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Americans weren't forgetting by 1876,
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at least in a host of ways.
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They were about to have the magnificent centennial
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of their independence.
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Now that year will bring,
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as we'll see in a moment, a pivotal election,
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to say the least.
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It'll end in a disputed-- the first-- not the first,
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really the second-- great disputed election in American history,
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and a sordid political compromise
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that most of us in textbooks and in teaching
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still call the End of Reconstruction.