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Review: The New Orthodoxy in Reconstruction HistoriographyAuthor(s): Herman BelzReview by: Herman BelzSource: Reviews in American History, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Mar., 1973), pp. 106-113Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2701693Accessed: 08-03-2015 02:02 UTC

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2/9

106

REVIEWS

IN AMERICAN HISTORY /

March 1973

grateful hat

ProfessorMyers

has reintroduceds to the worldof

theseplanters.

n

the long

run the legendof antebellum

plendor

can do no harm, and it may even serve as an antidote to the

equally

pious

but newer myths

bout

slaves.

But only

at

some

peril will Americans

orget he price exacted

n blood and racial

squalor to preserve

he antasies f the Children f Pride, title

forus all to

bear.

BertramWyatt-Brown

Department f

History,

Case Western eserveUniversity

Mr. Wyatt-Brown's

tudy,Lewis,Tappan and

the EvangelicalWar

against

Slavery

was

recently

ssued

in

a

paperback

edition by

Atheneum

ublishers.

THE NEW ORTHODOXY IN

RECONSTRUCTION

HISTORIOGRAPHY

Robert Cruden,

The Negro

in Reconstruction. nglewood

Cliffs,

N.J.: Prentice-Hall,

969. Pp. ix

+

182, bibl.,

ndex,$5.95 (cloth),

$2.45 (paper).

Thomas H. O'Connor,

The DisunitedStates:

The

Era of CivilWar

and Reconstruction. ew

York:

Dodd,

Mead & Company,1972.

Pp. xi

+

272,

maps, llus.,bibl., ndex,$3.95

(paper).

Allen W.Trelease, Reconstruction: he Great Experiment.New

York: Harper

& Row, 1971.

Pp. xii +224, illus., bibl., index,

$4.95.

A decade

ago

a survey

of

Reconstruction

istoriography

on-

cluded

that while the

interpretation

f the

Dunning school

had

been

pretty

well

refuted,

o new

synthesis

ad

emerged

o take ts

place. Clearly this

is no

longer

the

case.

In

recent

years

studies

havebegunto appearwhich ignifyhecrystallizationfa viewof

Reconstruction

hat will probably

emain

tandard

or some

time

to

come.

Three new

books

by Thomas

H.

O'Connor,

Robert

Cruden,

and Allen W.

Trelease

give

evidence of

this

synthesis.

Directed owardthe student

nd general eader,

hey on irm hat

the

battle in

which

the revisionists

ngaged

o

long

s

over.

They

also suggest,

however,

hat

a

new

orthodoxy s formingwhich

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/9

BELZ /

ReconstructionHistoriography

107

itself s

open

to

question.

This

new

orthodoxy

oes not

go

so

far

as

to

say,

as a new Civil War revisionism

ould

have

it,

that the

new birth f

freedom f which

Lincoln poke never ccurred, hat

the CivilWar dead died invain.No one who studiesReconstruc-

tion

can

quite

come to

that

conclusion.Nevertheless,here

s a

tendency

in recent

revisionism-and

t

can be seen

in

these

books-to

conclude not

only

that Reconstruction

ailed,

but that

it was

fatally

flawed

from the

very

outset because it did not

revolutionize andholding

n

the South. As the

conservative

southern

view no longer

finds erious expression, new line of

conflict appears to be

emergingbetween

a liberal political

interpretation hich argues

that substantial

hough

short-lived

gains were made by blacks duringReconstruction,nd a more

radical economic

interpretation

hich holds that

very

little of

significance as

accomplished,

r at least

very

ittlerelative o

what

was

possible.

Revisionist

conclusions arrived

t

over the

past

thirtyyears

provide heunderpinningnd

interpretiveramework

f the three

books

under

consideration.

Howard

K.

Beale

established

the

fundamental

heme of

revisionistnquiry

n

1940

when he asked

whethertwasn'ttime to study heperiodwithout ssuminghatcarpetbaggersnd SouthernwhiteRepublicanswere wicked,that

Negroes were

incompetent,

nd that white southernerswed a

debt

of

gratitude

o the

restorers

f

white supremacy.

eale also

urged

an

analysis

of the motivating orces

n

Reconstruction.

o

the

early

revisionists,oncernedwith

the

Radical

governments,

issues

of

economic and political power stood out.

As attention

turned o understandingow Radical policiescame

to be adopted

anyway,

t

began

to

appear

that

democratic dealism

was involved

as well.

Racism,

a force that was

candidly

acknowledged

f

differentlyescribed n the conservativenterpretation,as also

figured

n

recent

tudies.However

hey are related,

heseare seen

as the

dynamic

orces

n

Reconstruction.

