Was Reconstruction a "Splendid Failure"?

I think that Eric Foner makes a better argument only because he has facts to back him up and not just opinions and what could have happened like LaWanda Cox. Foner says that the Reconstruction was a "Splendid Failure" because it offered African Americans in the South a temporary vision of a free society. It gave African Americans freedoms that they never had and they could get involved in society if they wanted to and they received economic rights.
Even though Foner made a better argument because he had facts to back him up I still think that LaWanda Cox had a better argument to read. Because she didn't have facts it was interesting to see how she thinks things should have been so it kept you hooked more then just reading things that we know happened.
~The reconstruction was a "Splendid Failure" because even though it didn't turn out how we hoped it would, during the times that things were going smooth it was splendid. The country was back together and blacks had their rights and then things went downhill.