed on January 1, 1863, and declared that the remainder of the nation's slave population, well over 3 million men, women, and children, were and would be free.#2 The arrival of federal soldiers spelled doom for the slave regime, as they quickly realized that the presence of occupying troops destroyed the coercive power of both the individual master and the slaveholding community.#3 The Proclamation promised freedom for all slaves, and it was in the army that many of them first learned to read and write. The result was that large numbers of blacks were treated as equals before the law, if only military law.#4 The South was always a region of differences in economy, and slavery made those differences even more apparent. The plantation belt, which encompassed the most fertile lands and supported a flourishing agriculture integrated into the world market, was dominated by slave owners.