Cruden,

O'Connor,

and

Trelease all

assignmajor responsibility

for

bringing

n

Radical

Reconstruction o Andrew

Johnson,

who

by refusing

o

compromise

orcedmoderate

Republicans

o

join

with

Radicals

in

adopting

he Reconstruction ct

of

1867.

Only

slightly

ess

responsibilityelongs

to

southerners hemselves

or

rejecting

he

Fourteenth

Amendment nd

adopting

the

foolish

tacticof masterly nactivity This is to say that heRepublican

party

t the

very

east foun

it

expedient-there

s

disagreement

s

to whether

nything

more

was involved-to

take an

increasingly

hard line

in an

attempt

to

protect

southern freedmen

nd

Unionists.

Within the

Republican

party,

moreover,

moderates

rather than

radicals occupied the most influential

ositions,



4/9

108

REVIEWS IN

AMERICAN

HISTORY

/ March

1973

though

he

latter

pointed

the

way.

Accordingly

he

congressional

policywas harsher han t need have

been.

But

when

all is

said

and

done, these

books

argue,

t

was not

by any

objective

tandard

harshpolicy.Military uledidnot fallhardly n theSouth,andin

establishing ew

governments

nly

a

smafl

proportion

f

adult

white

males

was

disfranchised.

ruden,

O'Connor,

and

Trelease

also

show that blackswere

a

majority

n

only

one

legislative

ody,

and in

no state did

they

hold office n

approximate

roportion

o

their

numbers.

Radical Reconstruction as not

Black

Reconstruc-

tion.

Nor

was

it alien

rule which

depended

mainly

n

outsiders.

Trelease makes the

simple

but sensiblepoint that

what was

at

stake

was not home

rule,

but

who should

rule

at

home. Without

beingdoctrinaire,he threeauthors nterprethe policiesof the

Radical

governments

s an

enlightened

esponse

o

problems

hat

the

planter-professional-businesslass had

ignored

efore he

war.

A

lot

of

money

was

spent

and taxes went

skyhigh,

but

it

was

to

good

purpose.

Pointing

o the

establishment

f a

public

school

system,

the

extension of social

services,

nd the

passage

of

legislation

protecting poor

people,

Cruden,

O'Connor,

and

Trelease

conclude that

democracy

made

notable advances

during

Reconstruction.

While heseworks blysummarize herevisionistutlook,they

also

contain

distinctive

oints

of

interpretation.

he

motivation f

congressional

econstruction

s one

of

them.Cruden

holds that

economic and

political

interests

etermined

Republican

policy

toward

the

South.

He

doesn't

deny

that

the

black

codes

made

Republicans

pprehensivebout

the

safety nd

well

being

of

the

freedmen, nd

he

notesthat

business

nterests

n the

Republican

party

did not agree

on all

aspectsof

national

conomic

policy.He

contends,

however, hat

because each

interest

ad

something

o

lose from a restoration f southern ower,northernapita sts

were

willing

o

go

along

with the

Radical

plan

of

Negro

suffrage.

But

it

was

not ust a

matter

f going

long.

Cruden

tates

hat he

business

interests

made

an offer

of

collaboration, on

terms

ensuring he

protection f

private

property,

whichthe

Radicals

could not

afford

o turn

down

(p. 25).

Cruden

seemsto

have

got

this dea from

DuBois, and it

doesn't

seemany

less

schematic,

r

any

better

documented, han

it did

in

1935.

Although

Cruden

adds that

the

purely

political

ogic of

staying n

power lso

led to

the policy of 1867, the structure f the argument ompelsthe

inference

hat

the

purpose

of

keeping

power

was to

promote

economic

interests. release

and

O'Connor,

in

contrast,

ontend

that

ideals

of

liberty nd

equality

motivated

Republicans.

Most

Republicans,

Trelease

asserts, were

sincerely

nterested

n the

welfare f

the

Negro and

recognized

hat

mancipationlone

was



5/9

BELZ / Reconstruction

Historiography 109

not enough. At the least blacks were entitled o civil and legal

equality.

While

acknowledging

he

motive

of

partyrule,

Trelease

identifies hiswithgenuine

ommitment

o

the

heart nd soul of

the entireUnionwareffort,..the successful rusade gainst lavery

and disunion pp. 47,

49).

