'Northern Republicans had disastrous economic policy beliefs that sunk reconstruction' was definitely how I read the history of the antebellum period the first time, but it's hard to see how the U.S. becomes an economic giant without the wildly unpopular economic transformations of this period.
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and I think land reform had a shot
I am doubtful that the slave power recapturing the south was a core part of making that happen
the American institutions that cultivated our capitalism were mostly northern
but where the offramps are -- surely they exist? -- is an interesting questions