Reconstruction era

Reconstruction-era military districts in the South

For other uses, see Reconstruction era (disambiguation).

Reconstruction, in United States history, refers both to the period after the Civil War when the states of the breakaway Confederacy were reintegrated into the United States of America, and to the process by which this was accomplished.

Northern moderates and radicals alike agreed that for the war to be declared a victory three points had to be achieved: the Confederacy and its system of slavery had to be dead, and the possibility of either being revived had to be eliminated. How to achieve these three goals, and who would decide when they were achieved, caused great controversy. From the point of view of Radical Republicans, reaching these goals was an essential part of the destruction of the Slave Power, and necessary to guaranteeing perpetual union, as well as a solution to the problem of the Freedmen.

United States Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, a Radical Republican, held that Congress should abolish slavery along with the Confederacy, extend civil and political rights to blacks, and educate black and white students together.

The "moderates" saw success in achieving the goals by assurances that the former Confederates had renounced secession and abolished slavery. Most moderates, like Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, wanted suffrage for black army veterans. Southern political leaders renounced secession and gave up slavery, but were angry when a series of requirements were imposed on them that they considered a violation of the principles of republicanism. Especially resented was the ouster of white state governments by federal military forces, and their replacement by Radical Republican governments.

Plans and legislation

Planning for Reconstruction began in 1861, at the onset of the war. The Radical Republicans, seeking harsh policies, used as their base the Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction. Abraham Lincoln pursued a lenient plan for reconstruction, especially in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas. In those three states, he proposed a ten percent plan that required 10% of the voters from the 1860 election to swear an oath of loyalty to the Union. These states did not comply until well after the end of the war and so were not immediately readmitted to the Union and to representation in Congress.

Lincoln wanted to bring the Southerners back into good standing as fast as possible and with a minimum of vengeance. Insisting as well that there be new rights for the Freedmen, he created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, known as the Freedmen's Bureau. His goal of providing land for blacks, commonly referred to as "40 acres and a mule" (The expression was coined after General Sherman issued Special Field Order 15, which temporarily gave freedmen land owned by their previous masters) was not pursued by his successors.

Presidential Reconstruction

Northern anger over Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Lincoln and the immense human cost of the war led to demands for a harsher policy. Vice President Andrew Johnson had originally taken a hard line, talking openly about hanging rebels; however, as President he took a much softer line, pardoning many Confederate leaders and allowing ex-Confederates to maintain their control of Southern state governments, Southern lands, and blacks.

These governments quickly enacted "black codes", effectively giving freedmen only a limited set of second-class civil rights, and no voting rights, while pursuing a goal of re-admission to the Union. Southern Plantation owners feared that they would lose their land or, if not, that blacks would not do their field work; many Southern whites feared that blacks would consider themselves their equals. Mississippi and South Carolina black codes have been described:

"Negroes must make annual contracts for their labor in writing; if they should run away from their tasks, they forfeited their wages for the year. Whenever it was required of them they must present licenses (in a town from the mayor; elsewhere from a member of the board of police of the beat) citing their places of residence and authorizing them to work. Fugitives from labor were to be arrested and carried back to their employers. Five dollars a head and mileage would be allowed such negro catchers. It was made a misdemeanor, punishable with fine or imprison- ment, to persuade a freedman to leave his employer, or to feed the runaway. Minors were to be apprenticed, if males until they were twenty-one, if females until eighteen years of age. Such corporal punishment as a father would administer to a child might be inflicted upon apprentices by their masters. Vagrants were to be fined heavily, and if they could not pay the sum, they were to be hired out to service until the claim was satisfied. Negroes might not carry knives or firearms unless they were licensed so to do. It was an offence, to be punished by a fine of $50 and imprisonment for thirty days, to give or sell intoxicating liquors to a negro. When negroes could not pay the fines and costs after legal proceedings, they were to be hired at public outcry by the sheriff to the lowest bidder....

