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Reconstruction

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Reconstruction was a period in United States history, 1863–1877, that resolved the issues of the American Civil War when both the Confederacy and its system of slavery were destroyed. The period of Reconstruction addressed the return of the southern states that had seceded, the status of ex-Confederate leaders, but failed to make permanent the attempt to integrate the African-American Freedmen into the legal, political, economic and social system. Violent controversy arose over how to accomplish those tasks. Reconstruction began as soon as the Union armies conquered significant stretches of Confederate territory in 1862.<ref>Rose (1967); Foner (1988) begins with 1863.</ref>

Republican leaders agreed that slavery and the Slave Power had to be permanently destroyed, and all forms of Confederate nationalism had to be suppressed. Moderates said this could be easily accomplished as soon as Confederate armies surrendered and the southern states repealed secession and ratified the 13th Amendment — all of which happened by September 1865.

President Abraham Lincoln was the leader of the moderate Republicans and wanted to speed up Reconstruction and reunite the nation as soon as possible. Lincoln formally began Reconstruction in late 1863 with his Ten percent plan, which went into operation in several states but which Radicals opposed. Lincoln vetoed the Radical plan, the Wade-Davis Act of 1864. The opposing faction of Radical Republicans were much more skeptical of southern intentions and demanded far more stringent federal action. Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner led the Radical Republicans. After Lincoln's assassination, President Andrew Johnson switched from the Radical to the moderate camp. He too favored voting rights for veterans of the United States Colored Troops. By 1866, however, Johnson, with no party affiliation, broke with the moderate Republicans and aligned himself more with the Democrats who opposed equality and the Fourteenth Amendment. Radicals attacked the policies of Johnson, especially his veto of the Civil Rights Bill for the Freedmen.

The election of 1866 decisively changed the balance of power, giving the Radicals control of Congress and enough votes to overcome Johnson's vetoes and even to try to impeach him. Johnson was acquitted by one vote, but remained almost powerless regarding Reconstruction policy. Radicals used the Army to take over the South and give the vote to black men, and took the vote away from an estimated 10,000 or 15,000 white men who had been Confederate officials or senior officers. The Radical stage lasted for varying lengths in the different states, where a Republican coalition of Freedmen, Scalawags and Carpetbaggers took control and promoted modernization through railroads and public schools. They were charged with corruption by their opponents, the conservative–Democratic coalition, calling themselves "Redeemers" after 1870. Violence sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan was overcome by federal intervention.

By 1877, however, Redeemers regained control of every state, and President Rutherford Hayes withdrew federal troops, causing the collapse of the remaining three Republican state governments. The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were permanent legacies. Bitterness from the heated partisanship of the era lasted well into the 20th century.

[edit] Loyalty Issue

The loyalty issue emerged in the debates over the Wade-Davis Act of 1864, which Lincoln vetoed. Wade-Davis required voters to take the "Ironclad Oath," swearing that in the past they never had supported the Confederacy or been one of its soldiers. Lincoln ignored the past and asked voters to swear that in the future they would support the Union. The Radicals lost support following Lincoln's pocket veto, but they regained strength in the mood of vengeance that followed Lincoln's assassination in April of 1865.

[edit] Suffrage issue

Suffrage for ex-Confederates was one of two main issues. First, both sides tried to keep the other from voting. It was a question of allowing some or all ex-Confederates to vote. The moderates wanted virtually all of them to vote, but the Radicals repeatedly tried to impose the Ironclad oath, which would allow none to vote. Thaddeus Stevens proposed, unsuccessfully, that all ex-Confederates lose the vote for five years. The compromise that was reached was vague; no one knew how many Confederate leaders temporarily lost the vote; one estimate was 10,000 to 15,000.<ref>Foner 1988 pp 273-6</ref>

Second was the issue of whether blacks should vote. Northern states that had referenda on the subject rejected allowing their own small number of blacks to vote, but that was not the issue. More germane was the issue of creating a loyally pro-American electorate in the South. Radicals said that the ex-Confederates could not be trusted. Conservatives (including most white Southerners, Northern Democrats, and some Northern Republicans) opposed black voting. Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson took a middle position, that would allow some black men to vote, especially army veterans. Lincoln proposed giving the vote to "the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks",<ref>Gienapp, p. 155</ref> while, in 1864, Governor Johnson said, "The better class of them will go to work and sustain themselves, and that class ought to be allowed to vote, on the ground that a loyal negro is more worthy than a disloyal white man".<ref>Patton p126</ref> As President in 1865, Johnson wrote to the man he appointed as governor of Mississippi, recommending, "If you could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who can read the Constitution in English and write their names, and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars, and pay taxes thereon, you would completely disarm the adversary [Radicals in Congress], and set an example the other states will follow."<ref>Johnson to Gov. William L. Sharkey, August 1865 quoted in Franklin (1961), p. 42</ref>

Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, leader of the Radical Republicans, was initially hesitant to enfranchise the largely illiterate ex-slave population. However, Sumner finally decided it was necessary for blacks to vote for three reasons:<ref>Randall and Donald p. 581</ref>

  1. for their own protection;
  2. for the protection of white Unionists (i.e. "scalawags");
  3. for the peace of the country.

The Radicals said the only way to get experience was to get the vote first, and they passed laws allowing all male freedmen to vote. In 1867, black men voted for the first time and, over the course of Reconstruction, more than 1,500 African Americans held public office in the South. (The question of women's suffrage was also debated, but was rejected.)

The South's postwar white leaders renounced secession and slavery, but they were angered in 1867 when their state governments were ousted by federal military forces, and replaced by Republican lawmakers elected by blacks, Scalawags and Carpetbaggers.

[edit] Wartime proposals and legislation

[edit] Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction

Planning for Reconstruction began in 1861, at the onset of the war. The Radical Republicans, seeking strict policies, used as their base the Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction.

Even before the war ended, Lincoln himself began the task of restoration. Motivated by a desire to build a strong Republican party in the South and to end the bitterness engendered by war, he issued on December 8, 1863, a proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction for those areas of the Confederacy occupied by Union armies. It offered pardon, with certain exceptions, to any Confederate who would swear to support the Constitution and the Union. Once a group in any conquered state equal in number to one tenth of that state's total vote in the presidential election of 1860 took the prescribed oath and organized a government that abolished slavery, he would grant that government executive recognition. This was the ten percent plan.

