Historiography of
Reconstruction
1890 to 1930: The Dunning School
Reconstruction was tragic because good men were thrust from power by
the
forces
of evil
2
Underlying assumptions were:
South
should have been restored quickly without vengeance
Responsibility for freemen should have been left to white
southerners (they couldn’t be integrated anyway because
they were inferior)
Good men
included: Democrats of north and South and Johnsonian
Republicans
who were willing to “forgive and forget”
Evil men
included: scalawags, carpetbaggers, and Radical Republicans
Radicals wanted to punish the south, destroy the power of the
aristocracy and desired to get blacks to the polls without any other
concern for them
Helpless, ignorant blacks were caught in the struggle between the good
and evil
Carpetbag
governments were incompetent, run by freed blacks that were
unprepared for the responsibility of self-government; they left a
legacy of debts
due to their corruption
Decent southern whites united in a desperate bud to force
carpetbaggers, scalawags, and blacks from state governments and
to restore “good
government”
Reconstruction was a failure because it destroyed the two-party system
in the south and left a legacy of hate and bitterness between the
races
Revisionists: influenced by progressive school
Reconstruction
was not so bad as Dunning writers suggested
accepted many Dunning School findings but from different starting
assumptions
Reconstruction
was not a morality play
White
southerners should NOT have been responsible for freedmen
Simkins
suggested: emphasize the achievements of Reconstruction
radical
program wasn’t really radical
radicals failed because they failed to provide a secure economic
base for the
freedmen
The
problems of the era were national in scope, not just in the south
Radical governments were NOT always dishonest, inefficient etc. they
did
achieve
many notable things such as:
new
constitutions (many of which survived)
social reforms such as public education, revised judicial
system operating under the assumption that all men are
created equal and
were entitled to rights
Postwar developments in the south were NOT due to black participation
in
government
Not all
freedmen were illiterate and inexperienced
Blacks
generally gained only lower positions in the state governments
Carpetbagger/scalawag
stereotype is inaccurate and too simplistic
Radical governments had a legitimate base of support in the south (it
wasn’t forced
on them by the republicans)
Debts were caused by the high price of rebuilding, the backlog of other
projects (which waited for the war’s end) and new social services
which needed to
be supplied to blacks
Restoration
governments were more corrupt than the radicals
Conservative Republicans were willing to exchange votes by blacks for
the promise of equal rights (most conservative southerners ended
up in the Democratic
party)
Northerners eventually grew tired of reconstruction and decided to allow
the south
to work out its own destiny
Democrats were the white man’s party in the south (politics was racially
divided)
End of reconstruction was caused by the triumph of industrial capitalism
and business
values because northern Republicans hoped to lure
conservative southerners back (they realized blacks hadn’t become
their power
base in the south)
Compromise of 1877 assured the dominance of whites, non-intervention
on race policy in exchange for sharing the blessings of
industrialization
The South
essentially became a satellite region to the north
Neo-Revisionists Early 1950’s:
emphasized
the moral factors of reconstruction
often few
differences with the revisionists
Republicans were Not united on a pro-business platform (included people
of various
backgrounds)
stressed race as the moral issue of reconstruction: central question
What role were
blacks going to play in post-war America?
Johnsonites
believed:
blacks
were unequal to whites
blacks
were incapable of self-government
allowed black codes and quick return of white controlled
governments
Radicals
were moralists and idealists who joined the party in the 1850’s
they
consistently demanded equal rights for blacks
presidential
ineptness led Johnson to be isolated
in the situation, they tried to transfer power from the planters to
the freedmen
Kenneth
Stampp:
where
did blacks fit in Reconstruction?
Johnson
was a racist who rejected the notion of equality for blacks
Radicals
seriously tried to achieve democracy, natural rights, and
equality
for blacks
many
radicals had been abolitionists in antebellum period
he
didn’t deny other radical motives (black vote in the south)
attempt to get blacks in the party wasn’t insidious but a desire to
have welfare
of the party become the welfare of the nation
Reconstruction failed because whites weren’t ready to accept
blacks as equals
The north
abandoned to the white southerners because:
desire
to return to harmony between the sections
desire
to promote industrial investment
cause
of blacks wasn’t worth further strife
The tragedy of reconstruction was that it stopped short of achieving
major radical
goals
14th and 15th amendments were radical achievements because they
allowed for
eventual claims of equality for blacks
White
southerners couldn’t be expected to suddenly end their racism
federal government failed to nurture democracy for blacks in the south,
once whites regained control of state governments, the chances for
change was
gone
New Left 1960’s:
pointless
to debate the harshness or softness of reconstruction
focus on
what strategies of planned social change might have ended the
tragedy
that followed the war
fundamental error in reconstruction was not giving land to blacks either
by a vigorous
homestead policy or confiscations of planter lands
Reconstruction
left issues unresolved which remained problems (the race
problem)
