Th

etorsuruction Era
Constructive
or Destructive?

..chadents
To of American
students of .

history, the Civil War years

ast to those of the stand
standiin
Reconstruction era. The war sharp
eriod of heroism and lealism; out of the years represented a
merged a new American nationality that travail of conflict there
nd state loyalties. Although the cost in replaced the older sectional
lives and
he divisions that had money was frightful,
plagued Americans for over half a
century were
eiminated in the ordeal of fire. Henceforth, America
mited country, destined to take its would stand as a
nations in the world.
rightful place one of the leading
as

The
Reconstruction era, on the other hand, conjures up a
erent quite dif-
picture. Just as the war years were dominated
by heroism, the
pOstwar period was characterized as being dominated
by evil, power-
ing scoundrels intent upon pursuing their narrow self-interest re-
ardless of the cost to either the South or the nation. The result was a
tragedy for all Americans-Northerners, Southerners, whites and blacks
like. Nothing short of a revolution, it seemed, could displace the forces
f evil*TOm power and restore the South and the nation to its rightful
from pov
rulers
etween 1890 and 1930 few historians would have disagreed with
nus contras most scholars during these
the
of two periods. If anything,
Vears 4St in harsher terms. Led by
Pro-
terized
essor Willia A. Reconstruction
e v e n
Dunning of Columbia University-who literally
his
that still bears
unded the SChool
sch of Reconstruction
historiography
following
ame
he Civilthe historical profession set
out to prove
that the years
because m e n
ot good
ivil War wer
were marked by tragedy and pathos
torces of evil. This
the
out of power
by revolutionary
omentarily thrust ot
d, in the "were years
Intho historian, Never have
armoil.. o r d s of
one

was
one of tragedy....
the destiny
of

Americanpublic
pu men Prevailing

nen in
note

responsible
positions,
directing
401
 402 Reconstruclon Era
. The Southern
The Souh
brutal, hypocritical, and corrupt.
.

the Nation, been so

torture."1
people literally put to the
were

the interpretation of the Dunning school were tu

Underlying
The first w a s that the ld hau
South should have im
portant assumptions. been
vengeance.
restored to Most
the Union
Southerners,
quickly itand
waswithout
argued,being
had accepted
exposed their
to Norte
nilitary
rthern
to pledge their good faith an
and w e r e prepared
defeat gracefully
the Union. Secondly, responsibility for the freedmen should ha
alty to
Southerners. Blacks, these historians beliet.
been entrusted to white jed
into American society on an equal plane- with
could never be integrated
slave status and interior racial characteric.
whites because of their former S-

tics.
of these two assumptions, historians
Working within the framework
to study Reconstruction in
in the Dunning school tradition proceeded
elements of good and evil. On one side
terms of a struggle between
and Southern Democrats and Re-
stood the forces of good-Northern
These men, recognizing the
publicans of the Andrew Johnson variety.
were willing to forget the
necessity for compassion and leniency,
South. On the opposing side were the
agonies of war and to forgive the above all, a group of radi-
forces of evil-scalawags, carpetbaggers, and
the South by de-
cal and vindictive Republicans intent upon punishing
and status, thereby ensur
priving the native aristocracy of their power
in that section. Caught in the
ing the dominance of the Republican party blacks,
middle of this struggle were the helpless, impotent, and ignorant
whose votes were sought for sinister purposes by Radical Republicans
once he
who had little or no real concern for the welfare of the freedman
had left the ballot box.
to the
The result of such a political alignment in the South, according
Dunning school, was disastrous. The Radical carpetbag state gov
ernments that came into power proved to be totally incompetern
part because they included illiterate blacks who were unprepared tor u

responsibilities of self government. Still worse, these governments we

extraordinarily expensive because they were corrupt. Most ot thett
aeed, left nothing but a legacy of huge debts. "Saddled with an irre
the
ponsible officialdom," one Dunning school historian conciuohun
South was now
plunged into debauchery, corruption, and Pvrans trans-

had been
dering unbelievable suggesting
formed into
that government
engine of destruction."2
an
ntinued,
The decent whites in the
South, the Dunning argument
united out of sheer rs, scalawags,

desperation to force the carpetbag8

Claude G. Bowers, The 1929), PP
V-vi. Tragic Era: The Revolution After Lincoln (Cambridge
2F. Merton Co 147), P:
H E .

