THE TRAGIC LEGEND OF
RECONSTRUCTION
1877
IN
KENNETH M. STAMPP
secrets of the spell the Civil War has cast: it
involved high-minded Americans on both sides,
KENNETH M. STAMPP is professor of American history at the and there was glory enough to go around. This,
University of California (Berkeley) and a specialist on the Civil in fact, is the supreme synthesis of Civil War
War. He is the author of among other books. The Peculiar historiography and the great balm that has healed
Institution (1956) and And the War Came (1950). The present the nation's wounds: Yankees and Confederates
piece is a chapter of his book. The Era of Reconstruction 1865-
alike fought bravely for what they believed to be
just causes. There were few villains in the drama.
But when the historian reaches the year 1865,
he must take leave of the war and turn to
another epoch. reconstruction, when the task was,
N much serious history, and in a durable
in Lincoln's words, "to bind up the nation's
popular legend, two American epochs- wounds" and "to do all which may achieve and
the Civil War and the reconstruction that fol-
cherish a just and lasting peace." How, until
lowed-bear an odd relationship to one another. recently, reconstruction was portrayed in both
The Civil War, though admittedly a tragedy, is
history and legend, how sharply it was believed
nevertheless often described as a glorious time of to contrast with the years of the Civil War, is
gallantry, noble self-sacrifice, and high idealism. evident in the terms that were used to identify it.
Even historians who have considered the war "need-
Various historians have called this phase of
less" and have condemned the politicians of the American history "The Tragic Era," "The
1850's for blundering into it, once they passed Dreadful Decade," "The Age of Hate," and "The
the firing on Fort Sumter, have usually written Blackout of Honest Government." Reconstruc-
with reverence about Civil War heroes-the
tion represented the ultimate shame of the
martyred Lincoln, the Christlike Lee, the intrepid American people-as one historian phrased it,
Stonewall Jackson, and many others in this galaxy "the nadir of national disgrace." It was the epoch
of demigods.
that most Americans wanted to forget.
Few, of course, are so innocent as not to know
Claude Bowers, who divided his time between
that the Civil War had its seamy side. One can politics and history, has been the chief dissemina-
hardly ignore the political opportunism, the graft tor of the traditional picture of reconstruction,
and profiteering in the filling of war contracts,
the military blundering and needless loss of lives,
for his book. The Tragic Era, published in 1929,
has attracted more readers than any other dealing
the horrors of army hospitals and prison camps, with this period. For Bowers reconstruction was a
and the ugly depths as well as the nobility of time of almost unrelieved sordidness in public
human nature that the war exposed with a fine
and private life; whole regiments of villains
impartiality. These things cannot be ignored, but
they can be, and frequently are, dismissed as
march through his pages: the corrupt politicians
who dominated the administration of Ulysses S.
something alien to the essence of the war years.
What was real and fundamental was the idealism
Grant; the crafty, scheming Northern carpet-
and the nobility of the two contending forces: the
baggers who invaded the South after the war for
Yankees struggling to save the Union, dying to
political and economic plunder; the degraded
make men free; the Confederates fighting for
and depraved Southern scalawags who betrayed
great constitutional principles, defending their
their own people and collaborated with the
enemy; and the ignorant, barbarous, sensual
homes from invasion. Here, indeed, is one of the Negroes who threatened to Africanize the South
234
From Commentary, June 1965. Onginally from THE ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION .oce
overy
tions
patriots.
39. The Tragic Legend of Reconstruction
become a kind of 'racket.' " As late as 1947,
and destroy its Caucasian civilization,
Professor E. Merton Coulter, of the University of
Most of Bowers's key generalizations can be
found in his preface. The years of reconstruction, Georgia, reminded critics of the traditional
he wrote, "were years of revolutionary turmoil, interpretation that no "amount of revision can
write away the grievous mistakes made in this
with the elemental passions predominant.
