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Unit 1 Lesson 1- Reconstruction and Redeemers
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
Today, we will begin to consider the nature of the power structure of the antebellum
South. In many ways, the example of the South provides a fascinating example of a
bundle of contradictions, but the most interesting of all is the contradiction between
freedom and slavery that runs as a constant strand throughout southern history. In a way,
it is this strand that provides us with a common theme characterizing the 19th century
South in this course.
Southerners had long prided themselves (and still do to a large degree) on their freedom.
This pride was melded with geography: an intense localism that emerged in large part
because of the nature of settlement during the colonial era.
Southerners were vocal supporters of the American Revolution, and they remained vocal
supporters of the libertarian, state rights position during the 19th century. Southerners
were deeply suspicious of government but also resented any outside intrusions into local
society. If there was anything white Southerners could agree on, it was that large areas of
private life (such as the family and slaveholding) were completely out-of-bounds when it
came to the interference of outsiders.
However, at the same time Southerners were also strict authoritarians. Southern
authoritarianism was based, at root, on the slave system. Early on, white southerners
realized that maintaining control over a coerced population required strict controls: early
slave codes, development of harsh measures of control during the 17th and 18th centuries,
separate legal system, etc. However, southern authoritarianism was also connected to the
prevalence of wider social hierarchy. For example:
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gender roles tended to be strictly defined
social structure was ossified
the political system (and holding of power) was hierarchy and oligarchic at the
state level but especially at the local level
county/local government
sectional balance of power
Perhaps the best way to understand this confusing relationship between libertarianism
and authoritarianism is as an ongoing tension: white southerners obsessed about various
kinds of freedom because they were sorely aware of what slavery meant for AfricanAmerican Southerners. They obsessed about personal freedom and honor because they
realized what the loss of such things would mean and because they based their society on
the degradation of human beings.
How do we define the South?
Before we get much further, I’d like to spend a little time considering the terms that we
are dealing with in the study of the 19th century South. It can be argued that there was not
one, but rather several “Souths.” One way the South can be defined is geographically.
Traditionally, the South can be defined geographically as those states south of the MasonDixon Line separating Pennsylvania from Maryland and extending westward to those
states south of the Ohio River. It includes the older, colonial South (Maryland, Virginia,
the Carolinas, and Georgia), along with the old Southwest (Alabama, Mississippi, and
Louisiana), and the new Southwest states of Arkansas and Texas. Somewhere in there
we should probably throw in Border States such as Kentucky and Missouri and fringe
states like Florida.
The South can also be defined thematically. There is in fact great diversity over what
historians and social scientists describe as “the South”—compare NC and Louisiana,
Tennessee and South Carolina. We think of the South as a rural place, but there were also
significant urban areas—and the urban South played an important function in the 19th
century South, to be sure. Clearly there were economic and geographical differences
among the various regions of the South, but there WERE shared characteristics, such as a
common racial and ethnic tradition (the racial tradition of slavery).
By the early 18th century, what eventually became “the South” had adopted slavery as its
main form of labor. Before the Civil War especially, an overwhelming proportion of
African-Americans lived in the South—more than 9 out of every ten African-Americans
lived in the South. Increasingly, the caste system did not just mean slavery—it also meant
the ambiguous position of free blacks. As early as 1820, there were about 117 free blacks,
and that number grew appreciably thereafter.
The white population was similar in coastal areas of the Atlantic South—the white
population was mostly ethnic English, while the interior was predominantly Scots-Irish
and German. A large majority of ethnic Southerners (white and black) were descended
from Virginia or the Carolinas. For example, Kentucky and the southern lower Midwest
were settled by Virginians, Tennessee and Arkansas were both settled by North
Carolinians, and the Deep South states were populated by the Carolinas.
This shared ethnic heritage was important in terms of speech, manners, culture, social
structure, and government—all of which was important in what Southerners had in
common. At the same time, it is quite possible to exaggerate the distinctiveness of the
South in the antebellum period (and there is a significant historical debate about this, to
be sure). Throughout the first half of the 19th century, white southerners considered
themselves Americans. Their sense of nationhood, to the extent that they had one, was
toward the peculiar Republican experiment of the Union. Southerners celebrated the 4th
of July and white Southerners revered the American Revolution and frequently alluded to
its heritage as their heritage.
Most people, scholars included, tend to exaggerate the significance of sectionalism and
make the important error of antedating the onset of the Civil War crisis. Other elements
of southern distinctiveness include:
• family
• language
• religion
• emphasis on place
In sum, this dialogue between southern distinctiveness and American-ness provides yet
another of the contradictions that typify the 19th century South. Southerners are also
united by their history—the heritage of the Civil War.
PART 2: THE HERITAGE OF THE CIVIL WAR
In order to understand the South, it is essential to also understand the Civil War and its
impact on southern life. The end of the Civil War in 1865 brought many changes to the
South, including widespread destruction and devastation, economic consequences, and
political disarray. Yet the Civil War experience had different effects for blacks and
whites. The biggest single change was the emancipation of the millions of slaves and the
changed role of African-Americans. It is not an exaggeration to describe this change as
“revolutionary.”
By the end of the Civil War, emancipation had become a central preoccupation of the
war, on both sides. However, we should remember that emancipation was not a war aim,
at least of Abraham Lincoln and mainstream Republicans when the war began in 1861.
For the first year and a half of the war Lincoln pursued a conservative policy in which he
avoided making emancipation a war aim. He also sought to keep the Border States in the
Union by avoiding antagonizing slaveholders there. Lincoln, through much of 1861 and
into 1862, carefully avoided saying that emancipation was a war aim. Yet, as often
happens during wartime, the conditions of war transformed the objectives for which both
sides were fighting.
The Confederacy’s war objectives were transformed into the objective, at least for
Jefferson Davis, of establishing an independent southern nation, even without AfricanAmerican slavery. For Lincoln and the Union, by 1863 they embraced emancipation as a
central aim. By 1865, emancipation had become a minimal condition for peace. Almost
immediately, it became apparent that Lincoln’s policy of avoiding emancipation meant,
effectively, that he had no consistent policy toward slaves from the beginning of the war.
This was so because the 4 million slaves in the South were not passive partners in the
process—they correctly perceived that the advent of war provided an extraordinary
opportunity to upend the oppressive system of chattel slavery.
From the beginning of the war in the spring of 1861, African-American slaves perceived
this opportunity and they fled plantations when they saw the opportunity to reach Union
lines. This happened despite the fact that Union forces had no consistent policy. Some
Union commanders welcomed fugitive slaves as a way to undermine the slave system.
John C. Fremont, commander of the Western Dept in July 1861, proclaimed martial law
in Missouri and emancipated all slaves belonging to disloyal masters. There was a similar
occurrence when David Hunter took command of the S.C. Sea Islands in April 1862. He
proclaimed martial law in S.C., G.A., and F.L. (even though his control was restricted to
coastal areas) and emancipated all the slaves of these areas. He also sought to recruit and
establish black troops. It is noteworthy that both Fremont’s and Hunter’s proclamations
were directly and specifically reversed by Lincoln’s orders.
Others, such as Benjamin Butler, not only excluded black fugitives from Union lines, but
also helped return them to slaveholders. In Maryland, for example, he offered
slaveholders the aid of his forces in apprehending fugitive slaves. Other leading Union
commanders, including William T. Sherman, George McClellan, and U.S. Grant, made it
their policy to return fugitive slaves in Border States to slaveholders. Still other
commanders in Border States, such as Henry W. Halleck in M.O. and western K.Y., Gen.
Don Carlos Buell in K.Y., and Gen. John A. Dix in M.D., all issued orders barring slaves
from Union lines.
In a sense, this was an extension of the antebellum pattern of runaways—the earliest
refugees were individuals, typically younger males, while later refugees became
increasingly family groups. Also, despite the inconsistency of Union policies, the fact
remains that as Union forces began to occupy the periphery of the Confederacy in 1861
and 1862, many blacks fled plantations. Farther into the war, slavery was disrupted by the
Confederacy with its labor impressment policies. Further disruptions also came as
slaveholders “refugeed” their slaves—that is, removed them toward safer havens in the
interior, away from Confederate officials and the Union army. However, this gave slaves
additional incentives toward running away.
