I. THE TRADITIONAL IMAGE OF RECONSTRUCTION: BLACK, REPUBLICAN CARPETBAG RULE

In 1915 D.W. Griffith produced the film Birth of A Nation. It depicted Reconstruction as an attempt by vindictive and corrupt Northern politicians to "put the white South under the heel of the black South." The film shows Lincoln as a wise statesman, but his assassination brings the evil and vengeful Radical Republicans to power. Thaddeus Stevens, Congressman from PA, under the influence of a mulatto mistress, devises a devilish plot to oppress and humiliate the white South. And the South Carolina legislature is shown as a mob of grinning, barefooted blacks with their feet up on the desks, carousing at the taxpayers' expense.

The film features two climactic episodes. In the first, a Southern white maiden is pursued through the forest by a "renegade Negro." To escape the lascivious or lustful embrace of this beast, she throws herself over a cliff and kills herself. In a second episode the daughter of a Northern Republican in the South is being forced into marriage to a mulatto politician. But at the crucial moment someone rides to the rescue to save her. The Ku Klux Klan rides to the rescue and saves her. And even the father, a professed champion of black equality, rejoices in the triumph of racial purity.

The message of the film, of course, is that the Klan saved the South and white civilization from a fate worse then death. And what was this fate worse than death?

The loss of 1.white supremacy

2. racial purity (fear of amalgamation or race mixture)

3. control over the Negro

President Woodrow Wilson, born in the South, was an historian and had been president of Princeton University. He approved the film as historically sound and sadly "oh so true." The movie was a spectacular success. A generation of American came to regard it as historical truth. And its message was that Reconstruction had been a tragic mistake. As racist propaganda, in the United States, Birth of A Nation is without equal.

In the 1890s and at the turn of the century several historians disseminated a similar view. James Ford Rhodes described Reconstruction as "repressive" and "uncivilized," and as pandering to the ignorant Negroes, the knavish native whites and the vulturous adventurers who flocked from the North." (Stampp, Era of Reconstruction, p. 5-6). At the turn of the century John W. Burgess of Columbia denounced reconstruction as the "most soul-sickening spectacle that Americans had ever been called upon to behold." (Stampp, p. 6).

In 1907 William Dunning of Columbia and his graduate students wrote crushing indictments of Reconstruction, and in the 1930s James Randall of the University of Illinois characterized Reconstruction as a period of "party abuse, corruption and vindictive bigotry." [Ibid] In 1929 Claude Bowers published The Tragic Era, essentially giving legitimacy to the views of Griffith. Bowers paints the picture of gross corruption around Ulysses S. Grant; scheming northern carpetbaggers who invaded the South after the war for political and economic plunder; degraded and depraved Southern scalawags who betrayed their own people and collaborated with the enemy; and ignorant, barbarous, sensual negroes who threatened to Africanize the South and destroy Caucasian civilization. (Stampp, p. 5).

To recapitulate, the picture was that the Radical Republicans, in a fit of vengeance, and out of a desire to punish and humiliate the South, "put the South to the torture." The poor ex-Confederates, who had only been fighting for what they believed in, were stripped of their property and barred from voting or holding office. The South was subjected to the horror of black rule, as illiterate, savage, ex-slaves took over the courts, and the militia and the state legislatures. African barbarism descended upon the South.

Hand in hand with the black barbarians were the Northern carpetbaggers, who dropped upon the war-ravaged South like a flock of vultures and seized the land. The Carpetbaggers, in this view, raised taxes, drove Southerners into bankruptcy, and then took the land. The Northern jackals took advantage of the economic misery and suffering of the South to exploit her and to profit from her distress. This was opportunism at its worst.

And even some lower class whites, the scalawags, betrayed their race by becoming Republicans and joining with the Northern carpetbag vultures and the lustful black barbarians, to destroy white civilization in the South.

Unfortunately the Dunning-Bowers-Griffith view was very popular and widespread, and very strong until World War II and the Fifites. Writing in 1965, however, Stampp is at pains to refute this view.
 