Although

none of these books

argues

he containment hesis-

that the

purpose

of

giving

lacks

equal rights

n

the

South

was

to

keep

them from

comingNorth-theydevote

much attention o

racism.Cruden's

fairnessn handling outhernwhite upremacys

noteworthy. e explains t as

a

psychological ecessity ollowing

the destruction

f an

independent outhernyeomanry nd as a

response

o

the

traumaof defeat nd the emergence f blacks as

freemen (pp. 42, 91). Trelease, in contrast, implydescribes

southerners' elief that

Negroes

were ess than

human and ought

to be

treated kindly,

ike

dumb animals pp. 21-22). All three

authors

ee

racism, ortherns

well

as

southern,

s the

basis of the

restoration f

conservative ontrol.Yet because racial prejudice

was

pretty

much a

constant, hough ssuming

ifferent

orms,

t

does not

by

itself

xplain

the failure f

Reconstruction.

Blacks became

free,

but not

equal:

that is

the

major

and

irrefutable

act

which

informs hese

works

as it has most recent

considerationsf Reconstruction. till,these books add, not all

was

for

naught.

For

all the

adversities

hey

uffered lacks did not

lose

citizenship,

nor was

public

education

denied

them.

The

Fourteenth nd FifteenthAmendmentswere not

upheld,

but

neitherwere

they

repudiated; ogether

with

parts of civil

rights

laws they provided

a basis for the Second Reconstruction

century

later.

Expediency

forced the assertion of

principle,

Cruden

observes,

ut

the

principle

nunciatedwas

equality (p.

160). Cruden argues

further, owever,

hat

Reconstruction ro-

vided blacks withmeaningfulreedom t the timeand must be

counted a

qualified

success

(p. 111).

For black

power

was a

realityduring

Reconstruction.

lacks

were not mere pawns

n

a

struggle

etween

whites.

The

right

o vote

gave

them

bargaining

power

which

they

used to

win gains n

education,

ivilrights,n

social

reform.

he

dependence

of

white

politicians

n black

votes

was

further

vidence

of black

power. Defending

he tactics of

maneuver ather

han confrontationhat

black

leadersemployed,

Crudendescribes

system

f

interest

roup

iberalism hat

enabled

blacksto feelthattheir roblemswerebeingdealtwith.

Yet as an attempt

o integrate lacks ntoAmerican ociety n

an

equal basis,

Reconstruction

ailed. And

the

reason

it

did,

Cruden and Trelease

suggest

n

company

with

a

number f other

historians

n

recent

years,

is

that it did not

give

land

to

the

freedmen. ruden states

that

congressional olicy

was

radically



6/9

110

REVIEWS IN

AMERICAN

HISTORY

/

March

1973

defective

because

it

paid

little attention to the economic

adjustments

eeded to

make

blackstruly

ree.

If

freedomwereto

be

meaningful

nd

equality

assured,

he

writes,

then the federal

governmentmust assumephysicalprotection f the black man,

promote his welfare, nd

underwrite

is independenceby land

distribution

p. 161).

Trelease s equallycertain hat

whatblacks

needed most to achieve

real freedom,

elf-respect,nd equality

was

land.

Accordingly,

hegreatest ailure f Reconstruction

as

its failure o

give the freedmen

and of their wn. This

weakened

thepolicy

from

he outset

and

contributed

o its lateroverthrow

(pp. 24, 27, 75, 138; cf. O'Connor,

p. 204).

Behind

all this seems

to be the idea that political

equalityby

itself s prettymeaningless,hat without conomicpowerwe are

leftwith

merebourgeois

iberty. hatmay be true, nd

then gain

it may not be. The point s

thatthe truth

f the assumption-for

t

is

not

a conclusionbut an often unexamined

premise-is

not so

utterly eyond

dispute nd self-evident

s to be made

the basis of

historical

nterpretation.

et that s

what

we seem to be getting:

explanations

f what happenedby referenceo what

mighthave

been

and how

things ught

o

havebeen,

untilwe understand

ow

Reconstruction

ould

have

worked.

likethe deaofredistributing

propertys muchas thenext person,but I think hatto make t

the

key

to

interpretations

f

Reconstructions

unhistorical.

Historians

have

rediscovered

Thaddeus Stevens'

proposal

to

confiscate southern

property

and

give

forty

acres

to

every

freedman.

he number

f

Republicans

who

supported

his

plan

s

acknowledged

o be

small,

but

theirexistence

s taken

as

proof

that

an alternative

xisted,

hat therewas

a

decisivemoment

ut

of

which

an

entirely

ifferent

nd more

satisfactory

olutionto

the

problem

of

Reconstruction

ould

have

come.

Thus

historians

refer o fatefuldecisions nwhichCongress oteddown Stevens'

confiscation

cheme

(see O'Connor, p.

207).

Yet Stevens' bill

never

came close

to a

vote.