What most clearly exposed the inconsistency of Union policies toward slaves in the
occupied South—and provided additional momentum toward transforming the war aims
of the Union—was the problem of how to deal with slaves of clearly disloyal owners. In
eastern V.A., in the vicinity of Hampton Roads, an area under Union control, Ben Butler
took command in May 1861. After Confederates impressed the slaves and slaveholders
sought to refugee them, many took off for Union lines. But the problem was what to do
with them. Unlike the Border States, one could not presumably return them to
Confederate owners. As a result, Butler reversed his earlier M.D. policy, announcing a
new policy—he seized these fugitive slaves and placed them into a category that he
called “contraband,” promising to return them, with compensation for their labor, if their
owners swore an oath of loyalty to the Union.
Congress endorsed the Butler policy with the passage of the First Confiscation Act in
August 1861. This act stated that any property used in support of the rebellion was
subject to seizure, and this included slaves. The act did not make clear, however, the
disposition of slave property. The First Confiscation Act provided greater clarity to
Union policies—it meant that in the rebellious South, slaves could be removed and
placed into the nebulous category of “contraband.” But it also provided tremendous
incentive for slaves, many of whom were eager to exchange their status as slaves for that
of contraband.
These actions by slaves, and the impact of the Civil War on southern society, made a
fluid situation even more fluid. For example, when Union forces occupied the S.C. Sea
Islands around Port Royal in November 1861, they found lots of slaves but few
slaveholders, virtually all of whom had fled. To whom should the Union forces return
the slaves if there were no slaveholders? They became another category of the semifreed—those not technically “contraband” but in as equally a murky condition.
Meanwhile, Radical Republicans gained a stronger foothold toward transforming war
aims and using emancipation policies to undermine Southern society and advance a
Union victory. As Union forces advanced into Confederate territory during 1862, they
employed contraband labor. Indeed, it became an important part of the war effort under
the First Confiscation Act. There were also frequent conflicts between commander-level
decisions to exclude fugitives and lower-rank decisions to harbor them, usually because
of local advantage and personal contacts with fugitives.
Perhaps most important, however, was that it became a matter of numbers—the large
numbers of slaves near Union lines who were opting for freedom. Within a year’s
duration, the war was simply undermining the viability of the slave system. Even in
Louisiana, where Ben Butler (in command in New Orleans) attempted to maintain a
distinction by returning slaves to loyal owners and even helping to manage plantation
labor, they eventually had to move to some system of wage labor which radically
transformed the slave system.
By 1862, all of this was having an effect, particularly in two categories of the South—the
Border South and the occupied South. The Second Confiscation Act, passed by Congress
in July 1862, continued to transform war objectives and Union policies toward slaves.
The Second Confiscation Act expanded emancipation to include slaves of disloyal
masters, but specified that they would be freed “forever.” This went beyond the first act,
which included only those engaged in Confederate service. The act also forbade military
authorities from deciding validity of claims on slaves or from surrendering slaves to
slaveholders. All slaves arriving to Union lines claiming that their owners were disloyal
were therefore free, with promise of Union army protection. The Second Confiscation
Act further authorized Lincoln as President to employ blacks in any capacity as part of
the war effort. A Militia Act (passed on the same day) specified that blacks could be
employed in military service and granted freedom to these men and their families.
On the heels of this legislation, Lincoln had decided by late July 1862 to embrace an
Emancipation Proclamation. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln announced his intention to
make such a proclamation on January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation did not
free anyone. It was directed at slaves owned behind rebel lines. The Proclamation
maintained status of slaves in Border and occupied South, but it did maintain that slaves
seeking freedom would obtain it once they reached Union lines, an important change in
policy.
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was a significant moment in the Civil War. Its
effects were primarily psychological—the war became a war against slavery, a war which
would require the destruction of southern racial slavery. Although there was continuing
confusion about how Union commanders enforced the handling of slaves, confusion that
persisted toward the end of the war, it greatly encouraged the destruction of the slave
system, and African-Americans participation in its destruction. Vivid evidence of
African-American participation was the role they played in the Union military. With the
Emancipation Proclamation, emancipation became a state war aim of Union forces.
Emancipation, in fact, became intimately related to the progress of the war, as Union
forces disrupted plantations and either freed slaves or encouraged them to flee their
masters. Confusion in Union policies during the war also occasioned great flux and
uncertainty among black communities about the degree of protection they would enjoy—
and what sort of future they faced.
PART 3: RECONSTRUCTION
Reconstruction was a major, traumatic experience for the South. It defined what the
South was for a generation, and its success, as well as its failures, had long-lasting effects
on the southern social, political, and economic landscape. For a long time, Reconstruction
was portrayed negatively by historians, and this negative portrait was reflected in the
popular media. The treatment of Reconstruction in accounts such as Gone with the Wind
was fairly indicative of this negative portrayal, which usually went something like this—
Reconstruction was a gigantic failure, filled with corrupt politicians, carpetbaggers and
unscrupulous whites who looted the state treasuries. A major subtext here was the
exploitation of a malleable African American population manipulated by this
unscrupulous white leadership.
This sort of interpretation dominated the early historians of Reconstruction, who saw the
period as anomalous in southern history. We now know that this portrait was vastly
overdrawn, and more than that, represented a serious distortion of what actually
happened—and the true meaning of Reconstruction. Reconstruction involved many
miscalculations and falsely raised hopes, but it also represented an alternative of what the
South might have become. In this lecture I would like to explore some of the implications
of that and of what it meant.
Black Political Mobilization
African Americans enjoyed a major opportunity during Reconstruction—unlike any other
Western Hemisphere society undergoing the transition from slavery to freedom, blacks in
America eventually experienced full civil and political rights. However, this did not occur
without a struggle, and the rights proved to be very difficult to protect.
“Self-reconstruction” developed as an extension of Lincoln’s and Johnson’s wartime
policies. Southern self-reconstruction involved the acceptance of emancipation and the
repudiation of secession, but little beyond this. It was an attempt to reconstruct the South
along the lines accepted by the dominant leadership class of the South. By 1867, self-
reconstruction had failed because of this, because of the refusal of South to endorse
the14th amendment, and because of the passage of the Black Codes.
One of the key reasons why self-reconstruction failed was that it failed to recognize a
new status for freed people. Self-reconstruction leaders sought to continue the status quo.
The best example of the attitude of ruling whites—an example demonstrating how far
removed from the realities of northern politics and the forever changed condition of
African American political awareness Southern white leaders were—were the Black
Codes. An important reason why the Black Codes and the antebellum system of justice
failed to work was that they did not enjoy the new-found confidence of freed people.
The Civil War had, after all, changed things. The fact that 179,000 blacks had served in
the Union army, where they gained new experience in bearing arms, public dignity, and
leadership, was key to this transformation. Even after the war, military units continued to
form the basis for political awareness and, from the end of the war onward, black
leadership maintained a visible political presence.
After the war, the Union League became an important vehicle of African American
political mobilization. The Union League started during the war as a mostly northern,
entirely white organization, but by the war’s end, it became dominated by blacks in the
South, at least in predominately black areas. During the period of self-reconstruction, the
Union League emerged as a kind of lobbying organization for black political
mobilization. By 1867, one historian has estimated that virtually every black voter in the
South was a member. The League was often associated with black military organizations
but its main function became political education and consciousness-raising.
As part of this black mobilization was the emergence of a new, more aggressive African
American political leadership. This leadership was partly composed of freed slaves, but
also prominent were antebellum free blacks. There was also significant participation by
northern freed blacks who had served in the Union Army during the war and remained in
the South thereafter. By 1867, black political mobilization was very much a factor in the
political equation of the rapidly moving developments of the Reconstruction South,
evidenced by the appearance of organized movements of blacks by 1867 and the holding
of political conventions of freedmen to work toward political enfranchisement and full
civil rights.
Black mobilization coincided with, and to a large extent was encouraged by the fate of
self-reconstruction. By 1867, self-reconstruction had encountered disaster. The
imposition of the Black Codes and the rejection of the 14th Amendment spelled the end of
the white South version of Reconstruction. Additionally, the imposition of military rule in
the spring of 1867 completely altered the rules—this was followed by federal protection
for black registration in the organization of new constitutional conventions after 1867.