Thus, Lincoln pursued a lenient plan for reconstruction, especially in Virginia, West Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Arkansas. However he was unable to get Congress to support his plans, leaving the situation unsettled at the time of his death. <ref>Harris 1997</ref>

Lincoln's 1863 plan aroused the sharp opposition of the radicals in Congress, who believed it would simply restore to power the old planter aristocracy. They passed (July, 1864) the Wade-Davis Bill, which required 50% of a state's male voters to take an “ironclad” oath that they had never voluntarily supported the Confederacy. Lincoln's pocket veto kept the Wade-Davis Bill from becoming law, and he implemented his own plan. By the end of the war it had been tried, not too successfully, in Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Virginia. Congress, however, refused to seat the Senators and Representatives elected from those states, and by the time of Lincoln's assassination the President and Congress were at a stalemate.

Observers at the time of the Wade-Davis bill--and historians since--agree that probably no state would have qualified, leaving them under military control indefinitely. By vetoing the bill (which had been passed by Congress on July 2, 1864), Lincoln blocked the Radicals from a dominant role in government. (They rose to power again in 1866.) Historian William Gienapp explains Lincoln's veto:<ref>Gienapp p167</ref>

Lincoln, in contrast, shrank from inaugurating a fundamental upheaval in southern society and mores, and by stressing future over past loyalty, he was willing to allow recanting Rebels to dominate the new southern governments. Moreover, Lincoln believed that the best strategy was to introduce black suffrage in the South by degrees in order to accustom southern whites to blacks voting. How far he was willing to go in extending rights to former slaves remained unclear, but his gradualist approach to social change remained intact, just as when he had tried to get the border states in 1862 to adopt gradual emancipation. Finally, the radicals and Lincoln held quite different views of the relationship of Reconstruction to the war effort. By erecting impossibly high standards that no southern state could meet, the Wade–Davis bill sought to postpone Reconstruction until the war was over. For Lincoln, in contrast, a lenient program of Reconstruction would encourage southern whites to abandon the Confederacy and thus was integral to his strategy for winning the war.

On April 11, 1865, Lincoln delivered his last public address, in which he continued to uphold a generous and lenient reconstruction policy.

Lincoln thus wanted to bring the Southern states back into good standing as soon as possible and with a minimum of vengeance. Insisting, as well, that there be new rights for the Freedmen, he created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, known as the Freedmen's Bureau. In one experiment in the Sea Islands of South Carolina, Freedmen were allowed to farm plantations seized by the Army; they never received ownership.<ref>Rose 1967</ref>

[edit] Johnson's presidential reconstruction: 1865–66

Northern anger over the assassination of Lincoln and the immense human cost of the war led to demands for harsh policies. Vice President Andrew Johnson had taken a hard line, and spoke of hanging rebel Confederates; but when he succeeded Lincoln as President, Johnson took a much softer line, pardoning many Confederate leaders and allowing ex-Confederates to maintain their control of Southern state governments, Southern lands, and black people.<ref>Trefousse 1989</ref> Jefferson Davis was held in prison for two years, but not the other Confederate leaders; there were no treason trials. Only one person — Captain Henry Wirz, the commandant of the prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia — was executed for war crimes.

[edit] Black Codes

see main article: Black codes

The Johnson governments quickly enacted the restrictive "black codes". They gave freedmen more rights than free blacks had before the war, but still only a limited set of second-class civil rights, and no voting rights. Southern plantation owners feared extensive black vagrancy would mean loss of the essential labor force. Many Southern whites feared equality with Southern blacks. Two states had full fledged Black Codes, Mississippi and South Carolina. Among other provisions, they stringently limited blacks' ability to control their own employment. <ref>Oberholtzer 1:128–9</ref>

The Black codes outraged northern opinion and were limited in effect during the brief period that the Freedman's Bureau was active during Reconstruction. <ref> Donald (2001) p. 527</ref> Although the Civil Rights Act of 1866 became law over President Andrew Johnson's veto, federal solutions against discrimination were not provided for, and remedies were left to individuals. Because those being discriminated against had limited access to legal help, this left many victims of discrimination without recourse, especially in the matter of controlling their own employment.

[edit] Moderate responses

In response to the Black codes and worrisome signs of Southern recalcitrance, the Radical Republicans blocked the readmission of the ex-rebellious states to the Congress in fall 1865. Congress also renewed the Freedman's Bureau, but Johnson vetoed it. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, leader of the moderate Republicans, took affront at the black codes. He proposed the first Civil Rights Law because, he explained:<ref>Rhodes, History 6:65-66</ref>

Of what avail, he asked, is the Thirteenth Amendment "if in the late slaveholding States laws are to be enacted and enforced depriving persons of African descent of privileges which are essential to freemen?" The legislatures of the Southern States have by law discriminated against the negroes....Although they do not make a man an absolute slave they yet deprive him of the rights of a freeman.... A law that does not allow a colored person to go from one county to another, and one that does not allow him to hold property, to teach, to preach, are certainly laws in violation of the rights of a freeman....The purpose of this bill is to destroy all these discriminations."

The key to the bill was the opening section:

"All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign Power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the Contrary notwithstanding."

Congress quickly passed the Civil Rights bill; the Senate on February 2 voted 33–12; the House on March 13 voted 111–38.

[edit] Johnson vetoes; Democrats regroup

Although strongly urged by moderates in Congress to sign the Civil Rights bill, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March 27. His veto message objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the Freedmen at a time when eleven out of thirty-six States were unrepresented and attempted to fix by Federal law "a perfect equality of the white and black races in every State of the Union." Johnson said it was an invasion by Federal authority of the rights of the States; it had no warrant in the Constitution and was contrary to all precedents. It was a "stride toward centralization and the concentration of all legislative power in the national government."<ref>Rhodes, History 6:68</ref>

Image:Free-bur.jpg

The Democratic party, proclaiming itself the party of white men, north and south, supported Johnson.<ref>Trefousse 1989</ref> However the Republicans in Congress overrode his veto (the Senate by the close vote of 33:15, the House by 122:41) and the Civil Rights bill became law. The last moderate proposal was the Fourteenth Amendment, also authored by moderate Trumbull. It was designed to put the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution, but it went much further. It extended citizenship to everyone born in the United States (except visitors and Indians on reservations), penalized states that did not give the vote to Freedmen, and most importantly, created new federal civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. It guaranteed the Federal war debt (and promised the Confederate debt would never be paid). Johnson used his influence to block the amendment in the states, as three-fourths of the states were required for ratification. (The Amendment was later ratified.) The moderate effort to compromise with Johnson had failed and an all-out political war broke out between the Republicans (both Radical and moderate) on one side, and, on the other, Johnson and his allies in the Democratic party in the North, and the conservative groupings (which used different names) in each southern state.

