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Reconstruction era

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Reconstruction-era military districts in the South
For other uses, see Reconstruction era (disambiguation).

The Reconstruction is a period in American history directly after the civil war. For victory in the war to be achieved, Northern moderate Republicans and Radical Republicans concurred that the Confederacy and its system of slavery had to be destroyed, and the possibility of either being revived had to be eliminated. Controversy focused on how to achieve those goals, and who would decide when they were achieved. The Radical Republicans believed that reaching those goals was essential to the destruction of the Slave Power and necessary to guaranteeing perpetual unity of the states, as well as a solution to the many problems of Freedmen.

Suffrage issue

Suffrage was a central issue. On the one hand was the question of allowing some or all ex-Confederates to vote. The moderates wanted virtually all of them to vote, but the Radicals wanted severe restrictions. Thus Thaddeus Stevens proposed that ex-Confederates lose the vote for five years. In the end about 15,000 Confederate leaders temporarily lost the vote. [Foner 1988 pp 273-6] Second was the issue of which blacks should be given the right to vote. The conservatives believed none of the slaves had the experience to make them good voters. The moderates like Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson wanted some to get the vote, especially army veterans. Thus Lincoln proposed giving the vote to "the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks." [Gienapp, p. 155], while 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." [Patton p 126]

Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, leader of the Radical Republicans, was initially hesitant to enfranchise the largely illiterate ex-slave population. However Sumner decided it was necessary for blacks to have the vote for three reasons: 1) for their own protection; 2) for the protection of white Unionists (i.e. "scalawags"); 3) for the peace of the country. [Randall and Donald 581] The Radicals said the only way to get experience was to get the vote first, and they passed laws allowing all the male freedmen to vote. In 1867, African American men voted for the first time and over the course of Reconstruction, more than 1,500 African Americans held public office. (The question of woman suffrage was hotly debated as well, but rejected.)

Though former Confederates—the South's pre-Civil War political leaders— renounced secession and and gave up slavery, they were angered in 1867 when their previously all-white state governments were ousted by federal military forces, and replaced by lawmakers elected for the first time by black and white voters.

"No more than 137 officeholders lived outside the South before the Civil War," Eric Foner wrote in the introduction to Freedom's Lawmakers, a biographical directory, with many photographs, of more than 1500 Black officeholders during Reconstruction.

Of the less than 10 percent of more than 1,500 black officeholders listed in the directory who lived outside the South before the Civil War, Foner wrote, "Most were individuals born in the North (where about 220,000 free blacks lived in 1860), but their numbers also included free Southerners whose families moved to the North, free blacks and a few privileged slaves sent North for education, several immigrants from abroad, and fugitives from bondage."

Wartime plans and legislation

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. Abraham Lincoln pursued a lenient plan for reconstruction, especially in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas. In those states, he proposed a ten percent plan that required 10 percent of the voters from the 1860 election to swear an oath of loyalty to the Union. He never succeeded in getting compliance with his plan. [Harris 1997]

Lincoln opposed the Radicals on Reconstruction issue, and vetoed their key legislation, the Wade-Davis bill, as one biographer explains why: [Gienapp 167]

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.

Lincoln thus wanted to bring the Southern states back into good standing as fast 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. [Rose 1967]

Presidential Reconstruction: 1865-66

Northern anger over the Confederate John Wilkes Booth's 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.[Trefousse 1989] 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.

The Johnson governments quickly enacted "black codes", effectively giving freedmen only a limited set of second-class civil rights, and no voting rights. Southern plantation owners feared they would lose their labor force, making the cotton lands worthless. Many Southern whites feared that blacks would consider themselves their equals. Mississippi and South Carolina black codes have been described:[1]

"Negroes must make annual contracts for their labor in writing; if they should run away from their tasks, they forfeited their wages for the year. Whenever it was required of them they must present licenses (in a town from the mayor; elsewhere from a member of the board of police of the beat) citing their places of residence and authorizing them to work. Fugitives from labor were to be arrested and carried back to their employers. Five dollars a head and mileage would be allowed such negro catchers. It was made a misdemeanor, punishable with fine or imprisonment, to persuade a freedman to leave his employer, or to feed the runaway. Minors were to be apprenticed, if males until they were twenty-one, if females until eighteen years of age. Such corporal punishment as a father would administer to a child might be inflicted upon apprentices by their masters. Vagrants were to be fined heavily, and if they could not pay the sum, they were to be hired out to service until the claim was satisfied. Negroes might not carry knives or firearms unless they were licensed so to do. It was an offense, to be punished by a fine of $50 and imprisonment for thirty days, to give or sell intoxicating liquors to a negro. When negroes could not pay the fines and costs after legal proceedings, they were to be hired at public outcry by the sheriff to the lowest bidder....

