John Hope Franklin's Reconstruction after the Civil War

One serious lack in the way many people in the US learn about wars through various media is that they so often concentrate on the wars themselves, the battles and the immediate military concerns. While they often lack much historical context on what led up to the war and what followed.

I would guess that this is more true with the American Civil War than with any other.

And in many ways, getting a realistic understanding of the Civil War also involves getting a reality-based understanding of the postwar Reconstruction period. Because much of the subsequent narrative about the Civil War that became familiar to several generations of white Americans all over the country has its roots in Reconstruction and the "Redemption" movement that overthrew it by means fair and foul.

John Hope Franklin's popular history Reconstruction after the Civil War was first published in 1964 and reissued in an updated 2nd edition, on which this post is based. Franklin's book proves once again that "popular" history doesn't have to be superficial or shallow.

Franklin gives a good account of initial problem caused by President Andrew Johnson's relatively mild approach to Reconstruction. Johnson in some ways was a good Jacksonian Democrat. Franklin is relatively generous to Johnson:

Johnson's position was misunderstood, even in those early days. As a Unionist he was not anti-Southern. He subscribed to the honored Southern dogma of states' rights, but he hated the planter class whose reckless policies he believed to be responsible for secession and war. Before the war he had not been anti-slavery. He owned eight slaves and held no racial views that could be regarded as unorthodox in the South. Although a Democrat, he was more devoted to Lincoln and to what he believed were Lincoln's policies than many staunch Republicans. It was his hypersensitivity and obstinacy that caused him to miss entirely the great lessons of Lincoln's statesmanship - flexibility, adjustment, compassion.

But even an generous attitude toward that failed President doesn't make Franklin miss the effects of his 1865-1867 program on making it much more difficult to restore the Southern states as newly democratized entities, with African-American citizens enjoying the equal rights that were newly guaranteed to them by the Constitution.

As early as 1866, major anti-black riots in Memphis (April 30-May 2) and New Orleans (July 30) were sending out screaming warning signals of what lay in store, and heralded the failure of Johnson's policy of putting minimal political restrictions of former Confederate officers and civil office-holders. In the Memphis race riot, 46 blacks were killed and 80 wounded. One of the city newspapers, the Avalanche, proclaimed a new day for white people: "Soon we shall have no more black troops among us. Thank heaven the white race are once more rulers of Memphis."

The New Orleans race riot killed around 34 blacks and wounded over 200. One white man was injured in the Memphis incident. Four whites died in New Orleans and ten were injured.

After the Radical Republicans gained in the 1866 Congressional elections, they began taking more Congressional control of Reconstruction, beginning with the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867. Under Congressional Reconstruction, as it has often been called, Congress required the reorganization of many Southern state governments and better protection for black citizens. There were also attempts to address the pressing problems of educating the former slaves and their children - a serious problem in that the Southern slavery laws strictly forbade teaching slaves to read.

Some basic mistakes were made on the Union side in managing the termination of hostilities and the aftermath. One of the most serious was allowing decommissioned Confederate soldiers to retain their weapons, many of which would later be used to attack blacks, Republicans and democratically-elected state governments.

Johnson's mild Reconstruction plan was another. As Franklin relates, the South had been devastated by the war and there was little spirit among white Southerners immediately after the conflict's end to mount resistance. Swiftly empowering former slaveowners and former Confederate officials restored their spirits as well as their practical ability to organize anti-democracy activities, which were essentially synonymous with anti-black and anti-Republican Party activities.

Not providing sufficient federal troops to maintain law and order in the South was also a serious error. Franklin makes an important point. It's true that in the mid-1870s, when violent Redeemer resistance came out into the open and reached its zenith, too few federal soldiers were available in the South to maintain the democratic state governments in office.

But the initial role of the occupying forces was also very limited, far more so than Lost Cause demonology would have us believe, as Franklin explains:

The strength and influence of the military forces in the South between 1867 and 1877 have frequently been exaggerated. Even during those years the opponents of congressional reconstruction in their bitter tirades sought to convey the impression that hordes of federal soldiers were stalking through the land on a permanent "Sherman's March." They made the most out of incidents in which persons seeking to obstruct the execution of the congressional program were tried before military tribunals. They were forced to admit, however, that not all the federal troops were reprehensible characters. Some local observers were inclined to think that some members of the army of occupation were too friendly. In South Carolina, for example, the troops were regular army men who got along well with the local population. If anything, they tended to favor the whites and oppress the blacks.

Federal troops were present in the former Confederate states to assist the commanding generals in the task of setting up the new governments. Once this was done, they retired to a less conspicuous role or were withdrawn altogether. As the reconstruction governments became established, the commanding generals relinquished their authority. This usually occurred shortly after the first general election following the ratification of the state constitution or shortly after the inauguration of the new government. Despite the claims of contemporary opponents of Radical Reconstruction or their modern followers, federal military activity in the former Confederacy during the period was negligible. (my emphasis)

Another myth of the Lost Cause dogma is that of the "Black and Tan" state governments, i.e., oppressive and massively corrupt state governments supposedly dominated by vindictive blacks and Radical Republicans. Franklin also debunks that claim:

