Even as the United States has risen to become the predominant international power, however, conflict has persisted over the nature of American societ… - Eric Foner

History, however, is not a linear narrative of progress. Rights may be won and taken away; gains are never complete or uncontested, and popular movements generate their own countervailing pressures.

Slavery was a byproduct of the quest for profit—economic actors were the architects of the slave plantation systems that came to dominate American society from the Southern United States to the Caribbean and Brazil. It was merchants and planters, not statesmen and jurists, who determined that slave labor was more profitable than free. ... This history constitutes a welcome corrective to the fashionable view that free markets automatically promote social justice.

In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired the restoration of white supremacy. It aimed to destroy the Republican party’s infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life.