DOwer. In one state 403

nd D ly
and
overthrown and after another
good Radical rule wa
of 1876 government restored.
ventual

res sidential campaign only three By the

was
trol. hen the dispute Over the
ahe states time of
cControo
remained under
ial
Hayes w i t h d r
the remaining tederal contested election was Rad-
l a s tRadical regimes fell from
troops from the resolved.
three
power. Thus the South, and the
struction
came to an end. tragic era of Recon-
early three decades after the turn of the
pounto fof view was ominant among most century the Dunning
hs on the history ot individual Americans historians.
onog but most of them simply filled in Southern states wereMan
m o n o g r a p .

pub-
d, pertinent
shed

picture virtually unchanged. All of these

details and left the
ger
differences, agreed that the Reconstruction studies, despite their
at and dismal tailure. Not only had period had been
anabject
Reconstruction
in the South; it had left behind destroved the
WO-party system
mess and hatred between the races. enduring legacy of
an

The first selection by Albert B. Moore is a good example of a historian

i n c about Reconstruction within the
Dunning tradition. The events
ween 1865 and 1877, Moore argues, had the effect of converting the
Suth into a colonial appendage of the North. To put it another way, the
ieonstruction period was simply one phase of the process whereby the
North attempted to remake the South in its own image; it was an at-
Empt by a victor to punish the vanquished. Rejecting completely the
serion that the North was lenient, Moore emphasizes property con-
sations, mental torture, and vindictive military rule. The political en-
nenisement of blacks, which laid the basis for Carpetbag government,
of an incredible era. The
TOMoore perhaps the most incredible event economic, political,
ut was the continued exacerbation of Southern still
nd social problems. The South, he concludes, was paying for the
egacy of Reconstruction in the twentieth century. at the events
In the late to look
e however, historians began
1920's, These
perspective.
etween 1865 and 1877 from a new and different
of the Dun- followers
"evision ists--a term that distinguishes them from
was as bad
as
seh
ng that
Reconstruction

ad
been schoolwere much less certain
I n f l u e n c e d by
the Progressive
school of
economicfac

merierican commonly
ican historiograf
supposed.
hist1Ography-which
emphasized
underlying
began to restudy
the

inin revisionists
challenge
historical
development-
development-the a sharp
Mire Reconstrtruction
Recoa
period. As a
result, theythey lt,
posed of the
pot framework

the school
the
interpretive

by changing of the
onstruction
ction era. most, if not all,
the two
seneral
gs of
ly speaking, ng,
the
r e v i s i o n i s t s

The
accepted
disagreement
between

assumptions
and

the
Dunning
ng
school.
different
starting
disputed
empiri-

therefore, ar from their

aher their view
over
erefora than not

cSnSed arose

Sequent interpretation
of data
rather

the
thaionists
r e v i s i o n i s t s
could
c

as such Dunningites,
 404 The Reconstruction Era
events between 1865 and
1877 in terms of a
morality play that
Reconstruction as a struggle between good and evil, white
and
depicte depicted
and Democrats and Radical Kepublicans. Nor were the revici black
ing to accept the view
that responsibility for the freedmen
shousle will
will-
been entrusted to native white Southerners. Given these diff ave
understandable that the revisionis es, it
was
school.
interpretation should differ
sharply from that of the Dunning
In 1939 Francis B. Simkins, a distinguished Southern historian whr
published with Robert Woody in 1932 one of the first revisionist studi
summed upsome of the findings of the revisionist school. Pointing ut
that the overwhelming majority of Southerners lived quietly and Dead
Ce
fully during these years, he emphasized many of the constructi
achievements of this era. Simkins, as a matter of fact, denied that the
Radical program was radical within the accepted meaning of the word
indeed, the Radicals failed because they did not provide freedmen with
a secure economic base. Past historians, he concluded, had givena
distorted picture of Reconstruction because they had assumed that
blacks were racially inferior. The result was a provindal approach to
Reconstruction that was based on ignorance and priggishness. Only by
abandoning their biases could historians contribute to a more accurate
understanding of the past, thereby making possible rational discussion
of one of the nation's most critical dilemmas.3
While the revisionists often disagreed as much among themselves as
they did with the Dunning school, there were common areas of agree-
ment that gave their writings a certain unity. Most revisionists viewed
the problems of American these
society during in a broader
years con-
text and concluded that they were national rather than sectional in
Scope. Corruption, to cite but one example, was not confined to tne
SOuth. It was a national
phenomenon in the postwar era and involvedn
all sections, lasses, and political parties alike. To single out the South
this regard was
patentlyunfair and ahistorical.
iliar
Revisionist historians attempted also to refute
many of the i the
of the
assertions Dunning school. In the first place,
Kadical governments in the South were
they
denied
etent,
that
always dishonest, incompet c
and inefficient. On the
contrary, theyclaimed, such en
tten govern
complished much of enduring value. The new constitutions der
older
during Reconstruction represented
ones and often
a vast
survived the overthrow of the men
improvement ov ritten
them. Radical wnocdal re
governments brought about many long-needed
school systems for botn lackslocal
an
forms, including
and