No group has attracted more attention or has had its role more misrepresented by contemporaries and by posterity than Southern blacks during Radical Reconstruction. The period has been described as one of "Negro rule," as one of gross perfidy with blacks as the central figures, since the reins of misgovernment were supposedly held by black militiamen. Blacks were not in control of the state governments at any time anywhere in the South. They held public office and, at times, played important parts in the public life of their respective states. But it would be stretching a point to say that their roles were dominant, and it would be hopelessly distorting the picture to suggest that they ruled the South. It was in South Carolina that they had the greatest numerical strength. In the first legislature there were eighty-seven blacks and forty whites. From the outset, however, whites controlled the state senate and in 1874 the lower house as well. At all times the governor was white. There were two black lieutenant governors, Alonzo J. Ransier in 1870 and Richard H. Gleaves in 1872. There were other black leaders. Samuel J. Lee was speaker of the House in 1872 and Robert B. Elliot in 1874. From 1868 to 1872 Francis L. Cardozo was secretary of state, and from 1872 to 1876 he was state treasurer. Jonathan J. Wright, a member of the Pennsylvania bar before coming to South Carolina, sat on the state supreme court for seven years, but he was the only African American to achieve a judicial position of that level in any state. (my emphasis)

Franklin devotes considerable attention to the violence directed at black citizens by vigilante/terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

But he also stresses the important point that not all Reconstruction governments were overthrown by the massive violence employed by the Redeemers in Mississippi in 1875, and in Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina in the following year. Though violence against blacks and Republicans was a pervasive problem in the South, some of the Radical governments were expelled by relying primarily on peaceful means, albeit with a background of violent threat and intimidation from terrorist groups.

And, although the period of Radical Reconstruction is typically taken to be the decade of 1867-1877, Franklin writes:

Still another widely held misconception is that the reconstruction period was of long duration. It is usually regarded as having lasted for at least a decade, and most of the criticism of the "excesses" of Radical Reconstruction implies that these excesses were all the more unbearable because of this "long" period of time. The contention is that not until Hayes withdrew the troops in 1877 was Radical Reconstruction "overthrown" and the Southern states "redeemed." The fact is that few troops were left in the South in 1877 and only three states could be considered "unredeemed" by this time. When James M. Smith, Democrat, was inaugurated as governor of Georgia in 1871, he spoke of the "long and cheerless night of misrule" from which the people of Georgia were emerging. This "unhappy" period had lasted for less than two years, a portion of which time the legislature was controlled by Democrats and all of which time native whites, with strong Confederate sympathies, were dominant. (my emphasis)

This habit of white folks whining in exaggerated and often plain dishonest ways was regrettably to become as much as Southern specialty and fried chicken in subsequent decades.

The period from their admission as "reconstructed" states to the time of Democratic or Conservative victories may be regarded as the maximum extent of so-called Radical control of the former Confederate states. While these periods varied from state to state, they were less than a decade except in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana. A recent historian of reconstruction observed that Virginia "escaped simon-pure Radical rule entirely." Indeed, the Radicals, feuding among themselves, were unable to win the first election after the readmission of Virginia, with the result that the Democrats became the controlling party in 1870, the very year of readmission. In North Carolina the Radicals lost their grip in 1870, after two years of difficult and uncertain rule. In the same year, Tennessee went Conservative, ending a four-year period as the first state of the former Confederacy to be reconstructed. The Democrats won Texas in 1873 and Alabama and Arkansas in the following year. Mississippi capitulated in 1875. Thus, within ten years after the surrender at Appomattox—including two years of native white rule - eight states had been "redeemed," and their redemption had been effected within a range of a few months to seven years after their readmission to the Union. (my emphasis)

The Presidential election of 1876 marks a convenient turning point to peg when the decisive turn occurred in which white Northerners and white Southerners reconciled among themselves at the expense of African-American rights.

Lost Cause advocates still make much of the racism of Northern whites during this period. In fact, its always been part of the Lost Cause schtick to claim that race relations were at least as contentious in non-Southern states as in the former Confederacy. Hail, boy, blacks and whites git along much better here in the South as they do in most parts of the country! Or so the story goes.

What is true is that whites as a group sold out their African-American fellow citizens:

Acceptance [of the only quasi-democratic "Redeemer" state governments] involved, most of all, Northern acquiescence in the Southern view of blacks. Southerners dominated all expressions of opinion regarding the qualities and characteristics of blacks. As Sterling Brown has observed, the "authoritative" white Southern writers described them in seven categories: the Contented Slave, the Wretched Freedman, the Comic Negro, the Brute Negro, the Tragic Mulatto, the Local Color Negro, and the Exotic Primitive. These writers aggressively advanced the concept of the inherent inferiority of blacks. And, as Rayford Logan has pointed out, Northerners seemed quite content with the white Southerners' contentions in this regard, thus giving the Lost Cause a notable victory in "the market place of free ideas" in the North. (my emphasis)

The result of the 1876 Presidential election was in dispute, with Republican Rutherford Hayes eventually gained 185 Electoral College to Democrat Samuel Tilden. Not for the last time, the uncertainty involved disputed electors in Florida; South Carolina and Lousiana also had disputed electors in 1876.

The resolution of the election involved a notorious deal called the Wormley House Bargain, in which the Democrats agreed to let the Republicans keep the Presidency if the Republicans agreed to withdraw all remaining federal troops from the South. But Franklin argues, following C. Vann Woodward, that the importance of that deal in ending Reconstruction have been exaggerated. The Reconstruction governments had all be "redeemed" (by whites) by that time. Tilden was also committed to withdrawing the federal troops, so there didn't need to be a Republican President to accomplish that.

The sweetener for the deal was an agreement by the Republicans to support federal subsidies for Southern railway routes. The Southerners also agreed to vote for James Garfield for Speaker of the House. Both pieces of the bargain fell through when it came time to deliver. In any case, "Radical Reconstruction was no more."

Tags: civil war, john hope franklin, reconstruction, us civil war