Done By: Prishnika Mazumdar

Roll no. 22/HIS/43 Batch: 2022-2026

Course: B.A. (Hons) History Paper: History of USA
Submitted to: Dr. Jitendra Kumar
Assignment question: In view of the different historical interpretations on Reconstruction, would it
be justified to call it a ‘splendid failure’?

Introduction
The era of rebuilding the devastated South, reuniting the country and more significantly establishing
civil rights for the freed blacks was called the Reconstruction era, the era that immediately followed
the civil war and lasted between 1865 and 1877. The essay attempts to investigate the developments
that took place during reconstruction phase in the United States of America and with that it explores
the different perspectives that dominated the perception of historians and the changes in them with
changing times.

Body
Events through Reconstruction period

We start with Abraham Lincoln, who even before the Civil War ended, devised a plan called the
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction to reintegrate Confederate States into the Union. This
plan required at least ten percent of the state's 1860 voters to pledge loyalty to the Union and accept
emancipation, excluding African Americans who couldn't vote in 1860. Confederate and military
officials also had to seek a presidential pardon. This plan created tension among white Southerners
and raised questions about the fate of African Americans.

While Andrew Johnson had similarities to Lincoln, he lacked his popularity and had personal flaws
that hindered his effectiveness as a president. Despite initially being favoured by Radical Republicans,
Johnson's racist views became evident. Johnson's fear of an alliance between former slaves and their
former masters, which he believed would marginalize poor white yeomen, was largely unfounded.
Besides, the friction between Johnson and Congress intensified as Johnson vetoed the Freedmen's
Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, both of which were intended to safeguard the rights of
African Americans and provide them with legal protections. Congress not only overrode the vetoes
but also went on to pass the Tenure of Office Act, the act required Senate approval for the removal of
several officeholders, inclusive of the cabinet members. As Johnson violated this act by attempting to
dismiss the secretary of state resulting in his impeachment. Johnson managed acquittal by a single
vote however, his authority diminished. Eventually, Congress’s approach prevailed leading to the
passage of Reconstruction acts of 1867 and the establishment of a military government in the South.

Finally, the 15th amendment was brought in 1870, the amendment prohibited the federal and state
governments from denying a citizen their right to vote based on their race, colour or previous
condition of servitude. However, it must be noted that it did not assure voting rights for all as
limitations such as gender were not addressed. Prominent figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Susan Anthony actively campaigned for women’s rights. In 1869 Wyoming territory became the first
in USA to grant women the right to vote. It won’t be until 1919 that women got the right to vote.
Coming back to reconstruction, one of the central issues that dominated the times was that of a new
electorate: African-American suffrage and the disenfranchisement of former confederates. The
reconstruction acts of 1867 and 1868 not only divided the south into military districts but also made

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a provision for universal male suffrage. The blacks were in fact so immersed in politics by 1867 that
almost every black voter in the south had enrolled in the Union League or a similar local
organisation. But with the free blacks there also emerged on the scene what the traditional school
called the carpetbaggers and the scalawags. The opportunistic Northerners who migrated to the
South in an effort to reap the economic and political benefits with the traitorous white southern
republicans were behind the corruption that deflated the treasury according to the traditional
school. Also, a part of the equation were the redeemers, the southern Democrats who did all in their
capacity to exclude the blacks from the political process not to mention the intimidation and violence
unleashed by violent organisations like the Ku Klux Klan. In the meanwhile, African-American
institutions the likes of which were the Freedmen’s Bureau, Churches, Civil Rights Organisations all
played an instrumental role in the unfolding of reconstruction.