 

2. A GRAIN OF TRUTH: RECONSTRUCTION AS A SUBJECTIVE TRAUMA FOR THE WHITE SUPREMACIST SOUTH

But there is one grain of truth in the traditional view. For the white supremacist South, Reconstruction was subjectively perceived as a trauma. Their world was turned upside down. For the racist South, it was a nightmare. The blacks, as supposedly inferior savages and ex-slaves, were now free. They had citizenship rights. They could vote.

But the ex-Confederates, who after all regarded themselves as racially superior, were excluded from voting and holding office. And there were regiments of black soldiers with guns patrolling the South. It was all just too much. The white South felt itself ruled by a foreign conqueror, that being the Yankees, especially the Republicans, who were collaborating with the blacks and using black votes to maintain themselves in power. This traditional picture is the myth of black, Republican, carpetbag rule.

3. THE BLACK BELT [Map of Black Belt]

The foundation of black and Republican political strength was the so-called Black Belt. This was the areas with the best soil, rich, black soil. This was the tidewater or the low-country, usually down in the valleys. It was where the plantations had been, and where the slaves had been. During slavery the planters had monopolized the land here because it was the very best. As the price of the land rose, and property values rose, the poorer whites could not afford to buy this land and were pushed up into the hills, where the soil was not as good. In these old plantation counties forty percent or more of the population was black. Obviously in these counties, if blacks voted, they would vote for blacks or for Republicans.
 

But black population was not evenly distributed throughout the Southern states. Rather it was concentrated in these counties. The other counties were typically called the upcountry, or the white counties, because they were overwhelmingly white.

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Stampp's book is devoted to refuting the traditional view

4. THE MYTH OF BLACK RULE

On page 169 Stampp gives the actual figures for the state constitutional conventions for each of the Southern states, when blacks could vote but ex-Confederates were excluded. (Pg. 4 of HANDOUT)

STATE      BLACKS      WHITES

ALA             18           90

ARK              8           58

FLA             18           27

GA               33         137

LOUIS        49          49

MISS           16           84

NC               15          118

SC          76           48

VA                25           80

TEXAS           9           81

As we can see, only in the convention in South Carolina did blacks have a majority (76-48), and in Louisiana it was equally divided, 49 blacks to 49 whites. The notion that blacks dominated the state constitutional conventions of 1867-1870 simply is not true.

5. BLACK RECONSTRUCTION

While there was not black rule or domination, blacks were involved in politics during Reconstruction.

1. STATE LEGISLATURES

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

After the new constitutions were ratified by the eligible voters, and civilian governments were elected, the state of South Carolina had a black majority in the lower house for 6 years, from 1868-1874 (Stampp, p. 167). It was the only state in which blacks had a majority in a house of the state legislature. Blacks were about a third of the upper house. In no state did blacks ever control both houses of the state legislature.

B) US SENATE

During Reconstruction two blacks served in the U.S. Senate. They were Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi. Hiram Revels was born in North Carolina in 1822, of free parents. He was educated at a Quaker school. In 1861 he organized two regiments of black troops from Maryland. In Jan. 1870 Revels was named by the Mississippi legislature to fill the remainder of the unexpired term of Jeff Davis. Revels served for 1 year, to March 1871. Later he served as the president of Alcorn A&M College, in Mississippi.

Blanche K. Bruce, a Republican,  (born 1841) was elected in 1874 and his term ran to 1880.  Blanche K. Bruce had been born a slave in Virginia. He had been a valet or body servant to the son of a wealthy planter and thus had been permitted some education. When his master took him to the Confederate Army Bruce escaped. He entered Oberlin College for 2 years of study. After the war he became a landowner and politician. In later years the Republicans named him register of the Treasury Dept. (1881-1885, 1895-1898), and recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia (1889-1895). He was also a trustee of Howard University.

C) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

With respect to the House of Representatives, during and after Reconstruction 14 blacks served in the House. Six of the 14 were from South Carolina. One of these was Joseph Rainey. Rainey served from 1870-1878. Rainey was a mulatto. His mother was a slave, his father was a white man who purchased Rainey and gave him his freedom.