state-supported
whites, a revision of the in loca
in
judicial system, and improveme
ted-at least in
ents

administration. Above al1, these

governments operatea
 on the
premise that all men,
ivil liberties.white and black
theor

t o equal political and 40

cond, the revisionists
drew a alike,
alike
were enti-
Reconstruction. They denied sharply
S e c a

uring.
that different portrait of blacks
South
uth
resulted from black
illiterate, partiipation developments
in the in
post-war
edn
f r e e d m e n

naive, and government

pointed
out, did blacks
there were no black
control both Ininexperienced.
or
no
that the
houses of the Southern
Moreover,
Treme
court iustice.
justice. Only two governors
blacks
and
only one black state legislature
were elected
and fifteen to the House of to the su
su-
Senate
rted ththe charge that the United
dly supported Representatives.
Such
States
uu due to political activities of supposed excesses of statistics
hon w e
black
Indeed, the revisionists maintained thatAmericans.
Reconstru
anable
quitecapable of understanding where
their
blacks, as a
own group, were
regarding the legitimate interests of
ng the interests lay without
others. The
p tiapate at least as
intelligently
as other
freedmen were able
ical process. As Vernon L. Wharton groups in the American
isionist study of the Negro in concluded in his pioneering
tle difference... in the Mississippi after the Civil War, there
adis on boards of
administration of... counties
supervisors| and that of counties under [having
ntrol.. Altogether, as
governments that supplied
Democratic
nd white
go, by the Negro
Republicans in
Mississippi between 1870 and 1876 was not a
ad
government.... With their white
he state Republican colleagues, they gave
government of greatly expanded functions
a
at a cost that
lowin comparison with that of almost any other state."4
black Americans dominant
were not thein most Radical
emments, where did these governments group
get their support? In at-
angto answer this question, revisionists again endeavored to re
me
Dunning school contention that these governments were con-
Dyevil, power-hungry,
profit-seeking
gS wh0 used black votes to maintaincarpetbaggersin
and renegade
themselves power. The
ype of the
carpetbagger and scalawag, according to
ghly inaccurat and far too simplistic. Carpetbaggers, to take one
revisionists,
,
mugrated to the South for a variety of reasons-including the lure
ier
and
the legitimate economic opportunities as well as desire to
the a

ormer slaves
humanitarian
in The capacity. scalawags
n some

e equally
t

ern diverse group. Within their ranks one could find former
Esasandunionists
and Whigs, lower class whites who sought to use the
an party
Tarist wnb°lo of the
for confiscating the property indus-
as the vehicle for
con
taristocrats,
LatPPort
on. T ts, and businessmen attracted by the promise of
ion Radical
The a wide base of indige-
governments, then, had
pport in most Southern states.
ernor L.
Wharton 1965 1890 (Chapel Hill, 1947), pp. 172,
 406 The Reconstruction Era

Finally, the revisionists rejected

the charge that the Radical.
lical
extraordinarily expensive and corrupt, or that gov
ernments were
saddled the South with a large public debt. It was true they had
that state.

ditures went up sharply after

the war. This
situation was
due, xpen-
to understandable circumstances and not to inefficiency or theft. As however.
destruction of certain citioc in
most postwar periods, the partial
required an infusion of public funds. Deterring regular appropriatioras
during the war years also meant that a backlog of legitimate projects hae
accumulated. Most important of all, the South for the first fir adad
nad to
provide certain public facilities and sodal services for its black citizen
Southern states and communities had to build schools, and
other facilities and services for blacks which did not exist before the
vide
1860's and for which public funds had never been expended prior to
this
time. It is little wonder, then, that there was a rise in
spending in the
Reconstruction era.
In examining the financial structure of Southern
governments be-
tween 1865 and 1877, the revisionists also found that the rise
in state
debts, in some instances, was more apparent than real. Grants to rail-
road promoters, which in certain states accounted for a
of the increase in the debt, were secured large proportion
by mortgage on the railroad
a
property. Thus, the rise in the debt was backed by sound collateral. The
amount of the debt
chargeable to theft, the revisionists
negligible. Indeed, the restoration governments, which maintained,
was

