I am a heavy proponent of wishing that reconstruction was enforced.
But didn’t you tell me enforcing reconstruction would have caused another war?
Yes, it would’ve resulted in another civil war. As you well know, you can legislate almost anything, but you cannot legislate away or enforce how people feel about each other. Was it morally or ethically right that Black folks got screwed as a result for another century ? Nope. But there simply wasn’t the burning desire amongst Whites in the North to put a gun to the head of White Southerners to demand they respect Blacks and their newfound rights, especially when they themselves weren’t big on Black folks (and were scrambling to keep them out — see Oregon).
Gov. Tilden probably won the Presidential election of 1876 essentially on the platform of, “That’s enough” (where Reconstruction was involved). Keeping troops stationed in the South for perpetuity was distasteful to a majority of Whites, and both sides were anxious for a reconciliation and “return to normalcy.” A lot of Republicans didn’t want that, either, and if Blacks were going to be relegated back to second-class status, they were going to try to win the South with appeal to White voters (aside from a few times in the 1890s and 1920s, it would take over a century to 140 years to fully accomplish).