Court Retreat and the Erosion of Reconstruction

In this episode, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Eric Foner joins to discuss his book, Our Fragile Freedoms, a new collection of essays exploring a range of topics, including debates over slavery and antislavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the battle to dismantle it, and modern debates over the Constitution and how to teach American history. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates. This conversation was originally streamed live on September 24, 2025, as part of the NCC’s America’s Town Hall program series. 

Resources 

• Eric Foner, Our Fragile Freedoms (2025) 
• Eric Foner, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (2019) 
• Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010) 
• Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988) 
• Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963) 

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