These were stunning developments for the native white political elites. It is fair to say
that they had not fully anticipated this kind of sweeping change. Although there had been
noises about establishing a biracial coalition led by antebellum cooperationists (who had,
for the most part, led the efforts at self-reconstruction), for the most there was universal
shock and condemnation of black suffrage. South Carolina’s Benjamin Perry declared
that this form of Reconstruction would throw control of the South into the hands of
“ignorant, stupid, semi-savage paupers.” According to North Carolina antebellum Whig
and cooperationist William Alexander Graham, enfranchising blacks meant rolling back
“the tide of civilization two centuries at least.”
Black leaders realized, of course, that coalition-building was necessary: only in three
states (Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina) did blacks constitute a majority of the
population. Blacks constituted one quarter of the population in Texas, Tennessee, and
Arkansas, 40 percent in Virginia and North Carolina, and a bit less than half in Georgia,
Alabama, and Florida. It was obvious that blacks would have to form a biracial coalition,
but it was less obvious where, in the mid-19th century, this biracial coalition would come
from.
Carpetbaggers have traditionally been presented in a poor light by historians, but recently
they have been presented more fairly by historians. There were certainly men on the
make among them. The desire for personal gain was strong and many men saw new
opportunities in the South. The Republicanization of the South and the development of a
new entrepreneurial, free-labor economy went hand-in-hand. Carpetbaggers were far
from being the dregs of society; they were well educated and often well motivated. Some
were missionary types motivated by humanitarian impulses, and many others were men
who had migrated South after end of war.
Carpetbaggers were more significant in influence than in numbers. One estimate puts
about 20,000 carpetbaggers region-wide, while another has it that they composed no
more than two percent of the total population. Especially in states with few native-born
white Republicans (such as FL, SC, and LA), carpetbaggers tended to occupy large
numbers of offices, but even in states such as N.C. they played an important function.
Scalawags were even more reprehensible than carpetbaggers. “We can appreciate a man
who lived North and…even fought against us,” wrote a former governor of N.C., “but a
traitor to his own home cannot be trusted or respected.” Scalawags were a key to the
Republican condition. Attracting a majority of white Republicans was unimaginable, but
Republicans were able to siphon enough native-born whites to put together majorities.
Who, then, were the scalawags? They were a diverse lot. They included Unionists and
secessionists, idealists and opportunists. Some of the region’s largest landholders became
Republicans—Daniel L. Russell of southeastern N.C., a future governor of the state, was
the son of the largest landholder in the state. Like Russell, many (though certainly not all)
of these scalawags were Whigs. James L. Alcorn, who owned the largest plantation in the
Delta, was most prominent Whig Scalawag. Scalawags also included modernizers and
attracted some urban votes.
Yet by far the most important base of Republican scalawag support came from the
interior South, from those parts of the region that had contained large numbers of non-
slaveholders. These areas often voted Whig in the sectional politics of the antebellum
period, were partially or openly Unionist during the war, and continued a political
tradition and culture at odds with the southern mainstream once the war had ended. The
strongest concentrations were in eastern Tennessee, Missouri, N.C., West Virginia., and
West Texas, along with northwestern Arkansas and west Texas.
A direct connection with wartime loyalism was Heroes of America. This was the most
important white organization during and after the war. This organization favored, finally,
a righting of the skewed antebellum political order—more publicly financed schools,
equal representation, better taxation policies, and democratically elected local
government. In 1867-68, under the umbrella of federal protection, this coalition emerged
full blown.
New constitutional conventions were held across the South. These conventions embodied
the composition of the Republican party: about 1/6 were carpetbaggers from black belt
communities, southern whites composed the largest number of Republican delegates and
were especially numerous in NC, GA, AR, AL, TX. Some significant accomplishments
of these conventions included guaranteed black civil and political rights, abolishment of
the whipping of blacks, required proper qualifications for office and jury service, and
implemented viva voce (voice) voting. The conventions changed the nature of local
government in some states, such as N.C.
The political punch of the state Republican Party around the South was rooted in the
power of black votes, but depended also on the white swing vote and considerable white
involvement at the leadership level. In much of the South, Republicans established power
in the aftermath of constitution-writing.
This biracial coalition composed an unusual moment in the history of the South, but the
main reason that it worked was that the extent of direct racial contact was in fact limited.
Most black votes were in plantation districts and few whites voted there. Most white
Republican votes were in the upcountry, and there were few black votes there. The
politics of racial coalition-building therefore still maintained significant racial distance.
Nonetheless, there were still significant tensions in this Republican coalition. There were
economic tensions and tensions between old Whigs and new Republicans interested in a
politics of class. There were also significant tensions of class within the black community
that emerged: differences between northern and southern blacks, antebellum free blacks
and slaves freed during the war, and between urban and rural blacks. The racial tensions
were the most significant in the coalition.
Although Republicans obtained and exerted power in a number of southern states in the
late 1860s and into the 1870s, there were serious stresses. Two issues divided the
Republican coalition. One was the issue of Confederate disfranchisement: this opened up
significant divisions, but particularly among radical and moderate white Republicans.
The second issue was the issue of race: particularly the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan
(KKK) as tool of white violence. This represented a general assault on Republican rule.
The high tide of Reconstruction was the late 1860s and early 1870s. Thereafter, the
opponents of Reconstruction gathered their senses and were able to devise various ways
in which to upend the process, defeat the Republican Party, and restore, or at least
partially restore, some of the characteristics of the antebellum political system. There can
be little doubt that Reconstruction collapsed and perhaps even ultimately failed. There is
considerable doubt, it seems to me, why it failed. Next, we will examine the failure of
Reconstruction and its political embodiment in the Republican Party by looking at this
subject from two dimensions:
1. The way in which we usually examine the subject: Republicans were defeated
by external factors, primarily the Conservative race appeal
2. The ways in which the Republican coalition imploded from within.
To a certain extent, this might be a false distinction: the Republican coalition no doubt
failed because of a combination of external and internal factors, but it is useful to separate
these factors to understand this central component of the history of the 19th century
South.
PART 4: THE RISE OF THE CONSERVATIVES
It is fair to say that, following the imposition of political control by the Republicans and
the enfranchisement of blacks in the spring and summer of 1867, the traditional political
elites of the South were suffering from a kind of trauma and shock. At first, their
response to black suffrage and Republican constitutional conventions was to not
participate, hoping to discredit the entire process by their absence. But within a year or
so, many of the members of the political status quo had regained their bearings and were
beginning to fashion a strategy of opposition. That strategy had several important
components. For the most part, this opposition did not challenge the least common
denominators of federal-mandated Reconstruction policy, such as disavowal of
Confederate governments, the 13th amendment, and black voting and acceptance of black
citizenship. This realization had less to do with any real acceptance and more to do with
political realism of the need to avoid federal intervention.
“We are led to this course,” said a Mississippian in 1871, “not through choice but by
necessity—by the stern logic of events...” Many Conservatives, it is clear, publicly
countenanced black political participation while they privately anticipated ways in which
it might be limited or eventually even ended. In some states, opponents of reconstruction,
generally calling themselves Conservatives, were willing to seek out new coalitions and
exploit differences among Republicans.
Consider the instance of Virginia. There, radical Republicans, led mostly by its African
American wing, dominated the constitutional convention of 1868. That constitution had,
among other things, required the disfranchisement of large numbers of former
Confederates. But the commanding major general, John M. Schofield, held up approval
of the constitution (by popular referendum). Grant intervened by calling, through
presidential proclamation, for a referendum in 1869 in which voters could separately
approve or disapprove the main body of the Constitution and the disfranchising clauses.
Largely out of opposition to the disfranchising clauses of the proposed state constitution,
a so-called “new movement” was organized which was led and spearheaded by
traditional political leaders. The strategy of these “New Departure” Democrats was clear:
rather than focusing on black voting, they would focus on white voting. In Virginia, this
“new movement” coalesced around the candidacy of a carpetbagger, Gilbert C. Walker,
and his candidacy succeeded in splitting off a large portion of the white members of the
Republican coalition. Walker’s election, remarkably, meant that Virginia essentially
avoided a period of Republican rule during Reconstruction.