Freedmen's

Bureau

legislation

f

course did,

and

it contained and

allotment eatureswhichhave

been

interpreted

s

a

golden opportunity

f

not

an

outright

mandate

to

give

blacks economic

security.William

McFeely,

for

example,

hofds

hat

General0.

0.

Howard

had it

in

his

power

to

define

the nation's commitment

o

the

ex-slaves,

but that

the

Yankee

stepfather

ailed

to meet his responsibility nd let

AndrewJohnson ive outhernersack theirand.There s not the

slightest

ttempt

n

this and

otherworkswhich ament he ack of

economic

revolution

o

examinethe

legal

aspects

of

confiscation,

the

definition f

abandoned

property,

he

congressional

ntention

with

respect

o the

title

o abandoned

property,

he

effect

pon

it

of executive

pardon.

All

this-which

s to

say

the

way contempo-



7/9

BELZ / Reconstruction

Historiography 111

raries iewed

the matter-is

gnored.

t has seemed

necessary nly

to point

out that

confiscation

hreatened

rivate roperty

nd

was

rejected,

s

though

t were

a real ssue that

hung

n the

balance.

In contrast o thecertaintyf historians hose nvokingf the

land

reform hesis

ssumes

he

proportions

f a

new

orthodoxy

s

the uncertainty

f

people

at

the

time as to the best course to

follow. Still, those who

cared most about

making

lack freedom

meaningfulnvariably rgued

for the

right

o

vote.

Can

we

really

dismiss his vidence

by saying,

s Kenneth

tampp

does inThe Era

of Reconstruction,

hat

people

then did not understand the

sociology

of

freedom ?

Frederick

Douglass

is oftencited

for

his

judgment

f

1880

that

Reconstruction ailed

because

t

didn't

give

land to thefreedmen. ut in an 1866 analysis f Reconstruction

the

only

reference ouglass

made to land was to

say

that

universal

suffrage ught

to be

the

law

of the

land.

This

was

the

way

to

protectblack liberty.1

And

in

the crisis f 1866-67, when

a real

turning

oint

seemed

to

be

reached

concerning

he liberty nd

rights f Negroes, tevens

did not ask for confiscation.

e asked

for

military protection

and

Negro

suffrage.2

Like

other

Republicans

e believed

n

putting

irst

hings irst.

But suppose and had beengiven o the freedmen.f

historians

are goingto speculateabout land reform hey oughtto probe

further

hanthey

have.

Charles nd

Mary

Beard held that t was

an

almost nsuperable ask to give civilrights o personswho

lacked

economic

power.

Yet

they

saw littlereason to

believe

that

f

the

freedmen ad been

given

and

they

would have had

the

capital

or

the

proprietary

kill

or

knowledge

o hold

it

against

peculators

and sharpers

n

general.

Howard K.

Beale

asked what would

have

happened

had the

planters'

statesbeen divided

mong he

former

slaves. The question was

perhaps

more

rhetorical han

historical,

but sympathetic houghhe was to the idea, Beale too seemedto

see

difficulties.

id a

description

f the freedmen

s illiterate, ith

no conception

of

the meaning of terms such as government,

suffrage,

nd

free

labor

mean

acceptance

of the

traditional

conservative iew

of the

Negro, Beale asked? Nevertheless

hat

description

eemed to

him

accurate.

Since Beale's

day

we have

been disabused

of racial

attitudes hat

perhaps

ffected is view

of

the

matter, ut what does the evidence uggest?

Historians ave

not

generally

eld that

the

Homestead

Act of 1862 turned

the

conditionof poor white farmers round, and the meliorative

measures

of

Progressivism

nd the New Deal often have

been

judged

inadequate if not failures.Why would land reform n

Reconstruction

ave worked ny better?

It

is

easy

to

criticize

Republicanpolicy for not giving

and to

the

freedmen;

fter

ll,

even

in

Russia,

t

is

said,the emancipated



8/9

112

REVIEWS IN

AMERICAN HISTORY

/

March

1973

serfswere given and.

Aside

from he fact that Russian serfs id

not hold

the land as private

roperty

ut

rather

ommunally,

o

that they remainedunfree n significant ays, one might skwhether ome economic gainswere not made by blacks during

Reconstruction.

n

Black Reconstruction

n

America,

DuBois

described

exceptionaland lucky Negroeswho got land on a

considerable cale.

The

land

holdings

of

Negroes

ncreased ll

over

the

South,

he

wrote.

Cruden

too

states that while

the

number f freedmenwho bought

and

was small,

t

was significant

for

t showed hatblacks

could

survive

n a

competitiveociety

p.

