The Civil War's Unfinished Business

Abstract: The United States is not on the brink of a civil war, but the nation is dealing with the failure to reckon with the Civil War and its aftermath, namely the emancipation of 4 million enslaved people and what that meant for the United States socially and politically. The unaddressed racial and economic inequalities and the radical disagreement about whether they exist and/or how to ameliorate them are at the heart of current political divisions. This essay considers some of the history surrounding the Reconstruction amendments, the first attempt to redress these inequalities, and how that history shaped and continues to shape contemporary ideas about who can access citizenship and voting rights.