"In South Carolina persons of color contracting for service were to be known as "servants," and those with whom they contracted, as "masters." On farms the hours of labor would be from sunrise to sunset daily, except on Sunday. The negroes were to get out of bed at dawn. Time lost would be deducted from their wages, as would be the cost of food, nursing, etc., during absence from sickness. Absentees on Sunday must return to the plantation by sunset. House servants were to be at call at all hours of the day and night on all days of the week. They must be "especially civil and polite to their masters, their masters' families and guests," and they in return would receive "gentle and kind treatment." Corporal and other punishment was to be administered only upon order of the district judge or other civil magistrate. A vagrant law of some severity was enacted to keep the negroes from roaming the roads and living the lives of beggars and thieves."

The Democratic party, proclaiming itself the party of white men, north and south, supported Johnson. [Trefousse 1989] In response to 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. Congress then passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, to create and protect black civil rights in the South. This led to a decisive break with President Andrew Johnson, who vetoed the bill. Congress overrode his veto and the bill became law.

The last moderate proposal was the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed the Federal war debt, 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. 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.

Radical Reconstruction: 1866-1877

Radicals win 1866 election

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

Constitutional Amendments

Three new Constitutional Amendments were adopted in the wake of the Civil War. The 13th abolishing slavery was ratified in 1865. The 14th was rejected in 1866 but ratified in 1868, granting federal civil rights to every person born in the United States, as well as to naturalized citizens, and guaranteed repayment of the American war debts and repudiation of the Confederate debts. The 15th 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.)

Military reconstruction

The first Reconstruction Act placed ten Confederate states [citation needed]under military control, grouping them into five military districts: [Foner 1988 ch 6]

First Military District: Virginia, under General John Schofield
Second Military District: The Carolinas, under General Daniel Sickles
Third Military District: Georgia, Alabama and Florida, under General John Pope
Fourth Military District: Arkansas and Mississippi, under General Edward Ord
Fifth Military District: Texas and Louisiana, under Gen. Philip Sheridan and several others.

Tennessee, which had been readmitted to full status on July 24, 1866, was not made part of a military district, and federals 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. [Foner 1988 ch 6-7]

Blacks were enrolled as voters and former Confederates were excluded.[Foner 1988 p 274-5] 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.

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.

Black Reconstruction

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, African Americans who came from the North, recently arrived white Northerners (derisively called "carpetbaggers" to suggest that they had come so quickly they had carried their possessions in hasty carpetbags), and local white Republican-sympathizers (derisively called "scalawags"). The black politicians were not unlettered slaves, but free blacks, especially from the North--"mostly freeborn urban mulattoes." [Foner 1988 p 285-6] The old political elite of the Democratic Party, mostly former Confederates, were left out of power (although some, like General James Longstreet, joined the Republicans). 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. [Foner 1988 ch 7]

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, and by the late 1870s they called themselves simply "Democrats." Their views on national policy were reflected later by the historians of the Dunning School.

Historian Walter Lynwood Fleming was representative of the Dunning School in that he was sympathetic to southern conservatives and contemptuous of Radical corruption, and paternalistic toward the African Americans: he wrote:

The Negro troops, even at their best, were everywhere considered offensive by the native whites. General Grant, indeed, urged that only white troops be used to garrison the interior. But 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. A New Orleans newspaper thus states the Southern point of view: "Our citizens who had been accustomed to meet and treat the Negroes only as respectful servants, were mortified, pained, and shocked to encounter them . . . wearing Federal uniforms and bearing bright muskets and gleaming bayonets . . . . They are jostled from the sidewalks by dusky guards, marching four abreast. They were halted, in rude and sullen tones, by Negro sentinels. ... The lawlessness of the Negroes in parts of the Black Belt and the disturbing influences of the black troops, of some officials of the Bureau, and of some of the missionary teachers and preachers, caused the whites to fear insurrections and to take measures for protection. Secret semi-military organizations were formed which later developed into the Ku Klux orders.

