Richardson's explanation for the abandonment of black southerners offers an innovative and stimulating perspective. By giving priority to "free labor," rather than equal rights, as the centerpiece of Republican ideology and postwar policy, she emphasizes the significance of economic considerations and also class divisions as explanatory factors in the termination of the party's involvement in the late-nineteenth-century South. Furthermore, the focus on the Republicans' theories about labor after emancipation establishes the political context for the current interest among historians in the origins and nature of the labor system that emerged after emancipation. These are very valuable insights and contributions.