by supposedly honest Southerners, proved to be far more dominated

were

those governments controlled by the Radicals. corrupt than

Although revisionists agreed that the Dunning
construction was interpretation of Re-
inadequate--if not misleading--they had considerable
difficulty themselves in synthesizing their
own findings. If there was
one idea on which
the revisionists were
forces, which were related united,
that economic it was their
convicion
to the growth of an urban
industrialized nation, somehow played a major role anu
Beneath the
political and racial antagonisms of this during per
thus
visionists argued, era, some
lay opposing economic rivalries. Anxious
advantage
as the
over their
to
competitors, many business interests B iticss
un an

vehide to further their economic usea poho

South, like the
The result North and West, ambitions-espeialy s the

economic rivalriesardently
was
was that courting
irting businessmen
busu al
struggles. were translated
re translated into
int pol
Po
esionists
struction many also emphasized the crucial issue of race.
former Whigs During Keof its
pro-business
were
joined
economic policies. the Republican party bec first,
willing to These well-to-do
promise blacks civil and
support at the polls. conservauvor
Within encroachments political:rights in return for their their
whites, fearful of possible the by
Democratic party,blacks reru
upon r, lower rclass
lass
howeve heir Soda
RECONSTRUCTI
ONSTRUCTION ERA

A07
1Taised the banner of rae.
onomic position, raised

affiliation with the Republican farty inTeasingly uncomn Conservatives

tattus tne they slowlv began to drift back into the Demoratic party
weTeunder
under the control of
conservatives
that bot both parties
aSIer for torformer
hlicans
Republicans to shift their
s

political allegiance One

made
alienment was that it lett Southern
blacks politically
allies among the whites. When the
1Tthout
and
olitical life in the South got started, blacks could find
hem t r o 7
r ong Southern whites. This political move came at a time
ortherners were
P r es u p p o r t
disillusioned by the failure of the Radicals to
were disil
of their idealistic aims for th freedmen. Tired of conflict
h e T em a n n
Northerners became reconciled to the idea of letting the
n : turmoil
out its own destinyeven if it meant sacrificing the black
t h woTk out

¬
rthern businessmen
N o r t h e r
wise became convinced that only
conservatives could restore order and stability and thus create
uthern
e n v i r o n m e n t
for investment.
rable
both a polarization of Southern politics along racial
result was
ines and the emergence of the Democratic party as
economic

than
her
man's party.
For whites of lower class background, the pri-
white
maintain the South as a white man's country. Upper
to
goal w a s political
hites were also contented with
the existing one-party
role in determining
they w e r e ermittedtheir
the dominant
ure because
ucTure because
section.
economic development of
future the revisionists, was closely
Reconstruction, according to
The end of industrial capitalism.
the triumph of business values and
ed to
election of 1876 resulted in an apparent
en the contested presidential
Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate, and
adiock between s o m e prominent Republi-
Democratic opponent,
mwel J. Tilden, his South upon a new
25 saw an opportunity to
rebuild their party in the
former slaves,
propertyless,
a5. Instead of basing their party upon
who had been forced into
well-to-do former Whigs To
oped to attract result of events during the Reconstruction.
EmOcratic party as a to
of powerful Republican leaders began
sh this goal, a group realignment. If Southern Demo
to bring about a political election and
euy the way of Hayes'
ongressmen would not stand in Republicans to organize
the

provide enough votes to permit the to promise

were
the
willing
these leaders also to name a
fdresentatives, railroads-and
thfederalSubsidies-primarily for
tnerner Postmaster General.
as
deal w a s
called, was not

political As C.
"Comprom
odPomise of 1877,"as this
arried out, but its larger implications survived
the thesis
unscathed.

n propounded
O0dward who restore

h a ward, the revi: revisionist "did not

historian

E Compromise with
with

political barga
Political h
gain,
c o n c l u d e d , the
restore
the South to parity
in the South, n o r did it
 408
dominant political autone.
whites

sections. It did assure the

other them aand
promised
in matters of race policy and
return the South hodre in
nonintervention

