
The Second Founding
How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
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Narrated by:
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Donald Corren
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By:
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Eric Foner
About this listen
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. They established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed the privileges and immunities of all citizens. The federal government, not the states, was charged with enforcement, reversing the priority of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, these revolutionary changes marked the second founding of the United States.
Eric Foner's compact, insightful history traces the arc of these pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre-Civil War mass meetings of African-American "colored citizens" and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late 19th century. A series of momentous decisions by the Supreme Court narrowed the rights guaranteed in the amendments, while the states actively undermined them. The Jim Crow system was the result.
Again today there are serious political challenges to birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection of the law. Like all great works of history, this one informs our understanding of the present as well as the past: knowledge and vigilance are always necessary to secure our basic rights.
©2019 Eric Foner (P)2019 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, Eric Foner places a new emphasis on the centrality of the Black experience to an understanding of the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in helping win the Civil War, and - even more actively - in shaping Reconstruction and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. Foner makes clear how, by war's end, freed slaves in the South built on networks of church and family in order to exercise their right of suffrage as well as gain access to education, land, and employment.
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Excellent
- By eric lewis on 07-31-23
By: Eric Foner
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Wilmington's Lie
- The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
- By: David Zucchino
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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By the 1890s, Wilmington was North Carolina’s largest city and a shining example of a mixed-race community. It was a bustling port city with a burgeoning African American middle class and a Fusionist government of Republicans and Populists that included black aldermen, police officers, and magistrates. There were successful black-owned businesses and an African American newspaper, The Record. But across the state - and the South - white supremacist Democrats were working to reverse the advances made by former slaves and their progeny.
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HOW TO GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF HOW RACISM HAS BEEN USED AS A TOOL BY WEALTHY
- By Linzay on 06-19-20
By: David Zucchino
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A People's History of the Supreme Court
- The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have Shaped Our Constitution
- By: Peter Irons, Howard Zinn - foreword
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 28 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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A comprehensive history of the people and cases that have changed history, this is the definitive account of the nation's highest court.
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Really enjoyed this book
- By Paul on 02-19-20
By: Peter Irons, and others
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The War After the War
- A New History of Reconstruction
- By: John Patrick Daly
- Narrated by: Steve Menasche
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The War after the War is a lively military history and overview of Reconstruction that illuminates the new war fought immediately after the American Civil War. This Southern Civil War was distinct from the American Civil War and fought between southerners for control of state governments. In the South, African American and white unionists formed a successful biracial coalition that elected state and local officials. White supremacist insurrectionaries battled with these coalitions and won the Southern Civil War, successfully overthrowing democratically elected governments.
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very thought provoking.
- By jason Faucher on 03-05-25
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Birthright Citizens
- A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America
- By: Martha S. Jones
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Before the Civil War, colonization schemes and black laws threatened to deport former slaves born in the United States. Birthright Citizens recovers the story of how African American activists remade national belonging through battles in legislatures, conventions, and courthouses.
By: Martha S. Jones
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Civil War of 1812
- American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies
- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor tells the riveting story of a war that redefined North America. In a world of double identities, slippery allegiances, and porous borders, the leaders of the American Republic and the British Empire struggled to control their own diverse peoples. Taylor’s vivid narrative of an often brutal—sometimes farcical—war reveals much about the tangled origins of the United States and Canada.
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A proper history of an obscure epoch
- By margot on 04-22-12
By: Alan Taylor
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American Republics
- A Continental History of the United States 1783-1850
- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny.
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Helps the dots of history to today.
- By Tascha F. on 06-26-21
By: Alan Taylor
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Mayflower Lives
- Pilgrims in a New World and the Early American Experience
- By: Martyn Whittock
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Leading into the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the Mayflower, Martyn Whittock examines the lives of the "saints" (members of the Separatist Puritan congregations) and "strangers" (economic migrants) on the original ship. Collectively, these people would become known to history as "the Pilgrims". The story of the Pilgrims has taken on a life of its own as one of our founding national myths - their escape from religious persecution, the dangerous transatlantic journey, that brutal first winter.
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Wonderful!