[1]

Representative also of the Dunning School is the analysis of Ellis Oberholtzer (a northern scholar) in 1917: [vol 1 p 485]

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 "very spirit of Cain," the New York Nation said in the summer of 1866, seemed to stalk over the land. Noble motives which earlier had governed men were swept aside and were lost in the general saturnalia of malignity. The troops serving in the South were there not so much to protect the negroes as to punish their old masters; not so much to guard the imperiled interests of the Southern "loyalists," of whom a deal had been said, as to exasperate the President and the members of his party in the North. 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. One Northern state had followed another in refusing to give the ballot to its own negroes.

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.

Redemption and the end of Reconstruction in 1870s

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. 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. [Perman 1984, ch. 3] 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 as 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. [Foner, ch 9] Violence was a factor in neutralizing Republican leaders in the 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." [in Foner p 443]

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 in 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 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. [Foner pp 545-7]

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 reelection 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. 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. [Foner 555-56] 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" with the perpetual troubles in the South. Ames fled the state as the Democrats took over Mississippi. [Foner ch 11]

1876 Election

Though events, such as the Brooks-Baxter War in Arkansas, ended Reconstruction earlier in some states, it continued in South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida until 1877. After Republican Rutherford Hayes won the disputed U.S. Presidential election of 1876 the South agreed to accept Hayes's victory if the President withdrew the last Federal troops from the South. By this point everyone had agreed that slavery and Confederate nationalism were dead, and the war goals had been achieved. 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 [Foner 604] 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. Blacks would legally and socially remain second-class citizens until Jim Crow was abolished by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

South under Redeemers

The initial flurry of Reconstruction civil rights measures was eroded and converted into laws that expanded racial segregation and discrimination throughout Southern institutions and everyday life. In exchange for its acceptance of reintegration into the Union, the South (along with the rest of the country) was allowed to reestablish a segregated, race-discriminatory society.

Much of the civil rights legislation was overturned by the United States Supreme Court. Most notably, the court suggested in the Slaughterhouse Case (1873), then held in the Civil Rights Cases (1883), that the Fourteenth Amendment only gave Congress the power to outlaw public, rather than private, discrimination. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) 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 of the descendants of Freedman. With the backing of President Lyndon Johnson, it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in "public accommodations" (i.e., restaurants, hotels and businesses open to the public, as well as in private schools and workplaces), terminology which originated in the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Legacy

Reconstruction was initially viewed as a failure by most[citation needed] observers North and South because of its corruption.[citation needed] 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." [2] His solution was to concentrate on building the economic infrastructure of the black community.

Two novels by Thomas R. 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.[citation needed]

In the 1940s, an economic approach was pioneered by Howard Beale and C. Vann Woodward. As disciples of Charles A. Beard, they focused on economic causation. They argued that the rhetoric of equal rights and corruption was a smokescreen hiding the true motivation of Reconstruction's backers, which was promoting the interests of financiers, railroad builders and industrialists in the Northeast. Despite the lack of a unified business policy, the South was exploited by a wide range of business interests. However, historians in the 1950s and 1960s demonstrated that Northern businessmen were widely divergent on monetary or tariff policy, and seldom paid attention to Reconstruction issues. [3]

In the 1960s, neoabolitionist[citation needed] historians, strongly aligned with the Civil Rights Movement, rejected the Dunning school and found a great deal to praise in Congressional 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. Foner and the neoabolitionists[citation needed] minimized or ignored the corruption[citation needed] and waste caused[citation needed] by Republican state governments, and 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." These historians downplay the argument that corrupt business interests had undermined the cause of Reconstruction.[citation needed]

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, 1861 February 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

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Oberholtzer 1:128-9
  2. ^ Louis R. Harlan, Booker T. Washington in Perspective (1988) p. 164
  3. ^ (Foner 1982; Montgomery, vii-ix)