the blessings of the n e w

economic order. In South became, in
Solog as the Cons
effect, a satellite of the
dominant region.
scotched any tendency of the
Conservative
the South
Redeemers held control they to
internal enemies
new econ
of the
combine forces with the
laborites, Western agrarians, reformers. Under the regime of the R onomy-
bulwark instead of a menace to tho
deemers the South became a
order. "5
After the early 1950's, a new school of Keconstruction historino
neo-revisionists emerged. These historians emphasi
phy called the basis of Reconstruction. The dif
the moral rather than the economic
ferences between the revisionists and neo-revisionists were often mini
mal since the latter frequently relied upon the findings of the former to
reach their conclusions and it is difficult, if not impossible, to categorize
certain historians as belonging to one group or another. Generall
speaking, while the neo-revisionists accepted many findings of the re
visionists, they rejected the idea of interpreting Reconstruction in strictly
economic terms. The Republican party, the neo-revisionists maintained,
was not united on a pro-business economic program; it included indi-
viduals and groups holding quite different social and economic views.
In interpreting Reconstruction, the neo-revisionists stressed the criti-
cal factor of race as a moral issue. One of the unresolved dilemmas after
the Civil War, they claimed, was the exact role that blacks were to play in
American sodety. Within the Republican party, a number of factions
each offered their own solution to this question. Andrew Johnson, who
had been nominated as Lincoln's
running mate in 1864 on a Union party
ticket despite his Democratic
the party. To
party affiliations,
spoke for one segment
Johnson blacks were incapable of self-government. Con
Sequently, he favored the state governments in the South that
into the Union shortly after the end of the war under his own came oaor
plan
reconstruction and went along with the
Black Codes that deniea Da
Americans many of their civil
rights.
Although Johnson was President as well as titular head of the Repub-
ican party, there wasa
known as the "Radicals." great deal of opposition to his policies by a group
did they stand for? Who were the Radical Republicans what

To the an of
8roup of
indictive
politicians who Dunning school the Radicals were a grou
wer,
they were merely interestedwere utterly amoral in their quest power,

the in the black man for his vote. aionists

Kadicals Todustrial
represented, at
Northeast--men who wantedleast in part, the interests of
or
the dustrial
orma-
to use black votes to
C.
preven
Vann WoodO
sruction (Boston, ward, Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End ofRecn
, Keunion
1951), p. 246.
RCONSTRUC ONSTRUCTION ERA

lition of Vestern and

alism of the Souther
Northeasts5arian
i a lc a p i t a l i s m

To
the eo-revisionis
the other agrarian iinto
n
nterests against the
group. Many
of the hand, the
Radicals,
o m p l e x

blican party
in the 1850' s for Radicals
tsavery2ea
lrather than for economicCic and they daime were muchh
moral a

estiges of moti idealistic

eraaicatea l l

the slavery, were motives. stic reasinohe

These rease
be consistent in men, seekin
e
after
ana
that blacks
war
mericans, Their beliefs, of
course, given the same their dena
withPresident
Johnson inbrought
the themem to rights as whi
rig
face-tIn theo-face white
ation a
President,
e, the Presiden1
because of his postwar period.face-to-face
estd. Taking advantage of the politicalal ineptness, ensuing
co
con-
fisolated.

n the support of conservative ineptness,

situation, soon uing
the Radicalsfour und
ety by transferring political publicans and then set out to
ffirst
dmen. he program of the power from the
planter
remake
easure by idealism and a
Radicals, therefore, was class to
sincere motivated
Kenneth M. Stampp publishedhumanitarian
in
ih 1965 concern.
an
hasized the moral dimension of the important synthesis that
ad the traditional stereotype ot the Reconstruction years. Stampp
average Radical as
vated by vindicive considerations. He argued that the issues figure a
of the
H's were not artificial ones as the
Dunning school had claimed. The
ntral question of the postwar period was the
place of the freedmenin
nerican society. President Johnson and his followers believed in
the
mate racial
inferiority blacks;
of therefore they rejected any program
upon egalitarian assumptions. The Radicals, on the other hana,
nously the ideals of equality, natural rights, and democracy.
,most of these men had been closely assodated with the ante-
abolitionist crusade. Stampp did not deny that the Radicals had
as
Oves as well, for he admitted that they saw black Americans he in-
uable additions
tions to the Republican party.
But most politicians,
their party.
with the welfare of
,identify the welfare of the nation selfish motives, Stampp
ue that the Radicals had invidious and
results in a
distorted picture
ed, does them a severe injustice
and
the Reconstruction era.
failed in
ultimately
neo-revisionists,
unconscious

aicals,Maccording to theharboring conscious and unconse

and
objectives.
ectives. Most Amer cans, blacks as
equals. By the
for

1s antipathies,
the North
were not wilingt o accept
blacks to
abandon
the whiteSouth
relations
between

thtee reaso was Prepared

to
amicable
prewar
in the
South;
and
a wish to returnt to the i n v e s t m e n t

