U.S. History: Book 2
Lesson 2
Handout 2 (page 1)
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Date
Historians' Interpretations of Reconstruction
Read each of the following brief selections from the writings of Reconstruction
historians. As you read, compile a chart of the accomplishments and shortcomings of
Reconstruction governments.
1. It was the most soul-sickening spectacle that America had ever been called upon to behold.
Every principle of the old American polity [political system] was here reversed. In place of
government by the most intelligent and virtuous part of the people for the benefit of the
governed, here was government by the most ignorant and vicious part of the population for
the benefit, the vulgar, materialistic, brutal benefit of the governing set.
—John W. Burgess
2. In South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana, the proportion of Negroes was so large,
their leaders of sufficient power, and the Federal control so effective that for the years
1868-1874 the will of black labor was powerful; and so far as it was intelligently led,
and had definite goals, it took perceptible steps toward public education, confiscation
of large incomes, betterment of labor conditions, universal suffrage, and in some cases
distribution of land to the peasant.
—W. E. B. DuBois
3. Reconstruction was an attempt to Africanize the Southern States and an attempt to
deprive the people through misrule and oppression of most that life held dear.
G. de Roulhac Hamilton
4. Radical Republicans refused to believe that Negroes were innately inferior. . . . This
radical idealism was in part responsible for two of the most momentous enactments of
the Reconstruction years: the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fifteenth Amendment.
. . . The fact that these amendments could not have been adopted under any other
circumstances, or at any other time, may suggest the crucial importance of the
Reconstruction era in American history.
—Kenneth M. Stampp
5. ... Reconstruction governments . . . controlled by carpetbaggers tried to stabilize
southern economics by providing tax exemptions to encourage industrial development.
The governments established public education, universal suffrage and public works. . . .
Many carpetbaggers moved to the south for political and economic gain, but most had
high motives.
—John Hope Franklin
6. Radical Reconstruction was doomed to fail. With a crass, materialistic design, it was
cloaked in the garb of high idealistic justice, but its rulers were inexperienced, ignorant
and corrupt. They forgot what the world had learned and experienced during the
preceding two thousand years. Milleniums and Utopias might be written about, but
intelligent people knew that they were never to be realized in this life.
—E. Merton Coulter
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U.S. History: Book 2
Lesson 2
Handout 2 (page 2)
Name
Date
7. I have noticed among Negro intellectuals a tendency to look back upon the First
Reconstruction as if it were in some ways a sort of Golden Age. In this nostalgic view
that period takes the shape of the race's finest hour, a time of heroic leaders and deed,
of high faith and firm resolution, a time of forthright and passionate action, with no
bowing to compromises of "deliberate speed." I think I understand their feeling.
Reconstruction will always have a special and powerful meaning for the Negro. It is
undoubtedly a period full of rich and tragic and meaningful history, a period that
should be studiously searched for its meanings, a period that has many meanings yet
to yield. But I seriously doubt that it will ever serve satisfactorily as a Golden Age—for
anybody. There is too much irony mixed with the tragedy.
—C. Vann Woodward