Primary sources

References

Collections of primary sources

Secondary sources

Surveys

  • Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt. Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 (1935), ISBN 0689708203 (1998 edition with introduction by David Levering Lewis ISBN 0684856573.) Counterpoint to Dunning School of historiography, explores role of Freedmen and their economic challenges.
  • 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
  • Dunning, William Archibald. Reconstruction: Political & Economic, 1865-1877 (1905), Dunning School argued that black voters were duped by Carpetbaggers into supporting wholesale corruption. Viewed Reconstruction in negative light. His pro-segregationist viewpoint was taught in U.S. schools for more than 50 years.
  • Walter Lynwood Fleming, The Sequel of Appomattox, A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States(1918) short survey from Dunning School
  • Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988), 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
  • Hamilton, Peter Joseph. The Reconstruction Period (1906), history of era using Dunning School 570 pp
  • Litwack, Leon. "Been in the Storm So Long" (1979). Pulitzer Prize. Narrative based on 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: (1917) Dunning School synthesis stressing corruption issues
  • Perman, Michael. Emancipation and Reconstruction (2003), a short survey.
  • J.G. Randall and David Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction (2nd ed. 1961)
  • 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; detailed narrative history stresses national politics; also vol 7: 1872-77 (1920)
  • Stalcup, Brenda. ed. Reconstruction: Opposing Viewpoints (Greenhaven Press: 1995). Using primary documents, presents opposing viewpoints on many of the central issues.
  • Stampp, Kenneth M. The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1967); pro-Radical
  • Trefousse, Hans L. Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction Greenwood (1991), 250 entries
  • Wilson, Woodrow. The Reconstruction of the Southern States (1901)

National politics

  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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.

  • Donald, David Herbert. Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (1970), Pulitzer prize winner
  • Gambill, Edward. Conservative Ordeal: Northern Democrats and Reconstruction, 1865-1868. (Iowa State University Press: 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.
  • William Gienapp, 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
  • McKitrick, Eric L. Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (1961) portrays Johnson as weak politician unable to forge coalitions.
  • Montgomery, David. Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862-1872 (1981). Emphasis on labor unions in North.
  • Simpson, Brooks D. Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
  • Lloyd Paul Stryker; 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)
  • Trelease, Allen W. White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction, (Louisiana State University Press: 1995). First published in 1971 and based on massive research in primary sources, this is the most comprehensive treatment of the Klan and its relationship to post-Civil War Reconstruction. Includes narrative on other night-riding groups. Details close link between terrorism by Klan and Democratic Party.

South: regional, state & local studies

  • Brown, Canter Jr. Florida's Black Public Officials, 1867-1924
  • Coulter, E. Merton. The South During Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1947). Dunning School "Considered by many scholars to be historical apologies justifying southern secession, defending the Confederate cause, and condemning Reconstruction in the style of his mentor (J. G. de Roulhac) Hamilton. These works, along with his other writings, presented a powerful intellectual paradigm useful to those opposed to the mid-century crusade for civil rights reforms."[2]
  • 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.
  • Foner, Eric. Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction (Revised edition, LSU Press, 1996) Unique directory with biographies of more than 1,500 officeholders.
  • Garner, James Wilford. Reconstruction in Mississippi (1901), state history reflects Dunning School
  • Hahn, Steven. A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (2003)
  • Hadden, Sally E., Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas (Harvard Univ Press, 2001) ISBN 0674004701 Epilogue explores Black Freedom, White Violence: Patrols, Police, and role of Klan
  • Harris, William C. The Day of the Carpetbagger: Republican Reconstruction in Mississippi (1979) state history
  • 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.
  • 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 0252009290. Examines how Southern Black leaders functioned during Reconstruction and within the Republican Party.
  • Willie Lee Rose. Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment (1967)
  • Rubin, Hyman III. South Carolina Scalawags (2006)
  • Simkins, Francis Butler, and Robert Hilliard Woody. South Carolina during Reconstruction (1932). Dunning School
  • Taylor, Alrutheus A., Negro in Tennessee 1865-1880 (Reprint Co, June 1, 1974) ISBN 0871521652
  • Taylor, Alrutheus, Negro in South Carolina During the Reconstruction (AMS Press: 1924) ISBN 0404002161
  • Taylor, Alrutheus, Negro in the Reconstruction Of Virginia/The. (Washington,DC: The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History: 1926)
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: US History:Reconstruction
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