[edit] Radical Reconstruction: 1866–77

[edit] Radicals win 1866 election

The Congressional elections of 1866 were fought over the issue of Reconstruction. The Southern states were not allowed to vote, having not yet been re-admitted to the Union; the result was solid Republican gains in Congress.<ref>Foner 261-71</ref> The Radicals under Stevens and Sumner, for the first time, took full control of Congress and passed the first Reconstruction Act in March 1867.

[edit] Constitutional Amendments

Three new Constitutional Amendments were adopted. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and was ratified in 1865. The 14th Amendment was rejected in 1866 but ratified in 1868, guaranteeing citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and granting them federal civil rights. The 15th Amendment passed in 1870, decreeing that the right to vote could not be denied because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude (it did not grant the right to vote, as electoral policies are defined by the states).

[edit] Re-admission to the union

[edit] Military reconstruction

The first Reconstruction Act placed ten Confederate states under military control, grouping them into five military districts:<ref>Foner 1988 ch 6</ref>

Tennessee, which had been readmitted to full status on July 24, 1866, was not made part of a military district, and federal controls did not apply.

The ten Southern state governments were re-constituted under the direct control of the US Army. There was little or no fighting, but rather a state of martial law in which the military closely supervised local government, supervised elections, and protected office holders from violence.<ref>Foner 1988, ch 6–7</ref> Blacks, for the first time in history, and whites were enrolled as voters; former Confederate leaders were excluded.[Foner 1988 p 274–5] No one state was representative. Here is what happened in Texas:<ref> Randolph Campbell, Gone to Texas 2003 p. 276.</ref>

The first critical step … was the registration of voters according to guidelines established by Congress and interpreted by Generals Sheridan and Griffin. The Reconstruction Acts called for registering all adult males, white and black, except those who had ever sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and then engaged in rebellion.… Sheridan interpreted these restrictions stringently, barring from registration not only all pre-1861 officials of state and local governments who had supported the Confederacy but also all city officeholders and even minor functionaries such as sextons of cemeteries. In May Griffin … appointed a three-man board of registrars for each county, making his choices on the advice of known Unionists and local Freedman's Bureau agents. In every county where practicable a freedman served as one of the three registrars.… Final registration amounted to approximately 59,633 whites and 49,479 blacks. It is impossible to say how many whites were rejected or refused to register (estimates vary from 7,500 to 12,000), but blacks, who constituted only about 30 percent of the state's population, were significantly overrepresented at 45 percent of all voters. </blockquote>

Elections, in 1867, returned a Republican victory in every state (except Virginia, where Conservative Democrats won). These governments then agreed to the Congressional conditions for readmission to the Union, including ratification of the Constitutional Amendments. With most ex-Confederates ineligible because they could not take the Ironclad oath, the majority of delegates in every state but South Carolina were African Americans. [This is self-evidently incorrect, as the previous paragraph shows. The following table gives a delegate breakdown by party (Republican vs. Democratic, not Black vs. White).]

Race of delegates to 1867 state conventions Black White % Black
Virginia 80 25 76%
North Carolina 107 13 89%
South Carolina 48 76 39%
Georgia 133 33 80%
Florida 28 18 61%
Alabama 92 16 85%
Mississippi 68 17 80%
Texas 81 9 90%
Louisiana "great majority"

Source: Rhodes (1920) v 6 p. 199

All Southern states were readmitted to the Union by the end of 1870, the last being Georgia, gaining re-admission on July 15, 1870. All but 500 top Confederate leaders were pardoned when President Ulysses Grant signed the Amnesty Act of 1872.

[edit] Black Reconstruction

Image:B-vote.JPG One by one, the Southern states held new elections in which Freedmen voted. In most cases, the result was a Republican state government; the state was readmitted, the Congressional delegation was seated, and most soldiers were removed. Most Republicans were organized into clubs called Union Leagues. The Republican coalition in each state comprised Freedmen (the largest group) and local white Republicans (called "scalawags"), the second largest group. In addition, two groups of northerners were important, African Americans and whites (called "carpetbaggers"). The black politicians were not unlettered slaves, but free blacks, especially from the North — "mostly freeborn urban mulattoes."<ref>Foner 1988 p 285-6</ref> Image:Revels1870.jpg

The old political élite of the Democratic Party, mostly former Confederates, were (temporarily) frozen out of power.

[edit] Black Officeholders

Republicans took control of all Southern state governorships and state legislatures, leading to the election of numerous African-Americans to state and national office, as well as to the installation of African-Americans into other positions of power. About 137 black officeholders lived outside the South before the Civil War.<ref>Foner 1988 ch 7; Foner, Freedom's Lawmakers, introduction. </ref>

[edit] Public schools

As modernizers the Republicans believed that education was a long-term solution to the economic poverty and ignorance of the South. They created a system of public schools, which were segregated by race everywhere except New Orleans. Most blacks approved the segregated schools because they provided jobs for black teachers. In general elementary and a few secondary schools were built in the cities. But the South had few cities and in the rural areas the public school was a one-room affair that attracted about half the younger children. The teachers were poorly paid and their pay was often in arrears.<ref>Foner 365–8</ref> Conservatives contended the rural schools were too expensive and unnecessary for a region where the vast majority of people were cotton or tobacco farmers. One historian found that the schools were not very effective, because of "poverty, the inability of the states to collect taxes, and inefficiency and corruption in many places prevented successful operation of the schools."<ref>Franklin 139</ref>

Image:~KKK.JPG

Numerous private academies and colleges for Freedmen were established by northern missionaries. Every state created state colleges for Freedmen, such as Alcorn State University in Mississippi; in 1890 the black state colleges started receiving federal funds as land grant schools.<ref>McAfee 1998</ref> They received state funds after Reconstruction ended because, as Lynch explains, "there are very many liberal, fair-minded and influential Democrats in the State who are strongly in favor of having the State provide for the liberal education of both races."<ref>Lynch 1913</ref>