"In South Carolina persons of color contracting for service were to be known as "servants," and those with whom they contracted, as "masters." On farms the hours of labor would be from sunrise to sunset daily, except on Sunday. The negroes were to get out of bed at dawn. Time lost would be deducted from their wages, as would be the cost of food, nursing, etc., during absence from sickness. Absentees on Sunday must return to the plantation by sunset. House servants were to be at call at all hours of the day and night on all days of the week. They must be "especially civil and polite to their masters, their masters' families and guests," and they in return would receive "gentle and kind treatment." Corporal and other punishment was to be administered only upon order of the district judge or other civil magistrate. A vagrant law of some severity was enacted to keep the negroes from roaming the roads and living the lives of beggars and thieves."

The Democratic party, proclaiming itself the party of the white workingman, north and south, supported Johnson. In response to Southern recalcitrance, the Radical Republicans blocked the readmission of the ex-rebellious states to the Congress. Congress also renewed the Freedman's Bureau, but Johnson vetoed it. Congress then passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, to create and protect black civil rights in the South. This led to a decisive break with President Andrew Johnson, who vetoed the bill; his veto was promptly overridden and the bill became law.

The last moderate proposal was the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed the Federal war debt, extended citizenship to everyone born in the United States (except visitors and Indians on reservations), penalized states that did not give the vote to Freedmen, and most importantly, created new federal civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. Johnson used his influence to block the amendment in the states, as three-fourths of the states were required for ratification. The Amendment was later ratified.

Radical Reconstruction

The Constitutional amendments

The Congressional elections of 1866 were fought over the issue of Reconstruction. Many Southern states were not allowed to vote, having not yet been re-admitted to the Union; the result was solid Republican gains in Congress. The Radicals, for the first time, took full control of Congress and passed the first Reconstruction Act in March 1867.

Three new Constitutional Amendments were adopted in the wake of the Civil War. The 13th abolished slavery, the 14th granted federal civil rights to every person born in the United States, as well as to naturalized citizens, and guaranteed repayment of the American war debts and repudiation of the Confederate debts. The 15th decreed that the right to vote could not be denied because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. (It did not grant the right to vote, as electoral policies are defined by the states.) The 14th and 15th Amendments were opposed by the Southern states, but, as a pre-condition of readmission to the Union, the Southern states were required to ratify them.

Southern state governments were re-constituted, with the help of the US Army, under Republican control, with the exclusion of former Confederates. These governments then agreed to the necessary Congressional conditions for readmission to the Union, including ratification of the Constitutional Amendments. (Some states, such as Kentucky, Mississippi, and Maryland, would not finish ratifying the 13th and 14th amendments until the second half of the twentieth century.)

All Southern states were readmitted to the Union by 1870, with Georgia being the last, on July 15 of that year, and all but 500 Confederate sympathizers were pardoned when President Ulysses Grant signed the Amnesty Act of 1872.

Military reconstruction

The first Reconstruction Act placed ten Confederate states, excluding only Tennessee, which had been readmitted on July 24, 1866, under military control, grouping them into five military districts:

First Military District: Virginia, under General John Schofield

Second Military District: The Carolinas, under General Daniel Sickles

Third Military District: Georgia, Alabama and Florida, under General John Pope

Fourth Military District: Arkansas and Mississippi, under General Edward Ord

Fifth Military District: Texas and Louisiana, under Gen. Philip Sheridan and several others.

State governments that had been established under Johnson's plan were abolished. Tens of thousands of federal soldiers were stationed in the South to oversee the process of Reconstruction. There was little or no fighting, but rather a state of martial law in which the military closely supervised local government, supervised the elections, and protected the office holders from violence.

Black Reconstruction

One by one, the Southern states held new elections in which Freedmen voted. In most cases, the result was a Republican state government; the state was readmitted, the Congressional delegation was seated, and most soldiers were removed. Most Republicans were organized into clubs called Union Leagues. The Republican coalition in each state comprised Freedmen, African Americans who came from the North, recently arrived white Northerners (derisively called "carpetbaggers" to suggest that they had come so quickly they had carried their possessions in hasty carpetbags), and local white Republican-sympathizers (derisively called "scalawags"). The old political elite of the Democratic Party, mostly former Confederates, were left out of power (although some, like General James Longstreet, joined the Republicans). Republicans took control of all Southern state governorships and state legislatures, leading to the election of numerous African Americans to state and national office, as well as to the installation of African Americans into other positions of power.