Similar “new movements” occurred in much of the rest of the Border South: In TN,
Republican DeWitt Senter sought out Democratic votes and took a conciliatory position
on the issue of disfranchising Confederates. In Missouri, a New Departure returned
Democrats to power in 1870 when they formed a victorious coalition with Liberal
Republicans.
It soon became apparent, however, that the New Departure was a wolf in sheep’s
clothing: in fact, it meant the earliest varieties of what eventually became known as
“Redemption.” Once in power, New Departure Democrats cast aside their Republican
allies and attempted to limit black political power and civil rights. In Tennessee, New
Departure Democrats repealed Republican law penalizing railroads for racial
discrimination and drafted a new constitution requiring racial segregation in schools.
Other Border South states pioneered ways in which black rights could be limited:
Delaware in 1873 imposed a poll tax for voting, Tennessee imposed a poll tax in 1870,
and Maryland enacted a property qualification. Virginia gerrymandered vigorously,
empowered government to appoint local governments, and imposed poll tax and other
limitations over voting.
New Departure was less successful in the Deep South. An exception was Georgia, where
Democrats took charge in 1870 and enacted strong restrictions over black voting. In other
states with larger black populations, however, such as Mississippi and S.C., Republican
control could not so easily be overturned. As another part of the Conservative assault, a
full-scale attempt was made to taint the motives, objectives, and implications of
Republican rule. As part of an effort to alienate white support for Republicans,
Conservatives launched a general attack claiming corruption on part of Republican
officeholders.
Conservatives denounced increased taxes that came during Reconstruction (largely to pay
for increased public services). Taxpayers’ Conventions organized in various parts of the
South: the tax issue was an issue that resonated well with yeomen whites, traditionally
strongly opposed to high property taxes. All of this added up to a concerted effort on part
of opponents of Reconstruction to eradicate the Republican Party. Indeed, much of the
focus of their activity, interestingly, had become political: hatred toward Republicans was
hatred of Reconstruction and everything that it represented. It was obviously racial, but
by the 1870s it also became partisan.
The Rise of the Klan
An instrumental part of the Conservative strategy to upend Reconstruction was the Ku
Klux Klan. The best way to see Klan is as a paramilitary, guerrilla equivalent of
Conservatives: their chief objective was political.
The historian Kenneth Stampp once commented that the Civil War had two phases, one
conventional, the other guerrilla. The conventional phase ended in 1865, the guerrilla
phase began almost immediately thereafter.
The Klan emerged in the chaotic social and political environment of the late 1860s. Out
of these conditions it emerged, but it did so with the objective, insofar as possible, of
restoring white supremacy and the traditional arrangements of political power. Its chief
objectives were to destroy the Republican Party’s infrastructure and undermine
Reconstruction at the local and state level. All of the latter would, of course, bring a
restoration of racial and social order.
Who were members of the KKK? We know that far from being poor whites, the bulk of
the membership came from political elites of the South. Between 1868 and 1871, there
was a wave of violence across the South, spearheaded by the Klan. The Klan sought out
black leadership as a primary object of the violence: at least 1/10 of black members of the
1867-68 constitutional convention were victims of violence. Seven of them were actually
murdered. Political terrorism against blacks also involved intimidation: consider the case
of Andrew Flowers, a Chattanooga, TN black who defeated a white in an election for
Justice of the Peace in 1870. There, the local KKK visited him and whipped him. In
October 1870, a group of armed whites attacked a Republican gathering in black belt
Eutaw, county seat of Greene County, Alabama, killing 4 blacks and wounding 54.
The KKK also sought, however, to intimidate white Republicans. KKK purposes were
not solely political: they extended into the public realms in which African Americans
were seeking equality. In KY, the Klan flourished even before black suffrage was
obtained in 1870. Singled out often for attack were two significant institutions: black
schools and black churches. KKK also attacked freedmen who sought economic
independence.
However, Klan activities were most intense in those areas where it had political
objectives. Consider the example of the Piedmont Carolinas—Piedmont NC, but
particularly Piedmont SC. In York County, nearly the entire white population joined the
Klan, committing in the early 1870s at least 11 murders and hundreds of whippings.
Things were so bad that local African Americans took to the local woods each night to
avoid assaults.
There is, it should be noted, ample evidence that the victims of KKK violence fought
back, often with great courage against great odds: a white Georgian under Klan attack
single-handedly fought off 20 attackers, killing 4. In northern Alabama, local white
Union army veterans organized an “anti-Ku Klux” that protected themselves and
threatened the KKK with reprisals. In eastern NC, the KKK was weak largely because of
the strength of local black opposition to it.
For the most part, the KKK was spectacularly successful at breaking the back of the
Republican effort to transform the South. They combined psychological assault on the
freed people and their white allies with practical obstacles to armed resistance.
Most freedmen owned firearms, but these were an inferior grade of weapons to the Klan
weapons of choice, the Winchester and six-shooter pistols.
Resistance to Klan violence, black resistance in particular, tended to inflame anti-black
sentiment—in communities where every white male routinely had some kind of training
in bearing arms. This specter was born out in 1872 in Grant Parish, LA where, after a
gubernatorial election, a group of freedmen cordoned off the county seat of Colfax and
even built defensive fortifications. They were subsequently attacked by whites armed
with rifles and cannon. Some 50 blacks were massacred after their surrender on Easter
Sunday 1873 (total black deaths were 280). This was the single bloodiest instance of
white violence in the Reconstruction era.
One could argue that the ultimate reason why all of this happened lay within the failure of
Reconstruction. Republicans had been seriously divided, almost from the beginning and
there were factional divisions based on race. There were also factional divisions among
black Republicans, often based on class. There were even divisions among whites, often
on class issues as well. In an important sense, the Republicans destroyed themselves
because they were unable to achieve a viable political coalition.
But the failure of Reconstruction—and the failure, ultimately, of a very different
alternative to the pattern of power and politics that we have been examining in this
class—also lies with the failure of federal intervention. State governments under
Republican control proved unequal to the task of combating KKK violence: when they
attempted to clamp down, they ran the risk of alienating white support for their political
coalition. Federal government did not provide effective protection for freedmen and for
southern Republicans.
Despite various civil rights acts and force bills designed to provide for effective
enforcement, the reality was that divisions among northern Republicans (mirroring
divisions among southern Republicans) prevented a concerted policy. The potential
effectiveness was hinted at in various campaigns against the KKK, which resulted in
numerous indictments and prosecutions. 700 indictments were issued in Mississippi
alone. U.S. Grant declared a “condition of lawlessness” in nine upcountry counties of
South Carolina, and suspended the writ of habeas corpus. An 1871 campaign spearheaded
by A.G. Amos Akerman resulted in the KKK being put out of business by 1872, but so
was Akerman, who was dismissed in 1871. Thereafter, northern interest in protecting
Republicans wavered. At this point, significant damage had already been done to the
Republican infrastructure in the South.
PART 5: RISE OF THE REDEEMERS
After the end of Reconstruction there was a rise of a new group of people in power, the
so-called “Redeemers.” Redeemers were those political leaders who “rescued” the South
from Reconstruction. They came to power at different points in different states, but what
they shared was a determination to maintain control, a resistance to Reconstruction
policies, and the pursuit of white supremacy.
During the late 1860s and 1870s, Reconstruction governments were overthrown, first at
the municipal level, then at the state level, and then at the national level. Concerning
municipal elections, Norfolk, Savannah, Memphis, and Richmond all came under
Conservative control from the beginning of universal manhood suffrage. New Orleans
and Nashville had Republican regimes until 1873, then were overthrown by antiReconstruction Conservatives. Republicans were ousted in Houston in 1874, and in
Raleigh and Montgomery in 1875. In a handful of cities such as Jackson and
Chattanooga, Republicans were in power until the late 1880s.
