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Title: The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 by Kenneth M. Stampp ISBN: 0-394-70388-X Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 12 October, 1967 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.60 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Solid History of Reconstruction
Comment: What amazed me the most about this book by Kenneth Stampp is its readability. The book is suprisingly entertaining despite what some may consider its dry subject matter. Although, some of the revisionist ideas of Mr. Stampp have been taken to task by recent historians, The Era of Reconstruction still remains one of the essential tools for any student of American history.
Mr. Stampp can perhaps be taken to task for some of the far-fetched psychological connections he makes when trying to surmise the motiviations of historical personages, most notably Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, but the fact that Stampp used psychology in his historical speculations is remarkable because of the fact that his work was written in the mid sixties. By delving deeper than any historian before him into the motivations behind reconstruction, Stampp's work remains fresh and readable even today.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent summary of revisionists' Reconstruction
Comment: This book is not and it does not pretend to be an in-depth analysis of all relevant aspects of Reconstruction or a detailed narrative of all of the events that took place in this period. Rather, it is an excellent summary of the revisionist scholarship about Reconstruction that gained currency in the '50s and '60s, and it is essential reading for anyone interested in this era of history.
The Dunning view of Reconstruction, which had almost universal scholarly and popular acceptance from the turn of the 20th Century until the '50s, held that rapacious and vindictive Radical Republicans hijacked the Reconstruction process from the just and magnanimous policies of Andrew Johnson and installed in the South state governments dominated by unscrupulous and incompetent white carpetbaggers and scalawags. These state governments were monuments to misgovernment and corruption, and the entire region (indeed, the entire country) breathed a collective sigh of relief when the white "redeemers" finally forced them out of office. The black freedmen were portrayed as ignorant, infantile, incapable of self-government, and prone to political and economic manipulation in this account of Reconstruction.
Revisionist scholars, beginning as early as 1909 with W.E.B. DuBois seminal paper about the subject but really not gaining momentum until the '50s, held that the Dunning school was substantially in error about the progress and nature of Reconstruction, and that this error was largely caused by bald racial prejudice. While the Radical Republicans did have crass economic motives, they honestly believed that the freedmen ought to have civil and political rights. While the Reconstruction state governments were often corrupt and incompetent, they were not out of the ordinary for state governments of the time, and the redeemer governments were frequently as bad or worse. Despite the corruption and the base motivations that did exist, much was accomplished during Reconstruction that should inspire pride: the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution, which guaranteed blacks civil and political rights; the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875, which guaranteed blacks the equal use of public accomodations and which provided the Federal government with the legal basis to prosecute those who would deny the black man his civil rights; the institution of truly republican governments in the former Confederacy; the beginning of the reconstruction of the South's infrastructure, which had been largely destroyed by the Civil War; and the foundation of such worthwhile institutions as state-supported schools.
Stampp does an admirable job of summarizing both the historiography of Reconstruction and the revisionist view of it. His prose may be somewhat dry at times, but nevertheless it is lucid and engaging in its totality. The key merit of this book is not, however, its groundbreaking scholarship -- indeed, there is nothing groundbreaking about this book -- or its literary style. This has been an enormously influential book because it makes revisionist scholarship about Reconstruction accessible to the masses. In so doing, it has performed the invaluable task of popularizing the revisionist conclusions about Reconstruction, thus making popular acceptance of our later-day Reconstruction, the Civil Rights movement, more readily attainable.
As wonderful and influential as this book is, it is not without its shortcomings. Stampp does an insufficient job of citing his sources. This is, in part, because this book is largely the written and polished version of lectures about Reconstruction that he has given over the years; unfortunately, understanding why there are so few citations does not excuse it. His ending bibliographical essay, while very useful, ultimately does not take the place of detailed in-text citations, and his book suffers for it.
Secondly, his depiction of the freedman leaves something to be desired. One of the great modern-day complaints about the Dunning school of Reconstruction is that it does not treat Reconstruction-era blacks as actual agents in Reconstruction history. They have no will, and they are not actors in the drama. Rather, they are acted upon. Stampp certainly does not share the racist assumptions of the Dunning scholars that he seeks to replace, but he does share with them the assumption that the black man was not a prime actor in this story. It is rather amazing to me that Stampp discusses the freedman as incessantly as he does and yet fails to talk much about him.
Neither of these two criticisms should take that much away from this otherwise excellent book. Read it as an introduction to the era, and treasure it for its salutary historical influence.
Rating: 1
Summary: Sounds great, but far from the truth!
Comment: I can tell that reviewers like Tyler Smith below like to read books that tell them what they want to hear. Among historians, Stampp is well-known for his one-sided telling of history. I've read many of his books, and I don't recall him ever having anything positive to say about the South. He is biased, plan and simple. So go ahead and believe all this 'mumbo-jumbo' he spouts out if you care to, but you won't be knowing what real history was.