The prevailing note was one of tragedy. abnormal period of American history." Thus,
Never have American public men in responsible from Rhodes and Burgess and Dunning to
positions, directing the destiny of the nation, been Randall and Coulter the central emphasis of most
so brutal, hypocritical, and corrupt. The constitu- historical writing about reconstruction has been
tion was treated as a doormat on which politicians upon sordid motives and human depravity.
and army officers wiped their feet after wading in Somehow, during the summer of 1865, the
the muck. ... The southern people literally were nobility and idealism of the war years had died.
put to the torture (by) rugged conspirators. A synopsis of the Dunning School's version of
(who) assumed the pose of philanthropists and reconstruction would run something like this:
" The popularity of Bowers's book stems Abraham Lincoln, while the Civil War was still in
in part from the simplicity of his characters. progress, turned his thoughts to the great problem
None is etched in shades of gray: none is of reconciliation; and, "with malice toward none
confronted with complex moral decisions. Like and charity for all," this gentle and compassionate
characters in a Victorian romance, the Republi- man devised a plan that would restore the South
can leaders of the reconstruction era were evil to the Union with minimum humiliation and
through and through, and the helpless, innocent maximum speed. But there had already emerged
white men of the South were totally noble and in Congress a faction of radical Republicans,
pure.
sometimes called Jacobins or Vindictives, who
sought to defeat Lincoln's generous program.
IF BOWERS'S PROSE is more vivid and his anger Motivated by hatred of the South, by selfish
intense, his general interpretation of political ambitions, and by crass economic inter-
reconstruction is only a slight exaggeration of a ests, the radicals tried to make the process of
point of view shared by most serious American reconstruction as humiliating, as difficult, and as
historians from the late 19th century until very prolonged as they possibly could. Until Lincoln's
recently. Writing in the 1890's, James Ford tragic death, they poured their scorn upon him-
Rhodes, author of a multi-volumed history of the and then used his coffin as a political stump to
United States since the Compromise of 1850, arouse the passions of the Northern electorate.
branded the Republican scheme of reconstruction The second chapter of the Dunning version
as "repressive" and "uncivilized," one that "pan- begins with Andrew Johnson's succession to the
dered to the ignorant negroes, the 'knavish white Presidency. Johnson, the old Jacksonian Unionist
natives and the vulturous adventurers who flocked from Tennessee, took advantage of the adjourn-
from the North." About the same time Professor ment of Congress to put Lincoln's mild plan of
John W. Burgess, of Columbia University, called - reconstruction into operation, and it was a
reconstruction the "most soul-sickening spectacle striking success. In the summer and fall of 1865,
that Americans had ever been called upon to Southerners organized loyal state governments,
behold." Early in the 20th century Professor showed a willingness to deal fairly with their
William A. Dunning, also of Columbia Univer- former slaves, and in general accepted the out-
sity, and a group of talented graduate studer.ts come of the Civil War in good faith. In
wrote a series of monographs that presented a December, when Congress assembled, President
crushing indictment of the Republican recon- Johnson reported that the process of reconstruc-
struction program in the South-a series that tion was nearly completed and that the old Union
made a deep and lasting impression on American had been restored. But the radicals unfortunately
historians. In the 1930's, Professor James G. had their own sinister purposes: they repudiated
Randall
, of the University of Illinois, still writing the governments Johnson had established in the
in the spirit of the Dunningites, described the South, refused to seat Southern Senators and
"as a time of party abuse, of Representatives, and then directed their fury
corruption of vindictive bigotry."..."To use a against the new President. After a year of bitter
modern phrase." said Randall
, "Rovernment controversy and political stalemate, the radicals,
under Radical Republican rule in the South had resorting to shamefully demagogic tactics, won ar
235
ction
4. THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION
overwhelning victory in the congressional elec- era: the corruption was real, the failures obvious,
tions of 1866.