ections;a a desire to
promote inuaa
industrial

the
of the
tathers of
(New
one Reconstruction

This K.
Beale,
and
isO
Howard

nt of view was best expre

xpressed
by Andrew
Johnson

, 1930).school, n The C r i t
a r :
A Study of
 410
The Reconstruchon Era
a growing conviction that the cause of black Americans
worth further strife. The tragedy of Reconstruction, the rher
maintained, was not that it occurred, but that it had endd
achieving the major goal sought by the Radicals. of
TEVisiOnists
The struggle over Reconstruction, nevertheless, had
not been
not
vain. In addition to the many achievements of the Radical
the Radicals had succeeded in securing the governr
adoption of the Frlirko ents
and Fifteenth amendments. These amendments, in
"which could have been adopted only under the Stampp's wrde
conditions of radic
reconstruction, make the blunders of that era, tragic
dwindle into insignificance. For if it was worth four though of
thev wera
ere,
years civil war t
to
save the Union, it was worth a few
years of radical reconstruction to gia
the American Negro the ultimate
promise of equal civil and political
rights."7
In the second selection in this
chapter, Allen W. Trelease sums up the
neo-revisionist interpretation of Reconstruction. Given a
raism that by 1865 was deeply embedded in the minds commitment to
of a majority of
white Americans, Trelease that Southerners could hardly be ex
argues
pected to abandon their antipathies toward blacks after
Although blacks were simply seeking the same rightsemandipation.
whites, the latter were unable to accept the former as enjoyed by
race equals. Seeing the
question as crucial, Trelease insists that Radical Reconstruction
failed because the seed of biracial
democracy was planted on barren
ground in the South. Moreover, the federal government failed to nur-
ture the seeds of
democracy. Despite significant achievements in the
yearsfollowing the end of slavery, most Radical state governments were
quickly overthrown by a society committed to
The heroic inequality.
(though tragic) interpretation of Reconstruction offered by
Stampp and, to a lesser extent, by Trelease did not remain unchal
lenged. Given the internal strife
of economic, engendered by the continued existence
of a radical
political, and legal inequality, and the
seeming resurgene
critique of American institutions and
surprising that historians associated with society
was not in the 190WS
slowly begin to re-evaluate the events of the the "New Lett wo
tOOk postwar years in a way
sharp issue with scholars such as Stampp.
example, argued that it was
pointless
Staughton Lyna,
whether Northern
to debate endlessly tne
the Civil War. policy was too hard too soft
Historians should focus instead following tne the
or

rategies of
planned social change that discussion d
on a

ing the tragedies that followed. might have succeedea uiled

and that
American Conceding that Reconstructiotct
this society during the succeeding
failure, Lynd concluded
refl
"that the
century wo t
tion
policy was that it did not fundamental error in ke w
give the freedman land
"Kenneth M.
or i"
Stampp, The Era of
Reconstruction (New York, 1965), p. Z10
 RECONSTRUCTION ERA
T H ER E C O N
411
Whethe rby confiscation
by confisca of the property of leading rebels, by a vigorous
Wnorn homestead
Southerhomestead policy, or by some combination of the two, Con-
hould have given the ex-slaves the economic independence to
political
intimidation. "8
r were
were the
r e s i s t

Nor the "New Lett scholars alone in rejecting the revisionist or

visionist view of Reconstruction. Although not sufficiently in
neo-revis

neement
agre to constitute a specific school, some individual historians
reement to

specitic events during Reconstruction within a different

nto
beganto place
the presidential election of 1876, for
Deural setting. In his study of
ctural setting
conclusions that were at variance
s t l Kei
example, Keith I. Polakoff came to
by C. Vann Woodward nearly twenty-five vears
th those expressedassumed
with
that national political parties were cen-
Woodward
arlier. under the control of their.leaders. Polakoff,
on the

tralized organizations of more recent social and politi

intluenced by the work
was
ather hand, s a w decentralized authority,
Polakoff
Where Woodward
al historians. weakness; he insisted that American political parties at
saW
structural
decentral1zed:
were
this time central characteristic of both par-
factionalism practically the remained
was
between the various factions
Not only balance existing constitu-
little
ties, but the preciseand n o wonder: each faction
had its own
in the
diffuseness of power
remarkably stable; depend. The remarkable
which it could always a
reflection of the
ency
on
parties was merely nineteenth-

and
Democratic one thing
Republican electorate. If there was
In the process
American constituents.
the their
diversity of w a s to represent
The underfoot....