[edit] Railroad subsidies and payoffs

Every Southern state subsidized railroads, which modernizers felt could haul the South out of isolation and poverty. Millions of dollars in bonds and subsidies were fraudulently pocketed. One ring in North Carolina spent $200,000 in bribing the legislature and obtained millions in state money for its railroads. Instead of building new track, however, it used the funds to speculate in bonds, reward friends with extravagant fees, and enjoy lavish trips to Europe.<ref>Foner 387</ref> Taxes were quadrupled across the South to pay off the railroad bonds and the school costs, leading to intense complaints among taxpayers.<ref>Franklin p141-48; Summers 1984</ref> Nevertheless thousands of miles of lines were built as the Southern system expanded from 11,000 miles in 1870 to 29,000 in 1890. The lines were owned and directed overwhelmingly by Northerners. Railroads helped create a mechanically skilled group of craftsmen, and indeed broke the isolation of much of the region. Passengers were few, however, and apart from hauling the cotton crop when it was harvested, there was little freight traffic.<ref>Stover 1955</ref> As Franklin explains, "numerous railroads fed at the public trough by bribing legislators...and through the use and misuse of state funds." The effect, according to one businessman, "was to drive capital from the State, paralyze industry, and demoralize labor."<ref>Franklin p147–8</ref>

[edit] Taxpayer revolt

The new spending on schools and especially on railroad subsidies, combined with fraudulent spending and a collapse in state credit because of huge deficits, forced the states to dramatically increase tax rates — up to ten times higher — despite the poverty of the region. Angry taxpayers revolted, as the conservatives shifted their focus away from race to taxes.<ref>Foner 415–16</ref> Former Congressman John Lynch, a black Republican leader from Mississippi, concluded, "The argument made by the taxpayers, however, was plausible and it may be conceded that, upon the whole, they were about right; for no doubt it would have been much easier upon the taxpayers to have increased at that time the interest-bearing debt of the State than to have increased the tax rate. The latter course, however, had been adopted and could not then be changed."<ref>Lynch 1913</ref>

[edit] Views of the Conservatives in the South

The white Southerners who lost power reformed themselves into "Conservative" parties that battled the Republicans throughout the South. The party names varied, but, by the late 1870s, they simply called themselves "Democrats." Historian Walter Lynwood Fleming describes mounting anger of southern whites: "The Negro troops, even at their best, were everywhere considered offensive by the native whites.... The Negro soldier, impudent by reason of his new freedom, his new uniform, and his new gun, was more than Southern temper could tranquilly bear, and race conflicts were frequent." <ref> Fleming online at [3]</ref>

Ellis Oberholtzer (a northern scholar) in 1917 explained:<ref>Oberholtzer, vol 1 p 485</ref>

Outrages upon the ex-slaves in the South there were in plenty. Their sufferings were many. But white men, too, were victims of lawless violence, and in all portions of the North as well as in the late "rebel" states. Not a political campaign passed without the exchange of bullets, the breaking of skulls with sticks and stones, the firing of rival club-houses. Republican clubs marched the streets of Philadelphia, amid revolver shots and brickbats, to save the negroes from the "rebel" savages in Alabama.... The project to make voters out of black men was not so much for their social elevation as for the further punishment of the Southern white people —for the capture of offices for Radical scamps and the entrenchment of the Radical party in power for a long time to come in the South and in the country at large."

Reaction by conservatives included the formation of violent secret societies, especially the Ku Klux Klan. Violence occurred in cities and in the countryside between white former Confederates, Republicans, African-Americans, representatives of the federal government, and Republican-organized armed Loyal Leagues.

[edit] Redemption and the end of Reconstruction in 1870s

[edit] Republicans split nationally: election of 1872

As early as 1868 Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, a leading Radical during the war, concluded that:

"Congress was right in not limiting, by its reconstruction acts, the right of suffrage to whites; but wrong in the exclusion from suffrage of certain classes of citizens and all unable to take its prescribed retrospective oath, and wrong also in the establishment of despotic military governments for the States and in authorizing military commissions for the trial of civilians in time of peace. There should have been as little military government as possible; no military commissions; no classes excluded from suffrage; and no oath except one of faithful obedience and support to the Constitution and laws, and of sincere attachment to the constitutional Government of the United States."<ref>J. W. Schuckers, The Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase, (1874). p. 585; letter of May 30, 1868 to August Belmont </ref>

By 1872, President Grant had alienated large numbers of leading Republicans, including many Radicals by the wanton corruption of his administration and his use of federal soldiers to prop up Radical state regimes in the South. The opponents, called "Liberal Republicans", included founders of the party who expressed dismay that the party had succumbed to corruption. Leaders included editors of some of the nation's most powerful newspapers. Charles Sumner, embittered by the corruption of the Grant administration, joined the new party, which nominated editor Horace Greeley. The badly disorganized Democratic party also supported Greeley.

Grant made up for the defections by new gains among Union veterans, as well as strong support from the "Stalwart" faction of his party (which depended on his patronage), and the Southern Republican parties. Grant won a smashing landslide, as the Liberal Republican party vanished and many former supporters — even ex-abolitionists — abandoned the cause of Reconstruction.<ref>McPherson 1975</ref>

[edit] Republican coalition splinters in South

Likewise in the South, political–racial tensions built up inside the Republican party. In 1868, Georgia Democrats, with support from some Republicans, expelled all 28 black Republican members (arguing blacks were eligible to vote, but not to hold office.) In state after state the more conservative scalawags fought for control with the more radical carpetbaggers, and usually lost. Thus, in Mississippi, the conservative faction led by scalawag James Lusk Alcorn was decisively defeated by the radical faction led by Carpetbagger Adelbert Ames. The party lost support steadily as many scalawags left it; few new recruits were acquired. Meanwhile, the Freedmen were demanding a much larger share of the offices and patronage, thus squeezing out their carpetbagger allies.<ref>Foner 537-41</ref> Finally some of the more prosperous Freedmen were joining the Democrats, angered at the failure of the Republicans to help them acquire land.<ref>Foner 374-5</ref> Although some Marxist historians, especially W.E.B. DuBois, looked for and celebrated a cross-racial coalition of poor whites and poor blacks, such coalition rarely formed. Congressman Lynch explains that, "While the colored men did not look with favor upon a political alliance with the poor whites, it must be admitted that, with very few exceptions, that class of whites did not seek, and did not seem to desire such an alliance." Lynch explains that poor whites resented the job competition from Freedmen. Furthermore, the poor whites "with a few exceptions, were less efficient, less capable, and knew less about matters of state and governmental administration than many of the ex-slaves.… As a rule, therefore, the whites that came into the leadership of the Republican party between 1872 and 1875 were representatives of the most substantial families of the land."<ref>Lynch 1915</ref> Thus, the poor whites became Democrats and bitterly opposed the black Republicans.