the tragedy undeniable. Grant is not their idea
Now, the third chapter and the final tragedy. of a model President, nor are the Southern
Riding roughshod over Presidential vetoes and carpetbag governments worthy of their unquali-
federal courts, the radicals put the South under fied praise. They understand that the radical
military occupation, gave the ballot to Negroes, Republicans were not all selfiess patriots and that
and formed new Southern state governments Southern white men were not all Negro-hating
dominated by base and corrupt men, black and rebels. In short, they have not turned history on
white. Not satisfied with reducing the South to its head, but rather, they recognize that much of
political slavery and financial bankruptcy, the what Dunning's disciples have
disciples have said about
radicals even laid their obscene hands on the pure reconstruction is true.
fabric of the federal Constitution. They impeach- Revisionists, however, have discovered that the
ed President Johnson and came within one vote Dunningites overlooked a great deal, and they
of removing him from office, though they had no doubt that nobility and idealism suddenly died in
legal grounds for such action. Next, they elected 1865. They are neither surprised nor disillusioned
Ulysses S. Grant President, and during his two to find that the Civil War, for all its nobility,
administrations they indulged in such an orgy of revealed some of the ugliness of human nature
corruption and so prostituted the civil service as as well. And they approach reconstruction with
to make Grantism an enduring symbol of political the confident expectation that here, too, every
immorality.
facet of human nature will be exposed. They are
The last chapter is the story of ultimate not satisfied with the two-dimensional characters
redemption. Decent Southern white Democrats, that Dunning's disciples have painted.
their patience exhausted, organized to drive the
Negroes, carpetbaggers, and scalawags from power,
What is perhaps most puzzling in the legend of
reconstruction is the notion that the white people
peacefully if possible, forcefully if necessary. One
of the South were treated with unprecedented
by one the Southern states were redeemed,
honesty and virtue triumphed, and the South's
brutality, that their conquerors, in Bowers's
natural leaders returned to power. In the spring
colorful phrase, literally put them to the torture.
of 1877, the Tragic Era finally came to an end
How, in fact, were they treated after the failure
when President Hayes withdrew the federal
of their rebellion against the authority of the
troops from the South and restored home rule.
federal government? The great mass of ordinary
But the legacy of radical reconstruction remained
Soucherners who voluntarily took up arms, or in
in the form of a solidly Democratic South and
ocher ways supported the Confederacy, were re-
quired simply to take an oath of allegiance LO
embittered relations between the races.
obtain pardon and to regain their right to vote
and hold public office. But what of the Confeder-
THIS POINT OF VIEW was rarely challenged unul ate leaders-the men who held high civil offices,
the 1930's, when a small group of revisionist often after resigning similar federal offices; the
historians began to give new life and a new military leaders who had graduated from West
direction to the study of reconstruction. The Point and had resigned commissions in the
revisionists are a curious lot who sometimes United States Army to take commissions in the
quarrel with each other as much as they quarrel Confederate Army? Were there mass arrests,
,
with the disciples of Dunning. At various times indictments for treason or conspiracy, trials and
they have counted in their ranks Marxists of convictions, executions or imprisonments? Nothing
various degrees of orthodoxy, Negroes seeking of the sort. Officers of the Confederate Army were
historical vindication, skeptical white Southern- paroled and sent home with their men. After
ers, and latter-day Northern abolitionists. But surrendering at Appomattox, General Lee bade
among them are numerous scholars who have the
farewell to his troops and rode home to live his
wisdom to know that the history of an age is remaining years undisturbed. Only one officer, a
seldom simple and clear-cut, seldom without its Captain Henry Wirtz, was arrested; and he was
tragic aspects, seldom without its redeeming tried, convicted, and executed, not for treason or
irtues.
conspiracy, but for "war crimes." Wiruz's alleged
Few revisionists would claim that the Dunning offense, for which the evidence was rather flimsy,
.nterpretation of reconstruction is a pure fabrica. was the mistreatment of prisoners of war in the
uon. They recognize the shabby aspects of this military prison at Andersonville, Georgia.