With state elections, this occurred at different points in time—Tennessee and Virginia
basically skipped Republican control entirely. Conservatives were in charge of
governments in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, N.C., and Texas in 1874. Mississippi was
recaptured in bloody elections of 1875. By 1876, only in Louisiana, Florida, and S.C. did
Republicans still maintain control. In all of these states, the use of terror and racial
polarization were key ingredients of Conservatives electoral victories.
It is worth noting that it was in the political fray of these intense ideological and political
battles that the very concept of “Redemption” emerged. A kind of mythology developed:
“black rule,” northern control, corruption, etc. All was redeemed by the intervention of
heroic white southerners with the credibility of the old regime. Note that this was and is
mythological. The reality was quite different: these regimes established themselves
through brute force, extra-constitutional means, and an appeal to the base emotions of
racism.
Reconstruction was thus defeated at different points in time during the 1870s, but another
key ingredient of defeat—and of “redemption”—occurred at the national level: the
northern electorate possessed varying degrees of interest and commitment to southern
Reconstruction. There was, to be sure, a current of race that flowed through northern
politics, a belief in the need to defeat the South along with doubts among white
northerners about the abilities of freed people to participate in politics. There was
ambivalence among northern white leaders, especially Republicans, to sustain
commitment to the protection of civil and political rights of freedmen.
There was also a natural tendency of northern whites to identify with southern whites—a
kind of transcendence of race. As the Leslie’s Newspaper said in 1874, “the white North
cannot avoid sympathizing with the white South.” Meanwhile, the northern white
electorate was distracted by other issues, above all the economic hard times of the 1870s.
There was an overall trend toward disengagement of federal government. This was
amplified by Democratic control of the House of Representatives in 1874, and
culminated in the presidential election of 1876: Samuel Tilden vs. Rutherford B. Hayes,
which brought the Compromise of 1877 and the withdrawal of federal troops from the
South. This was seen as the official end of Reconstruction.
The Aftermath of Reconstruction
The phased defeat of Reconstruction brought the “redeemers” into political control of the
South for the next 20 years. One thing to keep in mind—Redeemers were constantly
battling for control, to varying degrees, across the South. The Republican Party survived
the end of Reconstruction dispirited, divided, and factionalized, but still very much a
force. Redeemers had to battle with the possibility of federal intervention: the 14th
amendment, and the possibility of federal protections for elections. There was also a
battle within the Conservative/Democratic coalition: sectional and class divisions with
the “white man’s party” remained real.
Thus, the political regimes that emerged during the 1870s and remained in power for the
next 20 years were negative and repressive, interested in maintaining power at all costs.
How did they maintain power?
•
•
•
•
Gerrymandering
Harsh electoral systems: ballot laws, electoral intimidation, fraud
Undermined new system of public education
Alliance with new business interests at the expense of old allegiances to rural
South
Lost Cause Ideology
By the 1880s, a widespread social movement of Lost Cause emerged across the South.
The movement started in the 1860s and 1870s with groups of women that organized
themselves to tend the graves of Confederate dead. This mythology proclaimed that the
South lost the war not because of a wrong cause but because of superior numbers of
northern resources and northern armies. It argued that the root of the war was not slavery
but state’s rights. This is part of the historical denial about slavery and its consequences.
States’ rights ideology was connected to republicanism and the heritage of the
Revolution, only with even greater emphasis on heroism and the individual
accomplishment of Confederate military leaders.
The larger message was the attachment to the notion of confederacy and Confederate
dead. This involved the creation of monuments, both cultural and physical, to the
Confederacy. There was a monument building craze between 1880 and 1920. By 1914
there were over 1,000 monuments to Confederates in the South. According to one
historian, “Never in the history of the world had the losing side of a civil war been
permitted such a public and honored institutionalization of its defeat.”
Unit 1, Lesson 2- Rise of the New South
PART 1: BACKGROUND: THE RURAL SOUTH
The South was an overwhelmingly rural place in the 19th century. Agriculture
predominated the way of life in the South. It is important to note the major differences
between the geographical areas of the South:
•
Cotton South: experienced expansion and boom, particularly in newer areas of
the cotton zone. This area was generally located in the upland, interior South, but
during this period pushed westward into newer and less soil-exhausted regions.
An example is the land boom in Texas after the Civil War.
•
Tobacco South: keep in mind the distinction between the older burley tobacco
and newer bright leaf tobacco. This area experienced contraction and continued
decline of older tobacco in the coastal South, and the expansion of bright leaf
tobacco.
•
Upland/background South: there were major changes in this area of the South,
including changes in the status of “yeomen” farmers, chiefly in the upland South,
and the condition of southern Appalachian underwent major changes.
Migration Patterns
There was a good deal of out-migration and immigration into selected areas, generally
regions in which a plantation boom was occurring. The population grew at a rapid pace in
the older, eastern South. The typical pattern in older southern communities was
represented by a good deal of out-migration and very little in-migration. The South was
distinguished by an almost complete lack of impact of European immigration during the
heaviest national period of immigration.
How did people live? Southerners were unified by similar living conditions. In general,
isolation prevailed in rural South. Despite the penetration of railroads, most people, white
and black, lived apart from concentrated areas of population.
In many respects, black people were oppressed by this system, just as they had been
under slavery. But we should, I think, stress change over continuity—the key reason
being the new characteristics that came with the New South plantation system.
New South Plantation System
In essence, what occurred in the New South was the adaptation of the antebellum
plantation system, but in such a way as to perpetuate poverty. The New South plantation
system became a kind of poverty machine.
The New South plantation system was marked by the rise of the crop lien system,
especially in cotton. It was a compromise that came out of the failure of wage labor in the
Reconstruction period. It was a system of land and labor and credit. This had particular
implications for black people—the New South plantation system replaced slavery as a
system.
The fact of the matter is that this system became highly oppressive by the end of the 19th
century. Sharecroppers became locked into system and previously independent white
farmers were drawn into system as tenants. The credit system imposed horrific burdens
on people at the bottom, which saw the emergence of the system of “debt peonage,” by
which people were bound to the land.
PART 2: REDEEMERS AND NEW SOUTH IDEOLOGY
Although Redeemers came to power as purifiers rescuing the south from the “corruption”
of Reconstruction, they themselves experienced a period of extensive corruption. In 1884,
the Tennessee treasurer, the adopted son of President James K. Polk, disappeared with
$400,000 in cash. The same year, Alabama’s treasurer fled to Mexico, with Alabama’s
treasury being $233,000 short. The most notorious instance was the case of Louisiana,
especially its corruption-ridden state lottery system.
Redeemer regimes were simultaneous Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs: Jacksonian
Democrats in their penny-pinching approach to government and their determination to
reduce the expanded government services of the Reconstruction era.
During the Reconstruction era, Redeemers cut public education to the bone. As another
cost-cutting measure, they instituted a convict-lease system in much of the South. State
convicts were leased out to private businesses to avoid the costs of maintaining a prison
system. The great majority of convicts were African Americans, and the system became a
kind of Gulag of brutality, racism, and oppression. Convicts were sent to convict-lease
arrangement for both major and petty crimes. The beneficiaries were the private
contractors who obtained a slave labor system with the connivance of Redeemer regimes.
Concerning political leadership, Redeemers adopted and subsumed old ideas of the Whig
Party: consider the example of Zebulon Vance of North Carolina. Redeemers were also
Whiggish in their emphasis on strong support for economic development. They were
enthusiastic promoters of railroad development. The cultural leadership of redeemer
regime involved an alliance with New South boosters, the development of Lost Cause
ideology and Confederate sentimentalism.
The Redeemer regimes promoted a paradoxical message: preserving the status quo on
political leadership, but proclaiming a new message of outside investment and economic
development. Redeemer regimes in the southern states openly welcomed investment by
northerners and foreigners:
•
•
Development of railroads
Development of extractive industries in mining and lumbering: there was a
massive cutting of timber—northern timber syndicates swept through the South,
lumbering both softwood pines across the region and also hardwood forests of the
Appalachians. By 1900, wide swaths of forests were denuded. According to one
government forestry expert in the early 1900s, the result in the South was
“probably the most rapid and reckless destruction of forests known to history.”
