This landmark work of Constitutional and legal history is the leading account of the ways in which federal judges, attorneys, and other law officers defined a new era of civil and political rights in the South and implemented the revolutionary 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments during Reconstruction. Should be required reading . . . for all historians, jurists, lawyers, political scientists, and government officials who in one way or another are responsible for understanding and interpreting our civil rights past.-Harold M. Hyman, Journal of Southern HistoryImportant, richly researched. . . . the fullest account now available.-American Journal of Legal History