D) GOVERNORS

During the winter of 1872 a black man named Pinckney B.S. Pinchback served as acting governor of Louisiana for 43 days. He had been the lieutenant governor before this. Pinchback had raised a regiment of Union volunteers in New Orleans during the war. In 1872 he was elected to the US House of Representatives. Pinchback was the son of a white Mississippi planter and a freed mulatto slave woman. The father took all 10 of his children north and freed them. Pinchback had received a formal education. In 1873 Pinchback was elected by the Louisiana state legislature to the US Senate. Ultimately Democrats mustered enough votes to refuse to seat him.
 

F) SOUTH CAROLINA

The peak of black Reconstruction was in South Carolina. In 1860 there had been 412,000 blacks and 291,000 whites. In 1867, with ex-Confederates excluded, there were 80,000 black make voters and 46,000 white male voters. (Bennett, p. 233)

In South Carolina Alonzo Ransier and Richard Gleaves served as lieutenant governors. Two blacks served a speakers of the house in 1872 and 1874. They were Samuel Lee and Robert Elliott. Francis Cardozo served as secretary of state and treasurer between 1868 and 1876. Jonathan Wright served on the South Carolina Supreme Court from 1870-1877. On p. 167 Stampp gives information for the various states.

Blacks did have a voice in government. But the notion of black rule or domination is quite overblown. There was no black supremacy during econstruction, as the Klan mythology would have everyone believe.
 

6. CORRUPTION

The traditional image also emphasizes the role of corruption by the Republican regimes. It was said that the Northern Republican carpetbaggers raised taxes, drove the landowners into bankruptcy, and then swooped down to claim their land. Further, there was rampant looting of th epublic treasury. Though these charges are exaggerated, there were instances of corruption.

In South Carolina Governor Franklin Moses looted the treasury from 1872-1874, and repeatedly took bribes for using his influence to secure the passage of legislation.

In Louisiana Governor Henry Warmouth pocketed $100,000. His salary was $8,000. Governor William Kellogg accepted bribes and was corrupt in granting construction contracts, the use of school funds, printing contracts and the collection of taxes.

However Stampp feels that the Republican corruption was no worse than the Democratic corruption of New York's Tammany Hall, or the bribery of Northern state legislators by the railroads in the same time period. Two wrongs do not make a right, but it is a distortion of history to pretend that the Republican regimes during Reconstruction had some kind of monopoly on corruption and had somehow cornered the market on it.
 

7. TAXES

It IS the case that taxes rose under the Republican regimes. However Stampp wants us to understand why this was so. The South had been devastated by the war.

A) REBUILDING AFTER THE WAR

It was necessary to rebuild roads, bridges, railroads and public buildings.

2. EDUCATION

C) HOSPITALS AND SOCIAL WELFARE

The Republican Reconstruction regimes also built hospitals, such as the state hospitals at Vicksburg and Natchez in Mississippi. They built asylums for the deaf, blind and retarded. Previously these people had been put in the barn somewhere or actually shipped to institutions in the North. But once again this kind of social welfare cost money.

D) ATTRACTING BUSINESS INVESTMENT

But in addition, the Republican regimes wanted to attract Northern capital and business investment. They wanted to attract iron, coal and lumber companies. They wanted to attract the railroad companies and textile plants. They resorted to public borrowing and bonds to subsidize railroad construction. On pages 175-176 Stampp explains that in SC the tax rate doubled between 1860 and 1870. In the South as a whole it quadrupled. But to take Alabama as an example (p. 181), the state debt under the Republicans rose to $20 million. But $18 million of the $20 million was for state bonds to subsidize the railroads. Borrowing and taxes are sometimes needed to attract business investment. For better or worse, the Republican regimes were pursuing a policy of trying to attract this investment.

THE NORTHERN REPUBLICAN RETREAT FROM RECONSTRUCTION

In his final chapter Stampp describes the Northern, Republican retreat from Reconstruction and blacks in the South. By 1877 the Republican Party abandoned Reconstruction and the regimes of the South. Stampp offers several reasons for why this occurred.

