Lecture 3 Notes

Historical Interpretations of Reconstruction

"Without reference to the question of equality, I say we are not of the same race; we are so different that we ought not to compose one political community." - Sen. Thomas Hendricks, Indiana

1. William A. Dunning School
   1. Dunning was professor of history at Princeton in the early 20th c.
   2. Summary of the Dunning School (also called Progressive School)
      • When the Civil War ended, the white South accepted the reality of military defeat.
      • White southerners stood ready to do justice to the emancipated slaves.
      • They desired above all a quick reintegration into the fabric of national life.
      • Abe Lincoln had embarked on a course of sectional reconciliation, and during Presidential Reconstruction (1865-1867) his successor, Andrew Johnson, attempted to carry out Lincoln's generous policies.
      • Johnson's policies were eventually thwarted by the Radical Republicans in Congress.
      • Radical Republicans were motivated by an irrational hatred of southern rebels and the desire to consolidate their party's national ascendancy.
      • The Radicals in 1867 swept aside the state governments Johnson had established and foisted black suffrage on the defeated South.
      • There followed the sordid period of Congressional or Radical Reconstruction (1867-1877), an era of corruption presided over by unscrupulous "carpetbaggers" from the North, unprincipled southern white "scalawags," and ignorant blacks unprepared for freedom and incapable of properly exercising the political rights that the North had thrust upon them.
      • After much needless suffering, the South's white community banded together to overthrow these governments and restore "home rule," or white supremacy.
   3. For many years, most historians promoted the Dunning School as the primary explanation of Reconstruction.  This coincided with the Progressive School, in which historians viewed political ideologies as little more than masks for crass economic ends.
   4. In the Dunning School, southerners "redeemed" the South from the dark period of Radical Reconstruction.  They were the victims and then the heroes.
   5. There were dissenters.  In particular, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote Black Reconstruction, which painted a different portrait.
      • Du Bois interpreted Reconstruction as an idealistic effort to construct a democratic, interracial political order from the ashes of slavery, as well as a phase in a prolonged struggle between capital and labor for control of the South's economic resources.
      • Du Bois indicted the historical profession for ignoring the evidence provided by African Americans.
   6. No one paid heed to Du Bois, and the Dunning School prevailed until the 1960s, partly because its underlying premise -- black incapacity -- helped justify segregation and disenfranchisement.

1. Revisionists (late 1950s-1970s)
   1. Revisionist historians blasted the Dunning School for its basis in and support of racism.
   2. Main points of Revisionists:
      • "Negro Rule" was a myth -- white southerners were still the majority in state legislatures and government offices.
      • Reconstruction brought the establishment of public school systems throughout the South.
      • The granting of equal citizenship to blacks was a positive accomplishment.
      • Economic upheaval was to be expected in a post-war society.
      • Reconstruction governments revitalized the southern economy and managed the transition to wage labor.

1. Post-Revisionists (late 1970s-1980s)
   1. Main points:
      • Racism persisted and flourished in Reconstruction.
      • No land redistribution prevented the freedmen from achieving true autonomy and made their civil and political rights tenuous at best.
      • The planter class survived and continued to rule through the exercise of plantation labor, control over the Democratic party, and power associated with property ownership.
      • The period was nonrevolutionary and conservative.

1. What do current historians say?
   1. Main points:
      • Black involvement in southern public and political life was revolutionary.
      • The transformation from a life as slaves to free labor was revolutionary.
      • The southern class system was changed -- laborers now had more political power.
      • Racism was prevalent, but for a brief moment whites did link their fortunes with blacks and see their common plight as laborers.  Race and class were linked.
      • The nation-state was vastly larger than it had been, with new authority and new power.
   2. Can you believe what historians say?  Yes, maybe.