This rapid development occurred with the open encouragement of Redeemer regimes,
who adopted a development mindset. Similarly, Redeemer regimes promoted
modernization in agriculture. The best example was the adoption of enclosure laws and
an enclosure movement in much of the rural South: there had been a tradition of open
range husbandry across the South, but with Redeemers came the slow introduction of
commercial agriculture and fencing laws throughout the South. The case of fencing laws
placed New South/Redeemer regimes on the side of modernizing forces.
Cracks in the Wall
By the 1880s and 1890s, however, the Redeemer regimes began to crack, on several
fronts. There was an internal inability to rule because of factionalism, old partisan
conflict, and corruption. In addition, there was a growing resentment on the part of the
“outs” among southern whites about the consequences of economic growth. Redeemers
also experienced conflict with southern white yeomanry on a host of issues. Adding to
this was the problem of race: Conservatives, then Redeemers, were white supremacists,
but they were not “radicals” on race. That is, they did not favor radical solutions, and
they saw race in terms of slavery. The racial situation went from bad to worse in the last
decade or so of 19th century, and challenges to Redeemer rule emerged in the 1880s and
1890s.
PART 3: THE RISE OF POPULISM
Although Redeemers appeared to have a firm handle on the political structure, in fact
there were troublesome elements continuing to challenge their control:
•
•
•
Dissatisfaction within the Democratic party; continuing factionalism related to
polyglot nature of the Democratic Party during and after Reconstruction
Persistence of Republicanism in much of the South
Continuing power of African Americans in voting
It was in this fragile political environment that another, potentially even more serious
challenge came: the rise of agricultural/rural discontent with the Peoples’ Party. There
was a general environment of agricultural distress in the South. Much of this was
systemic—there was the emergence of sharecropping and share tenancy as systems of
credit and labor after the Civil War. Also, the spread of railroads and market agriculture
brought mixed blessings for southern farmers: it exposed them to the vicissitudes of the
market system and placed extraordinary pressures on marginal farmers, and the South
had many marginal farmers, white and black.
The historical pattern for Southern agriculture had been labor-intensive, for both whites
and blacks, and this continued to be the case. Rather than declining, plantation, one-crop
agriculture actually expanded. There was an increasing dependence on staple crops,
turning to cotton in particular over food production, and there was another form of
plantation expansion with the rise of new, bright-leaf forms of tobacco production in
Virginia and North Carolina. When Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution and
New South booster, surveyed southern agriculture, he proclaimed that planters were “still
lords of acres, though not of slaves.”
What all this added up was a perceptible decline in the material condition of southern
farmers: this was matched by an equal decline in the status of agriculture. Particularly
during the 1880s, it became apparent that the political ideal of agriculture as a vocation
was gone, that it was being displaced by the sweeping changes of the late 19th century.
It is safe to say that farmers felt a sense of bewilderment and even betrayal about the
changes that were affecting them.
“There is something radically wrong in our industrial system,” declared
one of them in 1887. “There is a screw loose. The wheels have dropped
out of balance. The railroads have never been so prosperous, and yet
agriculture languishes. The banks have never done a better or more
profitable business, and yet agriculture languishes. Manufacturing
enterprises never made more money or were in more flourishing
condition, and yet agriculture languishes. Towns and cities flourish and
‘boom’ and grow and ‘boom’ and yet agriculture languishes.”
It is noteworthy that much of the farmers’ frustration was expressed against big business
generally, but railroads specifically. Farmers saw these changes, and for many of them
the causes were basically political. They believed that the political system—which they
understood in basically Jacksonian terms—was no longer representing them, as the
majority of the American people. When they looked at the Redeemer regimes, to put it in
more concrete terms, they saw an unresponsive, undemocratic system that seemed to be
tilting toward monopolists, railroad interests, mill-men, banks, and towns—all at their
expense. This perception was expressed in producerist rhetoric: the motto of the Farmers’
Alliance was “Equal Rights for All, Special Privileges for None.” All of this was
connected to Jacksonian egalitarianism and republicanism.
Rise of the Farmers’ Alliance
It was in this context that the Farmers’ Alliance came into existence. The Alliance was a
widespread, massive protest movement, yet it was a protest movement whose objectives
were basically conservative: it wanted to save the old, 19th century agrarian world of the
South. As a movement, it was not interested in radically altering the social, racial, and
gender structure of the South.
However, this is generally how social movements and even revolutions start out, and
what happened in the South was not unusual—there were various movements of
agrarians around the world, at various points in time, seeking to reverse the irreversible
tides of modernization.
Various agricultural protest groups arose in the 1870s and 1880s, and a culture of
producerism emerged. There was widespread resistance to fencing laws in the 1870s and
1880s, pitting producerists against market-oriented agriculturists, hinterlands vs.
modernizers. This period saw the rise of what one historian called “social bandits:” Jesse
and Frank James of Missouri are one example.
The Farmers Alliance was founded originally in Texas in the 1870s. It started as a
frontier vigilante organization in Lampasas County, in east Texas. It then expanded into
something different in the early and mid-1880s in east Texas. The Alliance grew
particularly strong across Texas in early and mid 1880s on anti-monopoly, Greenback,
and anti-fencing platforms. It grew as a local association rather than an explicitly political
organization.
The Alliance developed a fairly elaborate system of recruitment, with lecturers fanning
out to rural neighborhoods, spreading a producerist message of protest. Alliance appeal in
Texas also lay in their economic program: they proposed a system to bypass the
oppressive land and credit system of the cotton South:
•
•
Alliance economic system was to include joint-stock operations, Alliance
stores, even an Alliance exchange system
Alliance tried to create system to market cotton directly to manufacturers
By 1887, there was wider involvement of the Texas Alliance: there was a famous
meeting at Cleburne, TX in August 1886, where the decision was made thereafter to
expand beyond Texas. Texas was a meeting ground of different parts of the South, and in
the Alliance it returned to its roots. In 1887-88, the Alliance sent lecturers to the far
reaches of the South to organize a regional organization:
•
•
•
•
Veteran organizers such as S. O. Daws of Texas, mastermind of the expansion
of the Texas alliance in the early 1880s, returned to organize Mississippi
Buck Barry, former Texas Ranger and veteran of the Mexican and Civil Wars,
returned to N.C. in 1887, his method was the targeting of local neighborhood
leaders and establishment of local Alliance infrastructure
Attracted middle stratum of rural South, not desperately poor but, in general,
the very rich.
Formed a segregated Colored Farmers Alliance which eventually attracted
significant number of adherents
In the late 1880s, the Alliance grew very quickly in much of the South. Producerist
appeal contributed, as did their various economic experiments: cooperative exchange
movements were very popular. Consider the experience in the jute bag boycott of 1888:
in 1888, a cartel of producers of jute cotton bagging had combined to increase greatly the
price. Alliance exchanges and cooperatives mobilized to get farmers in 1889 (too late for
1888) to use cotton bagging instead, forcing the surrender of the “jute trust.” This victory
stimulated greater interest, and the peak of Alliance numbers and prestige occurred in
1890.
Alliance in Politics, 1890-92
Nominally, the Alliance was a non-political organization, but that was never really true.
Indeed, from the beginning it was actively involved in politics. From the beginning,
Alliance leaders discovered that they and their members were drawn to political
involvement.
Successive national conventions at St. Louis in December 1889 led to the creation of a
national Alliance organization, and ultimately to the creation of the Peoples’ Party, a
major third party challenge to the status quo. But before this step was taken, the Alliance
attempted about two years of participation as a pressure-group within the Democratic
Party. At the state level, the Alliance attempted to obtain Democratic support for
regulatory legislation over the railroads. Most of these attempts were unsuccessful. At the
national level, efforts focused on the congressional enactment of the sub-treasury plan.
Although this was introduced by Zebulon Vance of N.C., ultimately he himself helped to
undermine its success.
Creation of the Peoples’ Party
It was out of the frustration of the Alliance’s political involvement that the most
important third party in American history, the Peoples’ Party, came into existence.
