Letters

摘要

Lexington's column on "the war over Lincoln" mentioned the vast number of books that have been written about the civil-war president (February 14th). Few of these works, however, fully recognise the South's political triumph, only a decade after Appomattox, that reversed the Union's military victory. In the disputed presidential election of 1876 several southern states gave their support to the Republican candidate, Rutherford Hayes, in return for the withdrawal of the remaining federal troops, who had been protecting blacks. Southern whites quickly restored, in all but name, their "peculiar institution" of slavery, and reinforced their dominance by lynching some 3,400 blacks over the next half-century.