Views of the Conservatives in the South

The white Southerners who lost power reformed themselves into "Conservative" parties that battled the Republicans throughout the South. The party names varied somewhat and by the late 1870s they called themselves simply "Democrats." Their views on national policy were reflected later by the historians of the Dunning School.

Historian Walter Lynwood Fleming was representative of the Dunning School in that he was sympathetic to white southern Confederates and contemptuous of, or at best paternalistic toward black southerners.

The Negro troops, even at their best, were everywhere considered offensive by the native whites. General Grant, indeed, urged that only white troops be used to garrison the interior. But the Negro soldier, impudent by reason of his new freedom, his new uniform, and his new gun, was more than Southern temper could tranquilly bear, and race conflicts were frequent. A New Orleans newspaper thus states the Southern point of view: "Our citizens who had been accustomed to meet and treat the Negroes only as respectful servants, were mortified, pained, and shocked to encounter them . . . wearing Federal uniforms and bearing bright muskets and gleaming bayonets . . . . They are jostled from the sidewalks by dusky guards, marching four abreast. They were halted, in rude and sullen tones, by Negro sentinels. ... The lawlessness of the Negroes in parts of the Black Belt and the disturbing influences of the black troops, of some officials of the Bureau, and of some of the missionary teachers and preachers, caused the whites to fear insurrections and to take measures for protection. Secret semi-military organizations were formed which later developed into the Ku Klux orders.

[1]

Representative also of the Dunning School is the analysis of Ellis Oberholtzer (a northern scholar) in 1917: [vol 1 p 485]

Outrages upon the ex-slaves in the South there were in plenty. Their sufferings were many. But white men, too, were victims of lawless violence, and in all portions of the North as well as in the late "rebel" states. Not a political campaign passed without the exchange of bullets, the breaking of skulls with sticks and stones, the firing of rival club-houses. Republican clubs marched the streets of Philadelphia, amid revolver shots and brickbats, to save the negroes from the "rebel" savages in Alabama. The "very spirit of Cain," the New York Nation said in the summer of 1866, seemed to stalk over the land. Noble motives which earlier had governed men were swept aside and were lost in the general saturnalia of malignity. The troops serving in the South were there not so much to protect the negroes as to punish their old masters; not so much to guard the imperilled interests of the Southern "loyalists," of whom a deal had been said, as to exasperate the President and the members of his party in the North. The project to make voters out of black men was not so much for their social elevation as for the further punishment of the Southern white people--for the capture of offices for Radical scamps and the intrenchment of the Radical party in power for a long time to come in the South and in the country at large. One Northern state had followed another in refusing to give the ballot to its own negroes.

Reaction by elite southern whites took the form of public unrest and included the formation of violent secret societies including the Ku Klux Klan and similar precursors to the later revival of the group. Violence occurred in cities and in the countryside between white former Confederates, Republicans, African Americans, representatives of the federal government, and Republican-organized armed Loyal Leagues.

Redemption and the end of Reconstruction

Democrats try a "New Departure"