[edit] Democrats try a "New Departure"

By 1870, the Democratic–Conservative leadership across the South decided it had to end its opposition to Reconstruction as well as to black suffrage in order to survive and move on to new issues. The Grant administration had proven by its crackdown on the KKK that it would use as much federal power as necessary to suppress open anti-black violence. The Democrats in the North concurred. They wanted to fight the GOP on economic grounds rather than race. The New Departure offered the chance for a clean slate without having to refight the Civil War every election. Furthermore, many wealthy landowners thought they could control part of the newly enfranchised black electorate to their own advantage. Not all Democrats agreed; a hard core element wanted to resist Reconstruction no matter what. Eventually, a group called Redeemers took control of the party in state after state.<ref>Perman 1984, ch 3</ref> They formed coalitions with conservative Republicans, including scalawags and carpetbaggers, emphasizing the need for economic modernization. Railroad building was seen as a panacea, for northern capital was needed. The new tactics were a success in Virginia where William Mahone built a winning coalition. In Tennessee, the Redeemers formed a coalition with Republican governor DeWitt Senter. Across the South Democrats switched from the race issue to taxes and corruption — charging that Republican governments were corrupt and inefficient, as taxes began squeezing cash-poor farmers who rarely saw $20 in currency a year, but had to pay taxes in currency or lose their farm.

In North Carolina, Republican governor William Woods Holden used state troops against the Klan, but the prisoners were released by federal judges, Holden became the first governor in American history to be impeached and removed from office. Republican political disputes in Georgia split the party and enabled the Redeemers to take over.<ref>Foner, ch 9</ref> Violence was a factor in neutralizing Republican leaders in the deep South, with its larger black Republican population. In the North, a live-and-let-live attitude made elections more like a sporting contest. But in the deep South, it was life or death. Explained an Alabama scalawag, "Our contest here is for life, for the right to earn our bread...for a decent and respectful consideration as human beings and members of society."<ref>Foner p 443</ref>

[edit] Panic of 1873 weakens GOP

The Panic of 1873 hit the Southern economy hard, and disillusioned many Republicans who had gambled that railroads would pull the South out of its poverty. The price of cotton fell by half; many small landowners, local merchants and cotton factors (wholesalers) went bankrupt. Sharecropping, for both black and white farmers, became more common as a way to spread the risk of owning land. The old abolitionist element in the North was aging away, or had lost interest, and was not replenished. Many carpetbaggers returned to the North or joined the Redeemers. Blacks had an increased voice in the Republican party, but across the South it was divided by internal bickering and was rapidly losing its cohesion. Many local black leaders started emphasizing individual economic progress in cooperation with white elites, rather than racial political progress in opposition to them, a conservative attitude that foreshadowed Booker T. Washington.<ref>Foner p545–7</ref>

Nationally, President Grant took the blame for the depression, as his Republican party lost 96 seats in all parts of the country in the 1874 elections. The Bourbon Democrats took control of the House and were confident of electing Samuel J. Tilden president in 1876. President Grant was not running for re-election and seemed to be losing interest in the South. State after state fell to the Redeemers, with only four in Republican hands in 1873, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina; Arkansas then fell after the Brooks–Baxter War in 1874. Political violence was endemic in Louisiana, but efforts to seize the state government were repulsed by federal troops who entered the state legislature and hauled away several Democratic legislators. The violation of tradition embarrassed Grant, and some of his cabinet recommended against further intervention.<ref>Foner 555–56</ref> By now, all Democrats and most northern Republicans agreed that Confederate nationalism and slavery were dead — the war goals were achieved — and further federal military interference was an undemocratic violation of historic Republican values. The victory of Rutherford Hayes in the hotly contested Ohio gubernatorial election of 1875 indicated his "let alone" policy toward the South would become Republican policy, as indeed happened when he won the 1876 GOP nomination for president. The last explosion of violence came in Mississippi's 1875 election, in which Democratic rifle clubs, operating in the open and without disguise, threatened or shot enough Republicans to decide the election for the Redeemers. The Republican governor Adelbert Ames asked Grant for federal troops to fight back; Grant refused, saying public opinion was "tired out" of the perpetual troubles in the South. Ames fled the state as the Democrats took over Mississippi.<ref>Foner ch 11</ref>

[edit] 1876 Election

Reconstruction continued in South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida until 1877. After Republican Rutherford Hayes won the disputed U.S. Presidential election of 1876, the Compromise of 1877 was reached whereby the white South agreed to accept Hayes's victory if he withdrew the last Federal troops. By this point, everyone had agreed that Reconstruction was finished However, the African-Americans who wanted their legal rights guaranteed by the Federal government were repeatedly frustrated for another 75 years; they considered Reconstruction a failure<ref>Foner 604</ref>

[edit] South under Redeemers

The end of Reconstruction marked the beginning of a period, 1877–1900, that saw the steady reduction of many civil and political rights for African-Americans, and ushered in the nadir of American race relations. The exact process varied state by state and town by town. In Virginia, the Redeemers gerrymandered cities to minimize Republican seats; reduced the number of polling places in black precincts; made local officials appointees of the state legislature; and did not allow the vote to felons or to people who failed to pay their annual poll tax; see Jim Crow laws.

Much of the Reconstruction civil rights legislation was overturned by the Supreme Court. Most notably, the Court held in the Civil Rights Cases (1883), that the 14th amendment only gave Congress the power to outlaw public, rather than private, discrimination. In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) the Court went even further, announcing that state-mandated segregation was legal as long as the law provided for "separate but equal" facilities.