First, he doesn't even attempt to an explanation of why Reconstruction was deemed necessary 2 years AFTER the Civil War, and not immediately after. He totally avoids touching the 'hot stove' subject of why, after fighting a bloody war to keep the Southern States from leaving the Union (so we are told), that after bringing the Southern States back in the Union (fact because all Southern states voted to ratify the 13th Amendment) did the Union decide to put them out of the Union again by taking away their position as states and making them military districts under Marshall law? My friends, could it be that the Federalists in the North who were within inches of obtaining their real purpose (i.e. full empowerment of a centralized Federal gov't which they had wanted ever since the Revolution) discovered that having the South as States was a double-edged sword, and that all the Southern states, along with Oregon, Ohio, and New Jersey were totally opposed to the 14th Amendment. And that the only way to get it passed was to remove statehood from the Southern States? And also to conduct 'skulldudgery' and intrigue against the two senators from New Jersey who still caused them to be 2 votes short? Read the resolution that the New Jersey state legislature passed and sent to Congress in response to the 'trumped' up accusations against their 2 duly elected Senators just so they could be disciplined and de-seated so that the governor of New Jersey (himself in favor of the 14th Amendment) could appoint his own two 'hand-picked' temporary Senators who he knew would vote FOR the 14th Amendment. That resolution did everything but call the US Senate a bunch of crooks and scalawags!
And giving the blacks the right to vote being the reason for Reconstruction?! HA! This is really a joke! On second thought, this might just be accurate, but not in the context presented by Stampp. Sure, the northerners wanted the black vote, but not because of some ideological and altruistic ideal, but rather simply because the black vote could be 'bought' just like it is today. Blacks were promised, by northern agents sent down south that if they voted like they were told, that they would be bossing the white man and own all his land within the year or so! So, yes, the northerners wanted the blacks to vote. But is this because they cared so much for the black man? NO indeed. Blacks themselves (if you read the Slave Narratives wherein over 2000 former slaves were interviewed by the government in the 30's), they were 'just turned out to pasture like cattle'. They couldn't read, they didn't know where to go, didn't know what to do. For years, they had been told everything to do, and now they were immediately freed in a very inhumane and unorganized way. Many of them almost faced starvation along with the white population in the years following the war. Abe Lincoln himself, when asked what was to become of the blacks who were now free, answered 'Well, let them root hog or die'. It is my belief that this is the source of the reason blacks are still suffering today! Even after the war, mother's had to 'bound out' their children to live and work for someone as basically that person's slave for $1 a month. Every month, these mothers would go by each farm where their children lived and collect the month's dollar. If slavery had been dismantled (as many Southerner's were in favor off, by the way) in a gradual and regulated way, the I firmly believe that the black community wouldn't be still suffering so much today. They could have received educations and skills and assimilated into society in a more organized and humane fashion.
Whites were humiliated, treated like crap, their land taken away right before their eyes. They were disenfranchised and defenseless and Mr. Stampp has the gaul to blame the South for forming groups like the KKK (not like the KKK today, mind you)? He has so drastically distorted these times that it is pathetic. No, it is political and historical 'correctness', that's what it is. Just more of the fact that 'to the victor goes the writing of history'. In short, Mr. Stampp is way WRONG, and if you buy into the version he gives in this book, then you WILL NOT (for good or bad) know what the real history was. By God, at least the South (during the war) didn't have to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, suspend the 1st Amendment by shutting down all newspapers and throwing the owners in jail who didn't print just what Seward wanted them to. No one in the South issued a warrent for the arrest of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (Taney) just to shut him up. No one in the South imprisoned the grandson of Francis Scott Keyes just because he was a member of the Maryland legislature and was going to vote for secession. No duly elected Southern representative got tried before a military court and banished from the country because he wasn't saying the right things (Clement Vallandigham, rep from Ohio). The South didn't blatantly violate its solemn oath to armistices at both Ft. Sumter and Ft. Pickens in Pensacola, FL just to get a war started either! And the South didn't have top generals and a president that by today's standards (and probably those of that time too if the truth be known) could be convicted of war crimes against civilians (Lincoln, Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman I'm talking about)! No, when I read books like this one, it makes me madder than heck, and so many people swallow it 'hook, line, and sinker' and are too narrow minded to even attempt to look at the other side of the story. It's called 'brainwashing' in Russia.
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Title: Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 by Eric Foner ISBN: 0060937165 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: A Short History of Reconstruction by Eric Foner ISBN: 0060964316 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 10 January, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson ISBN: 0345359429 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 21 January, 1989 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Causes of the Civil War : Revised Edition by Kenneth Milton Stampp, James M. McPherson, Michael F. Holt ISBN: 0671751557 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 15 January, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Reconstruction After the Civil War (The Chicago History of American Civilization) by John Hope Franklin ISBN: 0226260798 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: March, 1995 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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