By 1870 the Democratic-Conservative leadership across the South decided it had to end its opposition to Reconstruction as well as to black suffrage in order to survive and move on to new issues. The Grant administration had proven by its crackdown on the KKK that it would use as much federal power as necessary. The Democrats in the North concurred. They wanted to fight the GOP on economic grounds rather than race. The New Departure offered the chance for a clean slate without having to refight the Civil War every election. Furthermore many wealthy landowners thought they could control part of the newly enfranchised black electorate to their own advantage. Not all Democrats agreed; a hard core element wanted to resist Reconstruction no matter what. Eventually a group called Redeemers took control of the party in state after state. [Perman 1984, ch. 3] They formed coalitions with conservative Republicans, including scalawags and carpetbaggers, emphasizing the need for economic modernization. Railroad building was seen as a panacea, for northern capital was needed. The new tactics were a success in Virginia as William Mahone built a winning coalition. In Tennessee the Redeemers formed a coalition with Republican governor DeWitt Senter. Across the South Democrats switched from the race issue to taxes and corruption--charging that Republican governments were corrupt and inefficient, as taxes began squeezing cash-poor farmers who rarely saw $20 in currency a year, but had to pay taxes in currency or lose their farm. In North Carolina Republican governor William Holden used state troops against the Klan, but the prisoners were released by federal judges, Holden became the first governor in American history to be impeached and removed from office. Republican political disputes in Georgia split the party and enabled the Redeemers to take over. [Foner, ch 9] Violence was a factor in neutralizing Republican leaders in the the deep South, with its larger black Republican population. In the North a live-and-let-live attitude made elections more like a sporting contest. But in the deep South it was life or death. Explained an Alabama scalawag, "Our contest here is for life, for the right to earn our bread...for a decent and respectful consideration as human beings and members of society." [in Foner p 443]

The Panic of 1873 hit the Southern economy hard, and disillusioned many Republicans who had gambled that railroads would pull the South out of its poverty. The price of cotton fell in half; many small landowners, local merchants and cotton factors (wholesalers) went bankrupt. Sharecropping, for both black and white farmers, became more common as a way to spread the risk of owning land. The old abolitionist element in the North was aging away, or lost interest, and was not replenished. Many carpetbaggers returned to the North or joined the Redeemers. Blacks had an increased voice in the Republican party, but across the South it was divided by internal bickering and was rapidly losing its cohesion. Many local black leaders started emphasizing individual economic progress in cooperation with white elites, rather than racial political progress in opposition to them, a conservative attitude that foreshadowed Booker T. Washington. [Foner pp 545-7]

Nationally President Grant took the blame for the depression, as his Republican party lost 96 seats in all parts of the country in the 1874 elections. The Bourbon Democrats took control of the House and were confident of electing Samuel J. Tilden president in 1876. President Grant was not running for reelection and seemed to be losing interest in the South. State after state fell to the Redeemers, with only four in Republican hands in 1873, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina. Political violence was endemic in Louisiana, but efforts to seize the state government were repulsed by federal troops who entered the state legislature and hauled away several Democratic legislators. The violation of tradition embarrassed Grant, and some of his cabinet recommended he pull not allow the Army to do that again. [Foner 555-56] By now all Democrats and most northern Republicans agreed that Confederate nationalism and slavery were dead--the war goals were achieved--and further federal military interference was an undemocratic violation of historic republican values. The victory of Rutherford Hayes in the hotly contested Ohio gubernatorial election of 1875 indicated his "let alone" policy toward the South would become Republican policy, as indeed happened when he won the 1876 GOP nomination for president. The last explosion of violence came in Mississippi's 1875 election, in which Democratic rifle clubs, operating in the open and without disguise, threatened or shot enough Republicans to decide the election for the Redeemers. The Republican governor Adelbert Ames asked Grant for federal troops to fight back; Grant refused, saying public opinion was "tired out" with the perpetual troubles in the South. Ames fled the state as the Democrats took over Mississippi. [Foner ch 11]

1876 Election

Though events, such as the Brooks-Baxter War in Arkansas, ended Reconstruction earlier in some states, it continued in South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida until 1877. After Republican Rutherford Hayes won the disputed U.S. Presidential election of 1876 the South agreed to accept Hayes's victory if the President withdrew the last Federal troops from the South. By this point everyone had agreed that slavery and Confederate nationalism were dead, and the war goals had been achieved. However, the African Americans who wanted their legal rights guaranteed by the Federal government were repeatedly frustrated for another 75 years. "What remains certain," says Foner [p 604], "is that Reconstruction failed, and that for blacks its failure was a disaster whose magnitude cannot be obscured by the genuine accomplishments that did endure.