236
most
39. The Tragic Legend of Reconstruction
went into the South on slender budgets to build
Of the Confederate civil officers, a handful were
churches and schools for the freedmen. Under
arrested at the close of the war, and there was
their auspices the Negroes first began to learn the
alk for a time of crying a few for treason. But
responsibilities and obligations of freedom. Thus
none, actually, was ever brought to trial, and all
the training of Negroes for citizenship had its
but Jefferson Davis were released within a few
successful beginnings in the years of reconstruc-
months. The former Confederate President was
held in prison for nearly two years, but in
tion.
In the 19th century most white Americans,
1867 he, too, was released. With a few exceptions,
North and South, had reservations about the
even the property of Confederate leaders was
untouched, save, of course, for the emancipation Negro's potentialities-doubted that he had the
of their slaves. Indeed, the only penalty imposed innate intellectual capacity and moral fiber of the
on most Confederate leaders was a temporary white man and assumed that after emancipation
political disability provided in the Fourteenth he would be relegated to an inferior caste. But
Amendment. But in 1872 Congress pardoned all some of the radical Republicans refused to believe
but a handful of Southerners; and soon former that the Negroes were innately inferior and
Confederate civil and military leaders were serv- hoped passionately that they would confound
ing as state governors, as members of Congress, their critics. The radicals then had little empirical
and even as Cabinet advisers of Presidents. evidence and no scientific evidence to support
What, then, constituted the alleged brutality their belief-nothing, in fact, but faith. Their
that white Southerners endured? First, the free- faith was derived mostly from their religion: ali
ing of their slaves; second, the brief incarceration men, they said, are the sons of Adam and equal in
of a few Confederate leaders; third, a political the sight of God. And if Negroes are equal to
disability imposed for a few years on white men in the sight of God, it is morally
Confederale leaders; fourth, a relatively weak wrong for white men to withhold from Negroes the
military occupation terminated in 1877; and, last, liberties and rights that white men enjoy. Here,
an attempt to extend the rights and privileges of surely, was a projection into the reconstruction
citizenship to Southern Negroes. Mistakes there era of the idealism of the abolitionist crusade and
vere in the implementation of these measures- of the Civil War.
some of them serious-but brutality almost none. Radical idealism was in part responsible for
In fact, it can be said that rarely in history have two of the most momentous enactments of the
the participants in an unsuccessful rebellion reconstruction years: the Fourteenth Amendment
endured penalties as mild as those Congress to the Federal Constitution which gave Negroes
imposed upon the people of the South, and citizenship and promised them equal protection
particularly upon their leaders. After four years of the laws, and the Fifteenth Amendment
of bitter struggle costing hundreds of thousands of which gave them the right to vote. The fact that
lives, the generosity of the federal government's these amendments could not have been adopted
terms was quite remarkable.
under any other circumstances, or at any other
If Northern brutality is a myth, the scandals of time, before or since, may suggest the crucial
the Grant administration and the peculations of importance of the reconstruction era in American
some of the Southern reconstruction governments history. Indeed, without radical reconstruction, it
are sordid facts. Yet even here the Dunningites would be impossible to this day for the federal
are guilty of distortion by exaggeration, by a lack government to protect Negroes from legal and
of perspective, by superficial analysis, and by
political discrimination.
overemphasis. They make corruption a central
theme of their narratives, but they overlook IF ALL OF this is true, or even part of it, why was
constructive accomplishments. They give insuffi- the Dunning legend born, and why has it been so
cient attention to the men who transcended the durable? Southerners, of course, have contributed
greed of an age when, to be sure, self-serving much to the legend of reconstruction, but most
politicians and irresponsible entrepreneurs were Northerners have found the legend quite accept-
all too plentiful. Among these men were the able. Many of the historians who helped to create
humanitarians who organized Freedmen's Aid it were Northerners, among them James Ford
societies to help four million Southern Negroes Rhodes, William A. Dunning, Claude Bowers,
make the dificult transition from slavery to and James G. Randall. Thus the legend cannot
freedom, and the missionaries and teachers who be explained simply in terms of a Southern
232
4. THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION
literary or historiographical conspiracy, satisfying
as the legend has been to most white Southerners.
