David,

So I take it, you believe this group of Presidents and reconstruction generally was as harsh as it might have been? I draw different conclusions from my reading about the "radical" stamp you apply to Grant and Garfield. Though I do not believe the North had the Constitutional Right to force the South to remain in the Union and I tend to hold the Abolitionists and the "Fire Eaters" responsible for an avoidable war. Once it was over, though there was certainly no "Marshall Plan" for the South, I believe things could have been far worse and the succession of post-war American Presidents were either apathetic in their treatment of the South or supportive of Southern recovery.

If one considers the condition of the South at the end of the war, all of our political leaders could have been hanged or imprisoned. All Southern property could have been seized and former Confederate soldiers could have been denied citizenship rights permanently. This might have driven Southerners into guerrilla war and civil disobedience, which in my opinion would have destroyed the South and our culture.

Jim