Radicals for long believed that redistribution of land would not only serve as a reassurance to the
freed blacks but also be an adequate punishment measure for the southern secessionists. In this vein
forty acres and a mule were promised to the former slaves, a promise that largely remained
unfulfilled. During reconstruction Sharecropping emerged as the prevalent labour system, one that
intended to provide economic independence but culminated in cycles of debt and dependence on
the landowners. Another arrangement that emerged was tenant farming, this system too was
saturated with struggles for the blacks. In this regard the Freedmen’s Bureau did play a part in
negotiating with the landowners to secure land for the former slaves besides, providing legal aid,
establishing schools among other efforts. Moreover, there emerged the Crop-Lien economy, a highly
exploitative arrangement that witnessed the farmers signing contracts or crop-liens wherein they
pledged their anticipated harvests as collateral for loans. The conditions of the crop-liens were highly
distorted in the favour of the local merchants with high interest rates and often clauses that
prevented the farmer from selling his harvest to anybody besides the local merchant or the
storekeeper.

Reconstruction in the north was not as drastic as it was in the South, it is important for us to
remember here that the dynamics and challenges of reconstruction varied. Ulysses S. Grant, the one
who served as the president of US between 1869-77 focused on civil rights, federal intervention in
the South and economic growth. His policies were known after him as Grantism, these though known
for some notable achievements were also tarnished by scandals and acquisitions of corruption.
Opposition to the re-election of Grant manifested in the Liberal Revolt that involved largescale
defection from the Republican party and the eventual revival of the Democratic party. If that was not
enough the Panic 1873 arose to exacerbate matters. Banks and brokerage houses failed and
international trade came to a stagnation. This economic crisis added to the waning support for
reconstruction. It was about time that many started to grow weary of reconstruction. There were
abandoned causes, ideological compromises, increasing resistance and finally realigning principles
that brought reconstruction to an inconclusive end. The Final blow was the election of 1876 that
witnessed a stalemate between Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes and Democratic candidate
Samuel J. Tilden. There were allegations of voter fraud that resulted in disputed electorates, the
dispute was resolved via the Compromise of 1877. The compromise meant that Hayes would be the
new President and also that federal troops from the South would be withdrawn bringing
reconstruction to an effective halt.

Changing Views of Reconstruction

The era of Reconstruction has been scrutinised by many and in the process different perspectives
have come to life. Grob and Billias note that how different scholars view the past is shaped by not

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only by their view of the past but also by their vision of the future. Until the 1960s the traditional
school remained in vogue. The views of this school were based on the work of William Dunning of
Columbia University, the prevailing view was that reconstruction was a time of chaos and an absolute
failure, a time when extreme corruption ensued as a result of corruption unleashed by the
carpetbaggers and the scalawags. The popularity of this school inflated among the masses with
movies like “Gone with the Wind” and Claude G. Bowers “The Tragic Era”. This school maintained
that reconstruction governments were expensive owing to corruption. Albert Moore, a proponent of
the Dunning school opined that reconstruction was “an attempt by the victor to punish the
vanquished”. The Dunning school went on conveniently place groups into baskets of good and evil.
The good included the Southern Democrats and republicans like Andrew Johnson and the bad were
the carpetbaggers, scalawags and most of all the radical vindictive republicans. Somewhere in
between were the former slaves, who were ignorant, incapable and helpless. It is here that the
existence of a massive loophole was discovered, that of considering the entire black race to be
racially inferior. Take for consideration John W. Burgess for whom black skin meant membership of a
race that was inferior and impotent. And this one was skilfully utilised by the Revisionists as one of
their key tools. While the Dunning school’s perception was based on intellectual and moral grounds
the ideas of the Revisionist school were based on economic grounds influenced by the progressive
movement. Francis B. Simkins with Robert Woody came to the conclusion that past historians had
painted a rather distorted picture of Reconstruction owing to their assumption of the blacks being
racially inferior. Revisionists tended to allow themselves an understanding of the problems in a
broader context, for instance the problem of corruption was one that the entire nation faced rather
than being limited to the South. As far as the question of the reconstruction governments being
corrupt and dishonest was concerned, they addressed it with the reason that these governments
were installed after the civil war which necessitated spendings on recovery. Besides, the radical
governments worked for the welfare of the blacks, betterment of infrastructure to bring the former
slaves on an equal footing at least in theory. Moreover, the Revisionists broke the stereotype of
Carpetbaggers and scalawags arguing that each was a diverse group and had little in common to be
stamped as a group. This was true for the freed blacks just as well, we have Thomas Holt and Nell
Painter’s observation that representative coloured man belonged to the old free Mulatto class,
detached from concerns for the vast majority of blacks. Although the Neo-revisionists accepted most
of the findings of the revisionists, they were of the view that the republicans were united by their
pro-business interest, for the neo-revisionists the foundation was built upon moral issues. They
recognised the complexity of the republicans and argues that the radicals had idealistic reasons that
motivated their effort to eradicate slavery. Kenneth Stampp notes that if it was worth 4 years of civil
war to save the union then it was worth a few more years of reconstruction to give the Negro his
political and civil rights. This school maintains that the radicals failed in their efforts and with them
failed reconstruction. Their failure was in the conscious and unconscious racial aversions of a vast
majority of the white American population sheltered that prevented them from accepting the blacks
as their equals. This was also noted by Allen Trelease who observed that by 1865 racism was
entrenched in the psyche of the white American and further that the federal government failed to
nurture seeds of democracy. By the 1960s the New Left began to re-evaluate reconstruction, for
them too reconstruction was a failure. Scholars like Staughton Lynd concluded that the “fundamental
error” was that reconstruction did not give the freedmen land of their own. This was also a time
when individual historians like Keith Polakoff concluded that there was great deal of factionalism in
the political parties of America. Later William Gillette in his study argued that the “fragmented and
fragile” nature of reconstruction was the reason why it could be reversed with such ease.