- By D. Coello on 11-25-20
By: Martyn Whittock
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John Jay
- Founding Father
- By: Walter Stahr
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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John Jay was a central figure in the early history of the American Republic. A New York lawyer, born in 1745, Jay served his country with the greatest distinction, and was one of the most influential of its Founding Fathers. In this first full-length biography of John Jay in almost 70 years, Walter Stahr brings Jay vividly to life, setting his astonishing career against the background of the American Revolution. Drawing on substantial new material, Walter Stahr has written a full and highly enjoyable portrait of both the public and private man.
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A great book I'm thankful I've completed
- By Christopher L. Gregory on 12-23-24
By: Walter Stahr
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The Coming Fury
- The Centennial History of the Civil War, Volume 1
- By: Bruce Catton
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 20 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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> The New York Times hailed this trilogy as “one of the greatest historical accomplishments of our time”. With stunning detail and insights, America’s foremost Civil War historian recreates the war from its opening months to its final, bloody end. Each volume delivers a complete listening experience. The Coming Fury (Volume 1) covers the split Democratic Convention in the spring of 1860 to the first battle of Bull Run.
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History As It Should Be
- By Bryan on 07-19-11
By: Bruce Catton
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The Korean War
- A History
- By: Bruce Cumings
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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In sobering detail, The Korean War chronicles a US home front agitated by Joseph McCarthy, where absolutist conformity discouraged open inquiry and citizen dissent. Cumings incisively ties our current foreign policy back to Korea: an America with hundreds of permanent military bases abroad, a large standing army, and a permanent national security state at home, the ultimate result of a judicious and limited policy of containment evolving into an ongoing and seemingly endless global crusade.
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A real eye-opener
- By Bookworm on 10-09-19
By: Bruce Cumings
What listeners say about The Second Founding
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- Caroline Pufalt
- 11-10-19
Highly recommended
This is a valuable read for better understanding of history and the present. Anyone who reads civil war history will know of the 13,14 and 15th amendments. But this book brings their meaning to life.
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1 person found this helpful
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- jason
- 03-02-21
Excellent Supreme Court primer
Decent narrator. Explains why the equal protection under the law described in the reconstruction amendments doesn't actually apply to modern law.
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- MJ Schirmer
- 07-20-21
Everyone needs to read this.
We tend to forget the real sea change in American law represented by the 13th-15th Amendments - and the Supreme Court's evisceration of much of their force.
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- Jennifer
- 10-01-19
Excellent book - problematic narrator
I admit to being disappointed that Professor Foner was not reading his book in his distinctive and familiar voice, but determined to give this narrator a try. After he has mispronounced Chief Justice Taney’s name four times within the first hour of the narration, however, I am distracted and disappointed. Audible, if you won’t let historians read their own work, make sure the narrators are knowledgeable about the period, please!
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27 people found this helpful
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- Jim Messina
- 06-11-20
Essential Reading in 2020
The legacy and impact of slavery and Jim Crow have cast a long shadow and Eric Foner gives us an in-depth and insightful look at the 13th, 14th, & 15th Amendments.
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6 people found this helpful
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- TonyaA6
- 05-15-21
Much needed information
This information should be taught from middle school to college. It is absolutely appalling, the measures white men haven taken to disenfranchise everyone that isn't a white male.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Maureen Flanagan
- 09-23-20
Should be required high school reading
It might be advanced for high school but with the right teacher, so much more about how we got where we are today would be understood. And we must start teaching these things.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-20-20
Great book.
A copy should be mailed to every supreme court justice. Short but powerful interpretation of these consequential amendments.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Josie :)
- 07-24-20
A vital work
Don't read this book because future generations will remember it as a foundation for a revitalized "textualist" constitutional jurisprudence. Though I'm sure that's true, read it because it's both entertaining and useful for anyone with an interest in US history.
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2 people found this helpful
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- JG
- 02-03-21
Good narration but...
I found Donald Corren easy and pleasing to listen to. He read with appropriate inflection and confidence. Therefore it was even more grating every time he mispronounced Taney. Otherwise a good listen if you're into constitutional history.
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