The Supreme Court maintained "separate but equal" as the "law of the land" for another six decades, until finally reversing it in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954). Congress also belatedly restored the eroded rights to the descendants of Freedman by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in "public accommodations" (i.e., restaurants, hotels and businesses open to the public)), terminology which originated in the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Voting rights were restored by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

[edit] Legacy and Historiography

Reconstruction was initially viewed as a failure by most observers North and South because of its corruption.<ref>McPherson 1965</ref> Booker T. Washington, who grew up in West Virginia during Reconstruction, concluded that, "the Reconstruction experiment in racial democracy failed because it began at the wrong end, emphasizing political means and civil rights acts rather than economic means and self-determination."<ref>Louis R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington in Perspective (1988) p. 164</ref> His solution was to concentrate on building the economic infrastructure of the black community.

Two novels by Thomas Dixon — The Clansman and The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden — 1865–1900 — romanticized white resistance to Northern/black coercion, hailing vigilante action by the Ku Klux Klan. Other authors romanticized the benevolence and happiness of the antebellum plantation regarding to the treatment and disposition of African-Americans. These sentiments were expressed on the screen in D.W. Griffith's anti-Republican 1915 movie The Birth of a Nation.

The Dunning School of scholars based at the history department of Columbia University analyzed Reconstruction as a failure, at least after 1866, for quite different reasons. They claimed that it took freedoms and rights from qualified whites and gave them to unqualified blacks who were being duped by corrupt carpetbaggers and scalawags. As one scholar notes, for the Dunning School, "Reconstruction was a battle between two extremes: the Democrats, as the group which included the vast majority of the whites, standing for decent government and racial supremacy, versus the Republicans, the Negroes, alien carpetbaggers, and renegade scalawags, standing for dishonest government and alien ideals. These historians wrote literally in terms of white and black."<ref> Williams 1946 p473</ref>

In the 1930s, "revisionism" became popular among scholars. As disciples of Charles A. Beard, they focused on economic causation. They argued that the Radical rhetoric of equal rights was mostly a smokescreen hiding the true motivation of Reconstruction's real backers. While conceding that a few men like Stevens and Sumner were thoroughly idealistic, Howard Beale argued Reconstruction was primarily a successful attempt by financiers, railroad builders and industrialists in the Northeast, using the Republican party, to control the national government for its own selfish economic ends. Those ends were to continue the wartime high protective tariff, the new network of national banks, and to guarantee a "sound" currency. To succeed the business class had to remove the old ruling agrarian class of Southern planters and Midwestern farmers. This it did by inaugurating Reconstruction, which made the South Republican, and by selling its policies to the voters wrapped up in such attractive vote-getting packages as northern patriotism or the bloody shirt. Historian William Hesseltine added the point that the Northeastern businessmen wanted to control the South economically, which they did through ownership of the railroads.<ref>Williams 1946 p470</ref> However, historians in the 1950s and 1960s refuted Beale's economic causation by demonstrating that Northern businessmen were widely divergent on monetary or tariff policy, and seldom paid attention to Reconstruction issues.<ref>Foner 1982; Montgomery, vii–ix)</ref>

In the 1960s, neoabolitionist historians emerged, led by John Hope Franklin, Kenneth Stampp and Eric Foner. Strongly aligned with the Civil Rights Movement, they rejected the Dunning school and found a great deal to praise in Radical Reconstruction. The primary advocate of this view, Eric Foner, argued that it was never truly completed, and that a Second Reconstruction was needed in the late 20th century to complete the goal of full equality for African-Americans. The neo-abolitionists followed the revisionists in minimizing or the corruption and waste created by Republican state governments, saying it was no worse than Tweed's Ring in New York City.<ref>Williams, 469; Foner p. xxii</ref> Instead they emphasized that poor treatment of Freedmen was a worse scandal and a grave corruption of America's republican ideals. They argued that the real tragedy of Reconstruction was not that it failed because blacks were incapable of governing, but that it failed because the civil rights and equalities granted during this period were but a passing, temporary development. These rights were suspended in the South from the 1880s through 1964, but were restored by the Civil Rights Movement that is sometimes referred to as the "Second Reconstruction." More recent work - by Nina Silber, David Blight, Celia O'Leary, Laura Edwards, LeeAnn Whites, and Edward J. Blum - have encouraged greater attention to race, religion, and issues of gender while at the same time pushing the "end" of Reconstruction to the end of the nineteenth century, while monographs by Charles Reagan Wilson, Gaines Foster, W. Scott Poole have offered new views of the southern "Lost Cause"

[edit] Significant dates

State Seceded from Union Joined Confederacy Readmitted into Union Democratic Party Establishes Control
South Carolina December 20, 1860 February 4, 1861 July 9, 1868 November 28, 1876
Mississippi January 9, 1861 February 4, 1861 February 23, 1870 January 4, 1876
Florida January 10, 1861February 4, 1861 June 25, 1868 January 2, 1877
Alabama January 11, 1861 February 4, 1861 July 14, 1868 November 16, 1874
Georgia January 19, 1861 February 4, 1861 July 15, 1870 November 1, 1871
Louisiana January 26, 1861 February 4, 1861 June 25 or July 9, 1868 January 2, 1877
Texas February 1, 1861 March 2, 1861 March 30, 1870 January 14, 1873
Virginia April 17, 1861 May 7, 1861 January 26, 1870 October 5, 1869
Arkansas May 6, 1861 May 18, 1861 June 22, 1868 November 10, 1874
North Carolina May 21, 1861 May 16, 1861 July 4, 1868 November 28, 1876
Tennessee June 8, 1861 May 16, 1861 July 24, 1866 October 4, 1869

[edit] See also

[edit] Primary Sources & Collections of Primary Sources

[edit] Newspapers and Magazines

  • DeBow's Review major Southern conservative magazine; stress on business, economics and statistics
  • Harper's Weekly leading New York news magazine; pro-Radical
  • Nast, Thomas. magazine cartoons pro-Radical editorial cartoons
  • The New York Times daily edition online through ProQuest at academic libraries

