Even earlier than the Civil War, Eric Foner explains, the Republican celebration was once in a duration of increasing federal authority over the states. During the conflict and then Reconstruction a robust central authority used to be viewed fundamental in order to outline the phrases on which the defeated southern states ought to return to the Union and to put into effect these terms. Eric Foner shows how the growth of federal authority was once a radical thinking at the time and the wing of the Republican Party that recommended it was occasionally at odds with greater average and conservative celebration members. For example, in Eric Foner article he shows “Reconstruction Radicalism was the first and foremost a civic ideology, grounded in definition of American citizenship. On the economic issues of the day on distinctive or unified Radical position existed”(Eric Foner 106). This quote illustrates that the idea that reconstruction radicalism is the main idea of American citizenship. Furthermore, about the reconstruction radicalism of American citizenship. For example, “Radical Republicanism did posses a social and economic vision, but one that derived from the free labor ideology rather than from any one set of business interests”( Eric Foner 106). This quote illustrates that the radical republicans on the topic of free labor ideology they put the focus on businesses.
All in all Eric Foner thought that with nothing has been more important to the development of American society and politics than the Civil War and Reconstruction. And until in the 1960s, there is more influential scholars conceived of the era as a sad departure from America’s grand march of progress toward political liberty and economic plenty.