45). The revisionist cholar

Francis

B.

Simkins

believed

that

Reconstructionwas not trulyradical because it did not giveNegroes and,their nlyeffective eapon nbattling or conomic

competence and social equality.

Yet

Simkins

lso held that the

freedmen bargained

themselves nto

an

agricultural ituation

unlike

slavery

nd fromtheirpoint

of

view

advantageous.

The

abandonment

f the communal haracter f the Southern lanta-

tion,

he

wrote,

bestowed

upon

the Negroes the American

farmer's deal

of

independent

xistence. 3This conclusion eems

startling,

or

while

the difference etween

slavery

and share-

croppingmaybe acknowledged, he latterobviouslydidn'tgiveblacksthe securestatus hatSimkins' tatementmplies.Yet was

the establishment

f

the

principle

f

independent

and

holding,

s

in

the

Southern

Homestead Act

of

1866,

not

important?

t

depends

on

one's

point

of

view.

If

historianswho

emphasize

and

reform ndorse this

principle,

s theyseemto, then

the

change

described

y

Simkins ssumes

greater ignificance.

Not

all recent tudents

f

the

period accept

what

I

have

called

the

new

orthodoxy.

John

nd LaWanda

Cox,

W.

R.

Brock,

Harold

M. Hyman, nd RembertW. Patrick, mong thers, old thatcivilrightswas the main ssueand thatReconstructionailedbecause

the

guarantees

f the Fourteenth nd Fifteenth

mendments,

nd

the Civil

Rights and Enforcement

cts,

were but

fitfully

nd

irresolutely

aintained. inally, hey

were

all

but

abandoned.And

why

was that? Because liberal theories of

government

nd

prevailing onstitutional

deas restrictedwhat even the

most

ardent

Radicals

thought

houldbe

done,

and

because the drive

or

political

and civil

equality

was

in

part a response o a crisis, nd

the crisis

had

passed.

When

his

happened

t

became clear-and

thetroublewas-not thatthegrant f political iberty o the freedmen

lacked

an

economic

basis,

but that

it did not

rest

on

a firm

emotional

and

ideological

commitment. nderneath t all racial

prejudiceremained, eading southerners

o aggress gainstblacks

and northernerso

acquiesce

in the

aggression. ut it is well

to

recall

the

Beards' observation n

emancipation: Nothing ike

this



9/9

HALLER / Family Fictions

113

had ever

happened

n

history,

t least on such a

scale. 4

Instead

of

saying hatReconstruction ailed, tmight

e

more ccurate

o say

that

t

was,

alas,

onlypartially

uccessful.

n

any event,

he

crux

of

it was civilrightsndpoliticalfreedom. hesewere the essential

elements f the

republicanism

or

which

the

war was fought,

nd

to extend

which

was

the

purpose

of

Reconstruction.ntegrating

the

freedmen nto the

polity

was

a

principal

focus

of

this

undertaking,

nd

it intensifiednd hastened he

processby which

it was

accomplished.

But as the

coming

of the

war involvednot

only the

dehumanizing

ffect

f slavery

ponblacks,

but also and

per a s more

mportantly

ts

debilitatingnd

corrupting

ffect n

repub canism,so Reconstructionnvolvedmore

than

adjustment

to Negroemancipation.n thelargest ense t aimedat improving

the

system f

republican iberty

hathad flourished

n

one section

of the federal

epublic, nd mustnowprevailn all of

it.

Herman

Belz

Department

f History,

UniversityfMaryland

An

article by

Mr. Belz, Changing

Conceptions of Constitu-

tionalism n the Era of World War Two and the Cold War,

appeared

n the December

1972

issue

of

The Journal f

American

History.

1.

Frederick

Douglass, Reconstruction,

Atlantic

Monthly December 1866), pp.

761-65.

2. Congressional

lobe, 39 Cong.,

1

sess., pp. 4303-04

(July28, 1866).

3. Francis B.

Simkins, New Viewpoints of SouthernReconstruction, ournalof

Southern

History February1939), p. 52.

4. Beard

and

Beard,

The Rise

of AmericanCivilization,

Vol. II, p. 116.

FAMILY FICTIONS

RichardSennett, amilies

gainst he City:

Middle ClassHomes of

Industrial Chicago,

1872-1890. Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, 970. Pp. x + 258, $8.50.

Families against the City

is

a

study

of

family

tructure nd its

relationship o occupation in a forty-block

ensus tract on

Chicago's

near

West

Side

during

he 1870s

and

1880s. According

to Professor

ennett, he area that he labels

Union Park was at

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