Books by Michael Les Benedict

Finally available in one volume, these ten classic essays by a leading scholar track the way key political, factional, and legal struggles, shaped by popular commitment to constitutional principles, affected the framing, interpretation, and enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. With a major introduction and updates throughout.

'When you judge decisions, you have to judge them in light of what there was available to do,' noted Secretary of State George C. Marshall to the Senate in 1951. In this spirit, this volume addresses and succeeds in outlining the mammoth task that Northern Americans faced after the Civil War in restoring the Union. Originally published in 1975 by the J.B. Lippincott Company.