did well, it trampled o n e of

its
century parties government
action w e r e
w a s actually
of process sym-
rational programs the political more

of much of
were
involved
stakes football
irrelevance
Because the Army-Navy
resulting strength. of the
of outcome the dull
sources
the
much like
transcending
prindpal of demo-
substantial, served a s a way distinctive
bolic than with the
politicking
later,
like-minded

game a century means

of identifying
socializing
with

of everyday
life, a
States
while
United
une of the rein-
greatness
generalized
c a
more
unclear;
men. lead to yet
1877is
as
would well
approach 1865
and very
Whether lakoff's between h i s t o r i a n s
may
politics correct, Reconstruction.

pretation of nationa weakness

is his-
structural
of Reconstruction

if his emphasis
d i m e n s i o n s

on each
of which
political
a
have to re-examine the
the
various
schools
milieu
in
b e t w e e n
particular

The differences result

of the
article,
toriogra were p a r t l y a See also
Lynd's
1965), pp.
8.
1967), p. L July,
York, History,
Recoustruction
(New
R e c o n s t r u c t i o n

Journal of Negro
ed., End of ot
8Staughton Lynd,
L Reconstruction,"

1876
and
the C o m p r o m i s e

"Rethinking
Woodward,
and a
ry Election of "Was
There

Vann

198-209. Inertia:
The Peskin, and
C.

I. Polakoff, The
of S e e a l s o
Politics of Allan 63-75,

321-322.
June,
1973),
15-223.
of
Pp. History, LX
0 4 r n a l of American
rmal
Yes, There was a Compro
 412 The Reconstructio
Era
had grown to maturity. The Dunning point of view, for examplo
nated in the late nineteenth century and flowered in the carly oar
twentieth. During these years the vast majority of white Armene
assumed that blacks constituted an inferior race, one that was incanakl
of being fully assimilated into their society. Most Southerners had r
to this conclusion well before the Civil War; many Northerners areome
at the same conclusion after the debacle ot Reconstruction seerninsl
Ved
vindicated this belief. Racism in America was buttressed further by th
e
findings of the biological and social sciences in the late nineteenth rsen-
tury. Influenced by evolutionary concepts of Darwinism, Some scientist
argued that blacks had followed a unique evolutionary course which
resulted in the creation of an inferior race. Ihe raaal prejudices of many
Americans thus received what they believed to be scientific justification
Given these beliefs, it is not difficult to understand why the Dunning
school interpretation gained rapid acceptance. The attempt by the Radi
cals to give equal rights to a supposedly interior race did not appear to be
sensible; state governments that included black officials and held power
in part through black votes were bound to be inefficient, incompetent,
and corrupt. Moreover, the Southern claim that responsibility for black
people had to be entrusted to whites seemed entirely justifiable. The
findings of the Dunning school that Reconstruction was a tragic blunder
doomed to failure from its very beginning came as no surprise to early
twentieth-century Americans, most of whom were prepared to believe
the worst about black Americans.
The revisionist school, on the other hand, originated in a somewhat
different climate of opinion. By the 1920's American historiography had
come under the influence of the Progressive or ""New History' school.
This school, growing out of the dissatisfaction with the older scientific
school of historians that emphasized the collection of impartial empirical
data and eschewed "subjective" interpretations, borrowed heavily from
the new social sciences. The New History sought to explain historical
change by isolating underlying economic and social forces that trans-
formed institutions and social structures. In place of tradition and stabil
ity it emphasized change and conflict. Progressive and democratic in
their orientation, Progressive historians attempted to explain the pre
sent in terms ofthe dynamic and impersonal forces that had trans
formed American society.
The revisionists, then, rejected the moralistic tone of the Dunning
school. They sought instead to identify the historical forces responsio
for
many of the developments following the Civil War. Economic a
social factors, they maintained, were basic to this era. Ihe rea conflict
was not between North and South, white and black; it was berw
industrial capitalism and
agrarianism, with the former ultimately em
ing victorious. Thus, the question of the status of black in
can
people Ame
sodety was
simply a facade for the more basic contlicts iae
lay
 RECONSTRUCTION ER, ERA
413
ath tthe
hidden beneath he surface.
ce.
Reconstruction, they conduded, was the
in tthe
he emergence
emn
the United States
of

first
p h ats
ae
in

list nation. leading industrial

as a

italistonist school, although owing much to the

Was
e neohy the egalitarian emphasis
inmtluenced
revisionists,
of the 1940's and
the Second Worldld War. Indicative of the period
the publicationiin 1944 of the changing attitudes to-
tiollowing t h e

