The Failure of Reconstruction: A reluctance toward equality. <Tab/> <Tab/>Reconstruction was the effort of rebuilding the South based on free labor instead of slave labor. The issue to Northern politicians was how? At the end of the Civil War, Congress proposed the Thirteenth Amendment, which sought to prohibit slavery. A state was not to gain readmittance into the Union until it ratified the Amendment, but some …showed first 75 words of 1430 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1430 total…the collapse of Reconstruction and willingness of the North to drop their convictions for true racial equality. Bibliography: Blum, John M., ed. The National Experience A History of the United States. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1973. Current, Richard N., ed. Reconstruction. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965. Donald, David, The Politics of Reconstruction. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1965. McPherson, James M. Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War And Reconstruction. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, INC., 1982.