When congressional Republicans turned their attention toward policymaking for the states, however, they confronted directly the nation’s federal structure and Americans’ longstanding deference to state power. As they sought to forge a policy that would grant Congress unprecedented power to protect individual rights in the states, they had to tread carefully, lest they lose members of their coalition and—come the fall of 1866—face defeat in midterm elections. They argued among themselves and with their Democratic colleagues over how far Congress could go in constraining the police powers of the
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