Alliances were diverse organizations, but among them were a vocal minority that favored
a more direct political approach. Probably a majority of the organization favored
remaining Democratic, but the third party advocates pressed forward nonetheless. There
was a series of national conventions, culminating with the famous Omaha convention of
July 1892:
•
•
Nominated a national ticket, composed of a Union general for president and a
Confederate general for vice president
Famous Omaha Platform
The presidential campaign of 1892 was generally a failure in the South. Democrats pulled
out all the stops to defeat the Populist challenge. There was much use of the race issue, as
well as voter fraud.
White Populism remained pretty much exclusive of African-Americans, but there were
various attempts at establishing a biracial coalition. Populists, though defeated in
presidential elections of 1892, remained a major challenge: in several states, they
attracted a large portion of the white vote. In some states, such as Alabama, they
threatened to capture control of state government—a threat only beaten back through
massive voter fraud.
In other states, such as North Carolina, Populists actually succeeded in capturing control
over state government. In N.C., Populists won state elections in 1894 and the
gubernatorial election in 1896. Populists worked to bring major changes to government
and politics and challenge the status quo in a major way. The chief form of alliance with
African-Americans came in attempts to establish “fusion” parties
After the mid-1890s, Populism went into decline, for several reasons:
• Economic crisis of 1890s demoralized rural South profoundly
• Inability of Populists to create effective political coalition: confusion of fusion!
• Success of Southern Democrats at mounting a fierce counterattack: use of race
and, ultimately, suppression of vote to solidify control
Ultimately, the demise of Populism led to distinct changes in the environment:
• Rise of new generation of Democratic leaders, passing of Redeemer generation of
leadership
• Emergence of new, “progressive” style politicians
• Establishment of one party control through constitutional changes and
disfranchisement
PART 4: INDUSTRIALIZATION
Another major change in the history of the South—and of the emergence of the “New
South”—was the rise of industrialization and industrialism. The South prior to the Civil
War was known as a rural/agricultural region. The “New South” would be a place where
northern-style manufacturing could occur. All of this was part of the larger
“modernization” of the South during the 50 years after Reconstruction.
With greater industrialization could come a more “northern” character. It could mean that
the South would become more “American.” And it might mean that Southerners would
become wealthier. However, there were clear costs accompanying this change, clear
choices about the path it might take.
Let us then explore some of the implications of industrialization: What was
industrialization? Keep in mind that the advent of industrialization did not occur on a
blank slate. There were already pockets of industrial activity throughout the South, such
as in Richmond, Virginia. Also, in 1860 there was already a fairly extensive railroad
system in existence, and there were cotton textiles in antebellum North Carolina.
But there was something categorically different about what was happening here: if you
look at the social landscape of the South at the turn of the 20th century, major changes
have clearly occurred:
•
•
•
•
Growth of towns and cities, especially medium-sized cities
Increased migrant work force
Emergence of various types of manufacturing
Development of merchants and mercantile activity
Behind all of this was a single large phenomenon: the rise of railroads. Railroads existed
in the 1860s throughout the South, but it was a scattered, hastily assembled system. There
were problems with difficulty of travel and compatibility of the system. This railroad
system was largely devastated by the Civil War. Late in the 19th century there was a
period of tremendous railroad construction throughout the United States, and especially
in the South. This coincided with the infusion of capital investment into railroads, and the
creation of highly capitalized railroad systems.
What did railroads mean for the South? It is safe to say that they radically changed the
Southern way of life. By the early 20th century, no community in the South was
unaffected by railroads, and most now either had railroads coming through their
community or had nearby access. This meant that Southerners could travel and move
with greater ease—that they could conceive of their world beyond the village life that had
dominated colonial and antebellum mindsets.
It also meant that all this fundamentally changed the way that they did business. Markets
had heretofore been local, now they were national and international. Much of this was
good: it meant that Southerners had access to goods from around the globe. Even in
isolated villages the little stores and nickel-and-dime merchants offered products from the
North, Europe, even Asia. But it also meant that the locally-oriented economy of the prerailroad era was gone.
One of the direct consequences of the railroad (and communication) revolution was a
difference in where people lived. Southerners had been overwhelming rural, and they
remained predominantly rural, but a perceptible, important change of this period (the
post-Reconstruction era) was the shift toward towns and cities. An important thing to
keep in mind: urban growth followed railroad growth. There was a real change in the
pattern of urbanization
The antebellum era followed patterns of colonial America in that the most significant
urban growth occurred along coastal areas, or in cities with easy access to ports. The
biggest concentrations of populations were port cities such as Baltimore, Charleston, and
New Orleans. Interior towns depended on their position on waterways: examples of
Memphis and Richmond.
This all changed with railroads, which opened up the possibilities of urbanization. One of
the remarkable phenomena of this era was the rise of cities out of nothing. Consider three
examples:
•
•
Birmingham, Alabama: Prior to 1870, it did not exist even as a town. Because of
the advent of railroads, and the development of coal mining and the iron and steel
industry, Birmingham became one of the largest urban centers of the Deep South.
Roanoke, Virginia: Prior to early 1880s, it was known as Big Lick. Roanoke
became a major transportation center, with the spread of the Norfolk and Western
railroad system
•
Finally—Greensboro, North Carolina
By the early 20th century, make no mistake about it—the South remained a very rural
place. But urban areas, particularly towns, were developing an alternative view of what
“the South” was. When Henry Grady visited the New England Club of New York City in
1886, he proclaimed a “New South.” A key ingredient of this “New South” was an
industrial South, a South in which mass manufacturing, factories, and a widened
proletariat existed.
What were some of the key ingredients of this industrial South?
• Reorganization of manufacturing into a compartmentalized, highly productive
system
• Division of labor
• Use of machinery, especially power-driven machinery
Unit 1, Lesson 3- White Supremacy and Origins of Segregation
Part 1: A Crisis in Race
One of the biggest changes of the end of the 19th century: resolution of an ongoing crisis
in race relations that led to disenfranchisement, segregation, and a new dark age in the
history of the South. We want to look at that today—the origins of the triumph of white
supremacy in the early 20th century.
By the 1890s, a race crisis was gripping the South and, for that matter, much of the
country. Across the country, white supremacy—an openly virulent variety of it, in fact—
had come into fashion by the 1890s. The best (but not the only) indicator of this new
racial environment was the prevalence of lynching, beginning during the late 1880s and
peaking in the first decade of the 20th century. Between 1882 and 1927, 4,951 people
were lynched in the United States. Of these, 3,513 were black, compared to only 1,438
who were white. The tendency during this period was that lynching became southern and
racial. The leading states (1882-1927) were Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana,
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, S.C., Oklahoma, Missouri, Virginia,
and N.C.
Lynching was, for the most part, a rural and small town phenomenon. In cities, in
contrast, there was the increasing appearance of race riots—or really race massacres. In
1906, in Atlanta, there was growing insecurity among whites in the city concerning the
position of blacks. There was also a political connection though: Governor Hoke Smith
campaigned in 1906, and during the campaign the white newspapers had focused on
black crime, particularly sexual crimes.
On September 22, 1906, a crowd of whites appeared after the evening paper had reported
sexual assaults. The crowd turned into a mob that began attacking African Americans
indiscriminately. At least 5,000 whites swarmed into the streets, most of them young and
in their 20s. Within an hour, there were more than 10,000 roaming the streets. Police did
little to restrain the rioters and this became a full scale massacre, with attacks occurring
on storekeepers and innocent streetcar riders (12 streetcars were attacked, and by the end
of the day, at least 20 blacks were dead).
The next day, as the white mob prepared to attack “Darktown,” the African American
community in Atlanta, black residents prepared to defend themselves. W.E.B. Du Bois
stood with a shotgun to defend his house, as did others. When the white mob came, the
blacks responded with gunfire and the mob was repulsed. The mob then turned to the
middle-class black town of Brownsville, where many downtown blacks had taken refuge.
After a white policeman was killed, police sealed off the neighborhood and arrested 300
blacks. Four blacks died, as the policemen took over the job of the mob. The total
estimates of the riot were more than 100 black deaths, with one white death.
Wilmington and Atlanta were not so much riots as they were racial massacres that arose
out of rising racial tensions. In both cases, they coincided with the coming of a new era of
white supremacy. They were suggestive of a new racial atmosphere that existed across
the South, and, to a certain extent, across the country.