[edit] Laws passed by Congress

[edit] Secondary sources

[edit] Surveys

  • Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt. Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 (1935), ISBN 0-689-70820-3 (1998 edition with introduction by David Levering Lewis ISBN 0-684-85657-3.) Counterpoint to Dunning School of historiography, explores role of Freedmen from Marxist perspective
  • Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt "The Freedmen's Bureau," (1901)
  • Du Bois, W.E.B. "Reconstruction and its Benefits," American Historical Review, 15 (July, 1910), 781—99 JSTOR
  • Dunning, William Archibald. Reconstruction: Political & Economic, 1865-1877 (1905), by Dunning School founder, argues that black voters were duped by Carpetbaggers into supporting wholesale corruption.
  • Fleming, Walter Lynwood, The Sequel of Appomattox, A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States(1918) short survey from Dunning School
  • Foner, Eric and Mahoney, Olivia. America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War. ISBN 0-8071-2234-3, short well-illustrated survey
  • Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988), highly detailed history of Reconstruction emphasizing Black and abolitionist perspective
  • Foner, Eric. "Reconstruction Revisited" in Reviews in American History, Vol. 10, No. 4, The Promise of American History: Progress and Prospects (Dec., 1982), pp. 82-100, review of the historiography, online in Project MUSE
  • Franklin, John Hope. Reconstruction after the Civil War (1961), short survey
  • Hamilton, Peter Joseph. The Reconstruction Period (1906), history of era using Dunning School 570 pp; chapter on each state
  • Henry, Robert Selph. The Story of Reconstruction (1938).
  • Litwack, Leon. Been in the Storm So Long (1979). Pulitzer Prize; based on 1930s interviews with ex-slaves and diaries and accounts written by former slaveholders.
  • Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. A History of the United States since the Civil War. Vol 1 and vol 2 (1917) Detailed narrative based on Dunning School viewpoint.
  • Perman, Michael. Emancipation and Reconstruction (2003), a short survey.
  • Randall, J. G. The Civil War and Reconstruction (1953), long the leading textbook
  • Rhodes, James G. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6. (1920). 1865-72; narrative stresses national politics; also vol 7: 1872-77 (1920)
  • Schouler, James. History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865-1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online
  • Stalcup, Brenda. ed. Reconstruction: Opposing Viewpoints (Greenhaven Press: 1995). Text uses primary documents to present opposing viewpoints.
  • Stampp, Kenneth M. The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1967); short survey; rejects Dunning School analysis.
  • Stampp, Kenneth M. and Leon M. Litwack, eds. Reconstruction: An Anthology of Revisionist Writings," (1969), reprinted essays.
  • Trefousse, Hans L. Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction Greenwood (1991), 250 entries
  • Williams, T. Harry. "An Analysis of Some Reconstruction Attitudes" The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 12, No. 4. (Nov., 1946), pp. 469-486. JSTOR
  • Wilson, Woodrow. The Reconstruction of the Southern States (1901); interpretive essay by Wilson; elected President in 1912, he grew up in South Carolina during Reconstruction

[edit] National politics; Constitutional issues

  • Belz, Herman. Emancipation and Equal Rights: Politics and Constitutionalism in the Civil War Era (1978) pro-moderate.
  • Belz, Herman. A New Birth of Freedom: The Republican Party and Freedman's Rights, 1861-1866 (2000) pro-moderate.
  • Benedict, Michael Les. The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1999), pro-Radical.
  • Benedict, Michael Les. A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction (1974) pro-Radical
  • Benedict, Michael Les. "Preserving the Constitution: The Conservative Bases of Radical Reconstruction," Journal of American History vol 61 #1 (1974) pp 65-90, online in JSTOR
  • Benedict, Michael Les. "Constitutional History and Constitutional Theory: Reflections on Ackerman, Reconstruction, and the Transformation of the American Constitution." Yale Law Journal Vol: 108. Issue: 8. 1999. pp 2011-2038.
  • Blight, David. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2000). Examines national memory of Civil War, Reconstruction, and Redemption, North-South reunion, and the retreat from equality for African Americans.
  • Blum, Edward J. "Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898" (2005).
  • Brandwein, Pamela; "Slavery as an Interpretive Issue in the Reconstruction Congresses" Law & Society Review. Volume: 34. Issue: 2. 2000. pp 315+ shows Democratic party history, grounded on white supremacy was crucial in legitimating the Court's narrow doctrinal interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  • Burg, Robert W. "Amnesty, Civil Rights, And The Meaning Of Liberal Republicanism, 1862-1872". American Nineteenth Century History 2003 4(3): 29-60.
  • Donald, David Herbert. Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (1970), Pulitzer prize winning biography
  • Dunning, William A. "The Constitution of the United States in Reconstruction" in Political Science Quarterly Vol. 2, No. 4 (Dec., 1887), pp. 558-602 JSTOR
  • Dunning, William A. "Military Government in the South During Reconstruction" Political Science Quarterly Vol. 12, No. 3 (Sep., 1897), pp. 381-406 JSTOR
  • Gambill, Edward. Conservative Ordeal: Northern Democrats and Reconstruction, 1865-1868. (1981). Political history of Democratic Party unable to shed its Civil War label of treason and defeatism, even as it successfully blocked a few elements of Radical Reconstruction.
  • Gienapp, William. Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America Oxford U. Press, 2002
  • Gillette, William. Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879. Louisiana State University Press: 1979. Traces failure of Reconstruction to the power of Democrats, administrative inefficiencies, racism, and lack of commitment by northern Republicans.
  • Harris, William C. With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union (1997) portrays Lincoln as opponent of Radicals.
  • Hyman, Harold M. A More Perfect Union (1975), constitutional history of Civil War & Reconstruction.
  • Kaczorowski, Robert, The Politics of Judicial Interpretations: The Federal Courts, Department of Justice and Civil Rights, 1866-1876. Justice Department fight against KKK
  • McAfee, Ward. Religion, Race, and Reconstruction: The Public School in the Politics of the 1870s SUNY Press, 1998.
  • McLaughlin, Andrew. A Constitutional History of the United States (1935) Pulitzer Prize; ch 45-47 are on Reconstruction online version
  • McKitrick, Eric L. Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (1961) portrays Johnson as weak politician unable to forge coalitions.
  • McPherson, James M. The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP (1975) (ISBN 0-691-10039-X)
  • Montgomery, David. Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862-1872 (1981). Emphasis on labor unions in North.
  • Nicolay, John and John Hay, "First Plans for Emancipation," Century (Dec 1888): pp 276-94; Online Authors were Lincoln's top aides in the White House
    • Nicolay, John and John Hay, "The Wade-Davis Manifesto" Century (July 1889): pp 414-21 online version
  • Simpson, Brooks D. Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
  • Stryker, Lloyd Paul; Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage 1929. pro-Johnson
  • Summers, Mark Wahlgren.The Press Gang: Newspapers and Politics, 1865-1878 (1994)
  • Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography (1989)
  • Trefousse, Hans L. Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth-Century Egalitarian (1997)