1. DESIRE FOR RECONCILIATION

First, the white North desired reconciliation with the white South. The North wanted to put the war behind it, and so in May 1872 Congress passed an Amnesty Act. It restored the right of officeholding to the vast majority of ex-Confederates who had not already been pardoned. All except then men who served in the US Congress and then joined the Confederacy, or who had been officers in the US Army and then participated in the Rebellion, were pardoned.

2. LOSS OF THE RADICAL LEADERSHIP

Second, the major Radical leaders had died, lost their seats or been neutralized. Thaddeus Stevens, the architect of Radical Reconstruction, died in 1868. Joshua Giddings, Edwin Stanton and Salmon Chase died. In 1869 Benjamin Wade lost his seat in the Senate. In 1870 George Julian lost his seat. Charles Sumner and Carl Schurz broke with President Grant, and Grant's followers destroyed Sumner's power in the Senate. So by 1870 the Radical leadership was gone.

3. DIVISION WITHIN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

Third, the Grant administration was rocked by scandal and corruption, and this led to a split within the Republican Party between the pro-Grant Stalwart Republicans and the reform minded Liberal Republicans. In 1872 the Liberal Republicans nominated Horace Greeley, and the Democrats nominated him as well. Grant won the election anyway. But the continuing division in the Republican ranks and the scandals in Grant's second term all weakened the Republican Party.

4. DEPRESSION OF 1873-1877

Fourth, and perhaps most decisively, in the fall of 1873 the nation slipped into a depression, which lasted to 1878 (65 months). By 1876 half of the railroads in the country defaulted. One hundred banks failed, 18,000 businesses failed, and 3 million people were unemployed [unemployment reached fifteen percent of the labor force] (John Faragher, Out Of Many, p. 507). The North was preoccupied with economic problems closer to home, and the problems of the South seemed distant and far away. The Republican Party, as the party in power, was discredited by the economic collapse.

5. DEMOCRATS WIN CONTROL OF CONGRESS IN 1874

Fifth, in the Congressional elections of 1874 the Republicans lost their majority in the House of Representatives to the Democrats. The people blamed the Republicans for mismanaging the economy, and "threw the rascals out." The people voted for the Democrats. They opposed any federal military intervention in the South. After 1874 the president could not count on the approval of Congress for military intervention in the South. Indeed in 1876 the House Democrats refused to pass the army appropriation bill in order to force the president to withdraw the federal troops from the South. The Democratic majority in the House made it political dynamite for a president to act in the South.
 

6. DESIRE FOR GOOD (ORDERLY) BUSINESS CLIMATE

Sixth, Stampp argues that business interests in the North very much wanted reconciliation with the South, and the restoration of order, to bring about a good business or investment climate. Northern firms wanted to invest in the raw materials of the South-- in iron ore, coal, lumber, oil-- and the disturbances in the South troubled Wall Street. Wall Street wanted whatever would quiet the South down. The white South said what it wanted was the end of Republican rule and black insubordination. (Stampp, p. 206-207).

7. INDUSTRIALIZATION OF MIDWEST

Seventh, on p. 212 Stampp argues that by 1876 the once agricultural and Democratic states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan--the so-called Old Northwest-- had become industrialized. The emergence of industrial interests there, and the growth of Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago, now made this region more reliably Republican. The immigrants and workers in the cities tended toward the Democratic Party, but the suburbs turned to the Republican Party (even in the 1860s). As a result the Republican Party no longer felt that it was so desperately dependent upon the black vote in the South. With the Midwest becoming industrial and Republican, the Party no longer needed the South. In a word, the Southern black Republican vote had now become expendable. A Republican Midwest replaced the need for a Republican South.

8. NORTH FEELS IT HAS DONE ENOUGH

And in addition, the white North felt that it had done enough for blacks in the South. It felt that political rights were enough. The North was simply tired of the whole issue. It asked, "What more do we have to do for you people. We abolished slavery. We gave you citizenship. We gave you the vote. Do we have to stay down there and hold your hand, too?" Northerners had no understanding of either the violence of the South or the economic conditions there. They did not understand why "rugged individualism" was not enough.

There are other reasons one could discuss. But these are some of the ones discussed by Stampp.