Disenfranchisement
Between 1890 and 1906 the southern states made major changes in their political
systems, with profound implications. Depending on the time and place, African
Americans had enjoyed varying degrees of access to the voting franchise, but this
changed in the 1890s. The development of what was known as the “Mississippi Plan” in
1890 provided for the invention of various constitutional devices targeting black voters
for exclusion. Barriers were created, such as property or literacy restrictions, and later,
“escape clauses” were developed to sell these restrictions to white voters—grandfather,
understanding, or good character clauses. Additionally, many states adopted the poll tax.
Still another safeguard of a whites-only electorate was the white primary. If a black voter
could pass the literacy test and pay the poll tax, then he faced in many states the white
primary.
Background—the development of the primary was part of the reform of the political
system, as was the introduction of the secret ballot. Statewide primaries were adopted in
S.C. in 1896, Arkansas in 1897, Georgia in 1898, Florida and Tennessee in 1901,
Alabama and Mississippi in 1902, Kentucky and Texas in 1903, Louisiana in 1906,
Oklahoma 1907, Virginia in 1913, and N.C. in 1915.
All of these measures virtually eliminated black voters: consider the case of Virginia,
where there were 130,334 registered voters in 1896. This number declined to 1,342 in
1904.
Part 2: Jim Crow Segregation
Against this backdrop of political disempowerment, a new era of racism triumphed. We
should note that much of what we remember as the segregated system was a product of
this era. The earliest version of “Jim Crow” had appeared in the case of railroad
transportation, but after 1900 a host of new laws appeared regulating the public spaces of
white and black people. There were transportation laws regulating whites and blacks in
streetcars. For the most part, the laws required separation in cars, although one law in
Montgomery, Alabama, required blacks and whites to ride in separate cars. During this
same period, these laws were extended to apply to steamboats as well.
Through public places, most areas of life by the time of World War I were regulated by
the obvious appearance of “whites only” or “colored” signs over entrances and exits,
theaters and boarding houses, toilets and water fountains, waiting rooms and ticket
counters.
There were also laws regulating employment and work. A South Carolina law of 1915
prohibited textile mills from allowing workers of different races to work together or use
the same facilities. These laws were reinforced by unions, where they existed in South,
which worked hard to exclude blacks from skilled trades.
States required that public institutions be segregated. This was already true of primary,
secondary, and higher education, but now applied to other institutions as well. There was
separation and segregation of park facilities—this became important as these facilities
grew in importance.
Appearance of Residential Segregation
A law in Baltimore in 1910 designated all white and all black residential blocks. This was
imitated in Atlanta and Greenville, SC. Various other methods were tried elsewhere, but
the most effective method of housing segregation became locally enforced, with explicit
legislation.
Part 3: The Impact of White Supremacy
We have looked at the origins of white supremacy during the 1890s and early 1900s.
Now, I want to examine how white supremacy and Jim Crow affected life at the everyday
level. In particular, I am interested in the ways in which white supremacy shaped African
American life, and the ways in which African Americans responded to it.
To be sure, the advent of white supremacy decisively shaped life in the 20th century
South. Blacks lived under an oppressive system of slavery, and Reconstruction brought a
period of uncertainty and turbulence, but the key difference with what occurred after the
1890s was the advent of an overtly oppressive system that permeated the social, legal,
and political system—this was the system that is collectively known as “Jim Crow.”
It is important to reiterate the combination of factors that made this possible:
•
•
•
•
•
Undeniably, politics was important: shifting political configurations of late 19th
century
Changing circumstances of the North, and northern attitudes toward African
Americans; the importance of imperialism
Advent of scientific racism: belief in innate racial differences, fused with
Darwinism
Emergence of aggressively racist point of view in the South; white consensus that
there was a “negro problem”
All this culminated in important developments, in the following sequence:
disfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation, further system institutionalization of
apartheid
What, then, was the impact of this? It should be emphasized that Jim Crow circumstances
were part of a continuum of racism, but that qualitatively things were different after 1890.
One of the most important characteristics of segregation was the closing off of public
spaces and stamping of white supremacy on public spheres of activity. This was a public
statement, at a variety of levels, of enforced inequality between the races.
African Americans now confronted a system that closed off options for them. Frequently,
20th century African Americans were confronted with humiliations. There were numerous
instances of African Americans who confronted segregation in public transportation and
refused to accept it: five-year-old Louis Armstrong was dragged by a friend of his
mother’s to the back of a trolley car in New Orleans in 1905. He noticed that the sign
indicated “For Colored Passengers Only” and asked what it meant. “Don’t ask so many
questions,” was the response. “Shut your mouth, you little fool.”
Many remembered the humiliation as part of a right of passage. Other forms of
humiliation included whites forcing blacks to drink alcohol or to dance. This humiliation
brought about a profound lack of self-worth and of frustration, and this was particularly
true among black males. There was a sense of lack of redress, especially legal redress, in
the Jim Crow system. It was a stark separation of worlds, between white and black. For
those blacks with contact with the white world, they developed an elaborate sense of
racial etiquette. Parents felt at least some need to educate children in the ability to “get
along” in white world—whatever that might mean. An important overall theme was the
conflict between feelings of frustration and striving toward resistance among black
Southerners as a whole.
Part 4: Education
There were a number of indicators of the true meaning of Jim Crow, but none as
important as Jim Crow education. Slaves had been deprived of education and forbidden
literacy, yet somehow they acquired it. During Reconstruction, education (along with the
acquisition of political and civil rights) was one of the cornerstones of the program of
emancipation sponsored by African American leadership: one precondition for the
readmission of southern states back into the Union during Reconstruction was the
acknowledgement of the constitutional right of public education for all Southerners, black
and white.
However, let there be little question about the reality of Reconstruction Era public
education systems: they were segregated from the start. Yet the race crisis of the late 19th
and early 20th century profoundly shaped public education. This period saw the rise of
common school education for blacks and whites during the1870s-1890s: both white and
black schools expanded.
The general pattern of rural education was isolated one-room schools. The school system
was extremely decentralized and there was a great deal of autonomy to local schools. The
schools grew in an environment of inequality and racism.
There was a change after the 1890s: heightened attention toward public schools emerged,
leading to the creation of the modern school system. This involved a conscious effort to
upgrade and transform the curriculum of white schools, whereas there was a determined
effort to do little for black schools. Between 1900 and 1920, disparities between white
and black schools grew very wide indeed. A key difference was the development of an
early system of white high schools, whereas there was a lack of black high schools until
later.
Segregated pedagogy emerged with the rise of “industrial education.” For whites,
industrial education became a metaphor for inferior black education, though for blacks it
had a different meaning.
Part 5: Black Response
How did black respond to these changes? On the one hand, the assault of white
supremacy was devastating. On the other hand, African Americans began to develop new
strategies of resistance.
One recent study, by Glenda Gilmore, has pointed out that white supremacy was
particularly focused on black males. She argues that opportunities for black leadership
narrowed, having a major impact on the character of black leadership. She also argues
that black women stepped into the breach.
We should emphasize that during this dark period of American history, there were strong
responses from African Americans: there was a major gap between white and black
understanding of the meaning of Jim Crow. White liberals generally accepted Jim Crow,
at least until the 1940s. Black leaders, however, were agreed that a posture needed to be
developed that could present a kind of “mask” toward the white power structure.
In general, there were two sorts of responses: militancy, offered by William E.B. Du
Bois, and accommodation, offered by Booker T. Washington.
• Du Bois: in the early years of the 20th century, this meant working through the
court system, organizing a political response—Du Bois was instrumental in the
creation of the NAACP
• Washington: believed that blacks should accommodate; best known for “Atlanta
Compromise” speech of 1895, which called for separation of the races but joint
alliance toward mutual progress; his emphasis was on education and self-help
Ostensibly, the Washington-Du Bois debate was stark—a pull between resistance and
accommodation. But really it was more complicated than this. Washington was very
popular, with a message of independence, pride, and autonomy. His approach was one of
“getting along” but also asserting black interests. He worked the system, and was
particularly effective with northern philanthropy. Du Bois, on the other hand, was very
elitist and appealed mainly to college-educated blacks, and not to masses. His was a
message without significant meaning for black masses.