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Reconstruction despite being a failure in the eyes of many was not without achievements. The 14 th
and 15th amendments that gave the blacks equal citizenship and the black man his right to vote
respectively were significant. Besides, Eric Foner puts forth the idea that the attainment of
reconstruction cannot be assessed in facts and figures for it had an emotional aspect too. More than
anything reconstruction was successful in raising the aspirations and expectations of the African-
Americans, it transformed their social standing for the better.

Conclusion
Finally, addressing the question of whether or not reconstruction was a “splendid failure”, we must
realise here that these were the words of W.E.B. Du Bois who used these words to refer to the grand
animating vision of reconstruction: Reconstruction envisioned a society where advancement would
be based upon individual merits and not inherited caste distinctions. There is little doubt that
reconstruction did fail to achieve such a high ideal that America even today struggles to attain.
However, it is also true that reconstruction wasn’t as much a failure as it was made to be by the
Dunning school. As tragedies were blown out of proportion reconstruction became a complete and
absolute disappointment. This followed by the revisionist school that though focused on the rosy
side of the picture was practically optimistic. They accepted the failure of reconstruction but not
without highlighting the high points of the phase. The neo-revisionists though similar in their
argument with the revisionists were influenced by the egalitarian cause that prevailed through the
1940s. To the New Left Reconstruction was but another unhappy phase in the history of America.
Grob and Billias note that the particular interpretations sprouted out of and reflected their own
milieau. And the determination of its failure thus was also dependent upon the ideas that dominated
the time. If we were allowed the luxury of viewing the different schools as a spectrum I would place
the Dunning school on the extreme right, the revisionist school on the extreme left and the neo-
revisionist and new left somewhere in between and for myself I would choose to incline towards the
Revisionists. Undeniably reconstruction had its flaws and the most fatal one being that the greater
part of white Americans could not be convinced to view the African-Americans as their equals. These
underlying prejudices were in fact what materialised in the failure of reconstruction.

Sources
Foner, Eric (1988). Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. United States:
Harper Collins e-books.

Foner, Eric (October/November, 1983). The New View of Reconstruction. American Heritage, Vol. 34, I
Issue 6.

Grob, Gerald (1971). “Reconstruction: An American Morality Play,” in American History:

Retrospective and Prospect, Edited by George A. Billias and Gerald N. Grob. New York: Free Press.

Class lectures by Dr. Jitendra Kumar.

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