blacks was
monumental
Nard

GunnarM ydal
and his ciates, An American Dilemma: The study by
Modern DemoCracy. yrdal, a distinguished Swedish Negro Prob
sociologist,
missioned by the Carnegie Foundation in
c o m m i
the late 1930'sto
Was
rtake emphasizing
Although a comprehensiv
u n d e r t a .
that astudy of black
variety peoplefactors
of complex in
n the United
thewere
U States.
responsi-
Altho

forthe depressed condition of American blacks, Myrdal argued that

ble
was asically a moral one. Americans, he wrote, held a
bas
the problem
politicalcree that stressed the equality of all men. This ideal, however,

was
constatantly confronted with the inescapable reality that in the United
States white citizens rerused to accept blacks as their equals. Thus many
in a dilemma between theory and practice, caus-
Americans were caught
ing them to
suffer an internal moral conflict. Myrdal's work antidpated,
movement of the 1950's.
part, the thinking between l865rights
behind the ivil
and 1877, neo-revisionist histo-
In evaluating events
schools. The issue of equal
nans began to shift the focus of previous
maintained, was not a false one even
ights for blacks, neo-revisionists a real
economic and other factors. In
though it was complicated by Reconstruction was whether
or not
SEnse, the fundamental problem of
freedmen as equal
Whtte Americans were prepared
to accept the
their
Radicals ultimately failed in achieving
Partners. Even though the the
in the form ot four
left an enduring legacy black
a n goals, they amendments. These amendments and
gave
enth and Fifteenth under the laws,
protection
people citizenship promised them equal
these promises
America did not honor
detracted from
trom the
ave them the right to vote. That. detracted tne
in in way no
the decades after Indeed, theimpor
Reconstruction

amendments.

Idealism of those responsible for these as they

gave legal
meaning new
ance of these mendments took on a War.
Second World
anction t
R e c o n s t r u c t i o n

NCtion to civil the hand, saw

rights after the other arisng

rians of the "New Left,"

on the problems
faced and dis-
sfailuro had not
disillusionment
a
failure because.Americans their
own
C o n d e m n e d t h e post-Civil

Out of the pas

end of slavery. Reflecting they condemnedtne thereby
give

atisfaction with Contemporary

ration for its failure to

America,

restructure

an
equitable
society
and

share
of
another
A m e

unhappy
r i c a ' s

Dacks (and other ps

as well) but
present
merely

poo'
r e p r e s e n t e d

the in
ith.Reconstruction, bo argut ued, as groups
well
ruling

hapter of Amerie h i s t o r y ;
the past
and
asion
as
c o r r u p t i o n
of

Ve
the r despread hypocrisy
 414 The Reconstruction Era
Although it is possible to demonstrate that particular interpretatic.
grew out of and reflected their own milieu, historians must still farctions
larger and more important problem of determining the accuracyDunning
or inar
curacy of each interpretation. 10 Was Reconstruction, as the Dunn inac-
school argues, a tragedy for all Americans? Were the revisionists correr
in stressing the achievements as well as the partial failures of this pericd
and emphasizing the fundamental economic factors? Were Were the the
neo-revisionists justified in insisting that the major issue during Recon
struction was indeed a moral one? Or were "New Left" historians cor-
rect in their assessment of the general tailure of Reconstruction and
American society? Did the particular structural form of state and na-
tional politics precude effective governmental action in dealing with the
problems growing out of emancipation?
To answer these questions, historians must deal also with a number
of subsidiary issues. Should the North have forgotten that it had taken
four years of bloody and expensive conflict to keep America united and
welcomed the South back into the Union in 1865 with open arms? Or
was it proper for Northern Republicans to lay down certain conditions to
ensure that slavery, legal or implied, would never again exist within the
United States? What should have been the proper policy for both the
federal and state governments to follow with regard to black Americans,
and how were the voices of blacks to be heard during policy formation
and implementation? Were Southerners justified in their belief that
blacks were incapable of caring for themselves and that their
future
should be left in the hands of white men? Or were the Radicals correct in
insisting that blacks had to be given the same legal and political rights
that all Americans
enjoyed?
The answers to some of these
questions will, in large measure, de
termine the broader interpretive framework of the Reconstruction era.
Although that period is a century away from our own, some or une
basic conflicts common to both remain unresolved and are as pressing as
ever. Time and
circumstance may have changed; new leaders may have
emerged; yet the fundamental dilemma of what role black people shoula
play in American civilization remains a controversial and crucial one:

10For a discussion and an imnlii