Introduction : the legal history of reconstruction -- Traveling the political dial : political and cultural forces that shaped reconstruction-era lawmakers -- Law and the wartime South -- The great wreck of property : coming to grips with emancipation -- Cleaning up after the Confederacy : the new federalism and allocation of losses of war -- The constitutional legacy of reconstruction -- A republic of paupers : shaping the individuals role in the postwar economy -- The South confronts corporations -- Reconstruction and womens rights -- Southern law during the Bourbon era (1877-1890) -- The impassable chasm : Southern law during the straight-out era (1890-1915) -- The legal legacy of reconstruction.