What we need to know is why it also satishes
Northerners-how it became part of the inteller-
cual baggage of so many Northern historians. Why.
in short, was there for so many years a kind of
national, or inter-sectional, consensus that the
Civil War was America's glory and reconstruction
her disgrace?
The Civil War won its place in the hearts of the
American people because, by the end of the 19th
century, Northerners were willing to concede that
Southerners had fought bravely for a cause that
they believed to be just; while Southerners,
with few exceptions, were willing to concede that
the outcome of the war was probably best for all
concerned. In an era of intense nationalism, both
Northerners and Southerners agreed that the
preservation of the federal Union was essential
to the future power of the American people.
Southerners could even say now that the abolition
of slavery was one of the war's great blessings-
not so much, they insisted, because slavery was an
injustice to the Negroes but because it was a
grievous burden upon the whites. By 1886, Henry
W. Grady, the great Georgia editor and spokes-
man for a New South, could confess to a New
York audience: "I am glad that the omniscient
God held the balance of battle in His Almighty
hand, and that human slavery was swept forever
from American soil-the American Union saved
from the wreck of war.' Soon Union and
Confederate veterans were holding joint reunions,
exchanging anecdotes, and sharing their senti-
mental memories of those glorious war years. The
Civil War thus took its position in the center of
American folk mythology.
were to be governed by a separate code of laws;
they were to play no active part in the South's
political life; and they • were to be segregated
socially. When radical Republicans used federal
power to interfere in these matters, the majority
of Southern white men formed a resistance move-
ment to fight the radical-dominated state govern-
ments until they were overthrown, after which
Southern whites established a caste system in
defiance of federal statutes and constitutional
amendments. For many decades thereafter the
federal government simply admitted defeat and
acquiesced; but the South refused to forget or
forgive those years of humiliation when Negrocs
came close to winning equality. In Southern
mythology, then, reconstruction was a horrid
nightmare.
As for the majority of Northern white men, it
is hard to tell how deeply they were concerned
about the welfare of the American Negro after the
abolition of slavery. If one were to judge from the
way they treated the small number of free Negroes
who resided in the Northern states, one might
conclude that they were, at best, indifferent to the
problem--and that a considerable number of them
shared the racial attitudes of the South and
preferred to keep Negroes in a subordinate caste.
For a time after the Civil War the radical
Republicans, who were always a minority group,
persuaded the Northern electorate that the
ultimate purpose of Southern white men was to
rob the North of the fruits of victory and to
re-establish slavery and that federal intervention
was therefore essential. In this manner radicals
won approval of, or acquiescence in, their pro-
gram to give civil rights and the ballot to
Southern Negroes. Popular support for the radical
program waned rapidly, however, and by the
middle of the 1870's it had all but vanished. In
1875 a Republican politician confessed that
Northern voters were tired of the "worn-out cry
of 'southern outrages,
and they wished that
"the 'nigger,' the 'everlasting nigger' were in-
Africa." As Northerners ceased to worry about the
possibility of another Southern rebellion, they
became increasingly receptive to criticism of
radical reconstruction.
The eventual disintegration of the radical
phalanx, those root-and-branch men who, for a
time, seemed bent on engineering a sweeping
reformation of Southern society, was another
important reason for the denigration of recon.
struction in American historiography. To be sure,
some of the radicals, especially those who had
That the reconstruction era elicits neither pride
nor sentimentality is due only in part to its moral
delinquencies-remeinber, those of the Civil War
years can be overlooked. It is also due to the
white American's ambivalent attitude toward race
and toward the steps that radical Republicans
took to protect the Negroes. Southern white men
accepted the Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution, which abolished slavery, with a
minimum of complaint, but they expected federal
intervention to proceed no further than that.
They assumed that the regulation of the freed.
men would be left to the individual states; and
clearly most of them intended to replace slavery
with a caste system that would keep the Negroes
perpetually subordinate to the whites. Negroes
were to remain a dependent laboring class; they
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