The Abandonment of Radical Reconstruction after the American Civil War - A Northern Perspective

^{,,QWURGXFWLRQ} The year 1877 marked the final stage of the great experiment of reconstruction. The new Republican president Hayes ordered the withdrawal of the last federal troops from the American South. The remaining Republican governments in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana were surrendered to the white supremacist ‘redeemers’.

The end of radical reconstruction established the foundations for the distinctive social, politic and economic development of the South. Although restored to the Union, the South entered into a period of economic backwardness and social oppression. The abandonment of radical reconstruction represents not only the victory of the conservative forces of the South but also the overthrow of the radicals within the Republican party in the North. If perceived as a humanitarian crusade and an attempt to establish a new social order in the South, reconstruction was indeed a failure though emancipation and civil rights for blacks were to remain part of the constitution.

This essay aims at a discussion of the causes leading to the abandonment of radical reconstruction from a Northern perspective. The rise and decline of the race issue in the North and in the Republican party in particular was closely linked with questions of party politics, economic and social issues. These issues eventually gained much more importance than the Negro question, developing their own dynamics. At the same time fundamental racial and racist paradigms remained fixed in public consciousness. Thus the end of reconstruction could be viewed as the result of political, social and economic change, the shift to industrial capitalism and the continued existence of old racial prejudice.

In which way influenced new political issues the course and the end of reconstruction? Why were Northern Republicans at last reluctant to assist their Southern counterparts in a sufficient way? The federal government failed to intervene to prevent violence and racial tensions which culminated in the takeover of the South by the Democrats. How did Northern racial attitudes and ideology influence the way in which reconstruction was performed and eventually abandoned? These crucial questions provide the broad outline for an understanding of the Northern background of the reconstruction experiment and its abandonment.

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^{,,7KHGHILFLHQFLHVRIUHFRQVWUXFWLRQ} The formal integration of the freed slaves into American society as full citizens represents the major achievement of the reconstruction era. If one examines the racial attitudes persistent among a wide section of Northern society towards race the granting of major civil rights to blacks appears as an astonishing fact. The small but powerful group of radicals within the Republican party appeared as advocates of the freedmen’s rights. As senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts pointed out in 1872:

“It is not enough to proclaim “liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof”. Equality must be proclaimed also; and since both are promised by the great declaration [of independence], which is a national act, and from their nature they should be uniform throughout the country, both must be placed under the safeguard of national law. There can be but one liberty and one equality, the same in Boston and New Orleans, the same

everywhere throughout the country.” 1

It is very unlikely that the majority of Northerners were in favour of the social equality of black and white, as the appeals of the radicals suggest. The difference between the races became not only to be perceived as crucial but functioned as a way of defining the place of black and white within the social, economic, and political order. ‘Equality’ meant even for radicals primarily equality with regard to the law and major civil rights. ² Nevertheless, measured by nineteenth century-standards, the radical program was revolutionary. Within the white race the basic assumption of its own superiority was fixed in terms of a God-given law. The presumed success of the white race in ‘civilising’ the American continent – neglecting the efforts of blacks and other nationalities – seemed to prove this to a high extent. The fanatic belief in the virtues of ‘progress’ was substantial and consolidated the position that the white, chiefly the ‘Anglo-Saxon’, race as the bearer of ‘civilisation’, was not only superior to the black race but that races which seemed to represent the ‘savage’ way of life had to be annihilated. The war against American Indians and the fact that Indians were not even granted the right to be human beings might be seen as the final perversion of racial thought in America. 3

¹ Charles Sumner, “Letter to the National Convention of Colored People”, New Orleans, April 7, 1972, in G.

Osofsky 7KH %XUGHQ RI 5DFH $ 'RFXPHQWDU\ +LVWRU\ RI 1HJUR:KLWH 5HODWLRQV LQ $PHULFD, New

York/Evanston/London: Harper & Row, 1967, pp. 156-157.

² On white attitudes towards social equality and segregation see F.G. Wood, %ODFN6FDUH7KH5DFLVW5HVSRQVHWR

(PDQFLSDWLRQDQG5HFRQVWUXFWLRQ, Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968, pp. 131-155.

³ On the Anglo-Saxon self-image see Wood, pp. 1-16. On the ideology of progress and its relation to racial

beliefs see A.A. Ekirch, JR., 7KH,GHDRI3URJUHVVLQ$PHULFD, New York: Peter Smith, 1951, especially pp. 38-

71. On Indians see H. Brogan, 7KH 3HOLFDQ +LVWRU\ RI WKH 8QLWHG 6WDWHV RI $PHULFD, Harmondsworth: Penguin,

1986, pp. 51-70.

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Racial prejudice was as old as the American nation and represents a major key to the understanding of the concept of this nation which was neither united by a long common history nor could refer to national myths and therefore defined itself strongly against other races. When Thomas Jefferson wrote about the Negro-problem, he concentrated on the major difference - color - which he described as the “foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races”. Starting from physical features he developed white virtues by contrasting them to black “defects”. In viewing Jefferson’s results, it becomes clear that most of the major racial paradigms and prejudices of the nineteenth century were already present when the nation was born. ⁴ Later, the abolitionist movement gained influence. But many of its followers could be described as reluctant or ‘pragmatic’ abolitionists. Abraham Lincoln was convinced that slavery was evil to American society not primarily because it was inhuman but because it divided the white race and culminated in a bloody war. Lincoln was in favour of colonisation to solve the race problem, and many ‘abolitionists’ shared his view. In 1862 he addressed a delegation of Negroes as follows:

“I need not recount to you the effects upon white men growing out of the institution of slavery. I believe in its general evil effects on the white race.[...]Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of slavery and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have an existence. It is better for us both, to be separated.” 5

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 may be interpreted as an attempt to erase the ‘peculiar institution’ to prevent it from splitting whites again. Other abolitionists were not chiefly concerned about the institution itself but rejected its expansion because of a general dislike of the idea of introducing blacks to ‘white states’. ⁶ Racial prejudice among Northerners manifested itself in the resistance against black enlistment to the Union army at the beginning of the war. The idea of blacks killing white men was alien to many soldiers and politicians who demanded that this was to remain a ‘white man’s war’. Even after the war many Union soldiers felt puzzled by the fact that they were greeted as the liberators of the blacks. 7

⁴ See Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia...”, (Baltimore, 1800), in Osofsky, pp. 50-55. ⁵ Abraham Lincoln, “Address on Colonisation to a Deputation of Negroes”, August 14, 1862, in Osofsky, p. 124. ⁶ See K.M. Stamp, 7KH (UD RI 5HFRQVWUXFWLRQ , New York: Vintage, 1965, pp. 13-15 and S. Steinberg, 7KH (WKQLF 0\WK 5DFH (WKQLFLW\ DQG &ODVV LQ $PHULFD, Boston: Beacon Press, 2nd ed., 1989, pp. 177-180. Especially in the Midwest “abolitionism” tended towards FRQWDLQPHQW of slavery not absolute abolition. See Wood, p. 13.

⁷ See L.F. Litwack, %HHQLQWKH6WRUP6R/RQJ7KH$IWHUPDWKRI6ODYHU\, New York: Vintage, 10980, pp. 64-73 and 117-125.

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