[edit] South: regional, state & local studies

  • Abbott, Richard H. For Free Press and Equal Rights: Republican Newspapers in the Reconstruction South U of Georgia Press, 2004. 266 pp. ISBN 0-8203-2527-9. online review
  • Brown, Canter Jr. Florida's Black Public Officials, 1867-1924
  • Campbell. Randolph B. Grass-Roots Reconstruction in Texas, 1865-1880 (1998)
  • Coulter, E. Merton. The Civil War and Readjustment in Kentucky (1926)
  • Coulter, E. Merton. The South During Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1947). Dunning School. region-wide history
  • Crouch, Barry A. The Freedmen's Bureau and Black Texans. University of Texas Press, (1992).
  • David Ebner and Larry Langman, eds. Hollywood's Image of the South: A Century of Southern Films Greenwood Press. 2001. Ch 9-10 on Reconstruction and KKK.
  • David H. Donald. "The Scalawag in Mississippi Reconstruction," The Journal of Southern History Vol. 10, No. 4 (Nov., 1944), pp. 447-460 JSTOR
  • Fields, Barbara Jean, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland (1985)
  • Fischer, Roger. The Segregation Struggle in Louisiana, 1862-1877. (University of Illinois Press: 1974) Study of free persons of color in New Orleans who provided leadership in the unsuccessful fight against segregation of schools and public accommodations.
  • Fitzgerald, Michael W. Urban Emancipation: Popular Politics in Reconstruction Mobile, 1860–1890. (Louisiana State University Press, 2002. 301 pp. ISBN 0-8071-2837-6.)
  • Fitzgerald, Michael R. "Radical Republicanism and the White Yeomanry During Alabama Reconstruction, 1865-1868." Journal of Southern History 54 (November 1988): 565-96. Online at JSTOR
  • Fleming, Walter L. Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama 1905. Dunning School
  • Foner, Eric. Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction (Revised edition, LSU Press, 1996) biographies of more than 1,500 officeholders.
  • Garner, James Wilford. Reconstruction in Mississippi (1901), Dunning School
  • Hahn, Steven. A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (2003)
  • Hamilton, Peter Joseph. The Reconstruction Period (1906), full length history of era; Dunning School approach; 570 pp; chapters on each state
  • Harris, William C. The Day of the Carpetbagger: Republican Reconstruction in Mississippi (1979)
  • Holt, Thomas. Black over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina During Reconstruction. (University of Illinois Press: 1977). Black elected officials, their divisions, and battles with white governors who controlled patronage and their ultimate failure.
  • Kolchin, Peter. First Freedom: The Responses of Alabama's Blacks to Emancipation and Reconstruction. (Greenwood Press: 1972) Explores black migration, labor, and social structure in the first five years of Reconstruction.
  • Ralph E. Morrow. "Northern Methodism in the South during Reconstruction." The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 41, No. 2. (Sep., 1954), pp. 197-218. in JSTOR
  • A. B. Moore, "Railroad Building in Alabama During the Reconstruction Period" The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 1, No. 4. (Nov., 1935), pp. 421-441. JSTOR
  • Olsen, Otto H. ed., Reconstruction and Redemption in the South (1980), state by state, neoabolitionist
  • Patton; James Welch. Unionism and Reconstruction in Tennessee, 1860-1869 1934
  • Perman, Michael. The Road to Redemption: Southern Politics, 1869-1879 University of North Carolina Press. 1984. detailed state-by-state narrative of Conservatives
  • Rabinowitz, Howard N. editor. Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (University of Illinois Press: 1982) ISBN 0-252-00929-0. Examines how Southern Black leaders functioned during Reconstruction and within the Republican Party.
  • Ramsdell, Charles W., "Presidential Reconstruction in Texas ", Southwestern Historical Quarterly, (1907) v.11#4 277 - 317.
  • Ramsdell, Charles William. Reconstruction in Texas Columbia University Press, 1910. Dunning school
  • Reynolds, John S. Reconstruction in South Carolina, 1865—1877, Negro Universities Press, 1969
  • Rose, Willie Lee . Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment (1967) Blacks given land in 1863 in coastal South Carolina
  • Rubin, Hyman III. South Carolina Scalawags (2006)
  • Russ, Jr., William A. "The Negro and White Disfranchisement During Radical Reconstruction" The Journal of Negro History Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1934), pp. 171-192 JSTOR
  • Russ, Jr., William A. "Registration and Disfranchisement Under Radical Reconstruction," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review Vol. 21, No. 2 (Sep., 1934), pp. 163-180 JSTOR
  • Simkins, Francis Butler, and Robert Hilliard Woody. South Carolina during Reconstruction (1932), revisionist (Beardian) school
  • Stover, John F. The Railroads of the South, 1865-1900: A Study in Finance and Control (1955)
  • Summers, Mark Wahlgren. Railroads, Reconstruction, and the Gospel of Prosperity: Aid Under the Radical Republicans, 1865-1877 (1984)
  • Taylor, Alrutheus A., Negro in Tennessee 1865-1880 (1974) ISBN 0-87152-165-2
  • Taylor, Alrutheus, Negro in South Carolina During the Reconstruction (AMS Press: 1924) ISBN 0-404-00216-1
  • Taylor, Alrutheus, The Negro in the Reconstruction Of Virginia (The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History: 1926)
  • Taylor, A. A. "The Negro in South Carolina During the Reconstruction" The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 9-11 (1924-1926) (multi-part article) JSTOR full text
  • Trelease, Allen W. White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction, (Louisiana State University Press: 1971, 1995). detailed treatment of the Klan, and similar groups.
  • Wiener, Jonathan M. Social Origins of the New South; Alabama, 1860-1885. (1978) new social history
  • Wharton, V. L. "The Race Issue in the Overthrow of Reconstruction in Mississippi," Phylon (1940-1956) Vol. 2, No. 4 (4th Qtr., 1941), pp. 362-370 in JSTOR
  • Wiggins, Sarah Woolfolk. The Scalawag in Alabama Politics, 1865-1881 (1991)
  • Williams, Heather Andrea. Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom U of North Carolina Press, 2006
  • R. H. Woody, "The Labor and Immigration Problem of South Carolina during Reconstruction" The Mississippi Valley Historical Review Vol. 18, No. 2 (Sep., 1931), pp. 195-212 JSTOR

[edit] External links

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[edit] Notes

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