South under Redeemers

The end of Reconstruction marked the beginning of a period, 1877-1900, that saw the steady reduction of many civil, political, and economic rights and opportunities for African Americans, and ushered in an era some historians refer to as the nadir of American race relations. The exact process varied state by state and town by town. In Virginia, the Redeemers gerrymandered cities to minimize Republican seats; reduced the number of polling places in black precincts; made local officials appointees of the state legislature; and did not allow the vote to felons or to people who failed to pay their annual poll tax. See Jim Crow law. Blacks would legally and socially remain second-class citizens until change began with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The initial flurry of Reconstruction civil rights measures was eroded and converted into laws that expanded racial segregation and discrimination throughout Southern institutions and everyday life. In exchange for its acceptance of reintegration into the Union, the South (along with the rest of the country) was allowed to reestablish a segregated, race-discriminatory society. By reestablishing a firm racial hierarchy, the white elites not only controlled the black population, but also maintained effective control of white workers and working conditions.

With the demise of Reconstruction, much of the civil rights legislation was overturned by the United States Supreme Court. Most notably, the court suggested in the Slaughterhouse Case (1873), then held in the Civil Rights Cases (1883), that the Fourteenth Amendment only gave Congress the power to outlaw public, rather than private, discrimination. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) went even further, announcing that state-mandated segregation was legal as long as the law provided for "separate but equal" facilities.

The Supreme Court maintained "separate but equal" as the "law of the land" for another six decades, until finally reversing it in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954). Congress also belatedly restored the eroded rights of the descendants of Freedman. With the backing of President Lyndon Johnson, it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in "public accommodations" (i.e., restaurants, hotels and businesses open to the public, as well as in private schools and workplaces), terminology which originated in the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Legacy

Reconstruction was initially viewed as a failure by most observers North and South because of its corruption. Novels of the early 20th century (such as The Clansman and The Leopard's Spots) glorified the white supremacist and Redeemer governors, as well as vigilante organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, and romanticized the antebellum South, especially in regard to the treatment and disposition of African-Americans. These sentiments found outlets in the form of D.W. Griffith's racist 1915 movie (based on The Clansman), The Birth of a Nation. The Dunning School of scholars based at the history department of Columbia University, viewed Reconstruction as a failure, at least after 1866, for quite different reasons. They claimed that it took freedoms and rights from qualified whites and gave them to unqualified blacks who were being duped by corrupt carpetbaggers and scalawags.

In the 1940s, an economic approach was pioneered by Howard Beale and C. Vann Woodward. As disciples of Charles A. Beard, they focused on economic causation. They argued that the rhetoric of equal rights and corruption was a smokescreen hiding the true motivation of Reconstruction's backers, which was promoting the interests of financiers, railroad builders and industrialists in the Northeast. Despite the lack of a unified business policy, the South was exploited by a wide range of business interests. However, historians in the 1950s and 1960s demonstrated that Northern businessmen were widely divergent on monetary or tariff policy, and seldom paid attention to Reconstruction issues.

In the 1960s, neoabolitionist historians, strongly aligned with the Civil Rights Movement, rejected the Dunning school and found a great deal to praise in Congressional reconstruction. The primary advocate of this view, Eric Foner, argued that it was never truly completed, and that a Second Reconstruction was needed in the late 20th century to complete the goal of full equality for African-Americans. Foner and the neoabolitionists minimized or ignored the corruption and waste caused by Republican state governments, and emphasized that poor treatment of Freedmen was a worse scandal and a grave corruption of America's republican ideals. They argued that the real tragedy of Reconstruction was not that it failed because blacks were incapable of governing, but that it failed because the civil rights and equalities granted during this period were but a passing, temporary development. These rights were suspended in the South from the 1880s through 1964, but were restored by the Civil Rights Movement that is sometimes referred to as the "Second Reconstruction." These historians downplay the argument that corrupt business interests had undermined the cause of Reconstruction.

Significant dates

State	Seceded from Union	Joined Confederacy	Readmitted into Union	Democratic Party Establishes Control
South Carolina	December 20, 1860	February 4, 1861	July 9, 1868	November 28, 1876
Mississippi	January 9, 1861	February 4, 1861	February 23, 1870	January 4, 1876
Florida	January 10, 1861	February 4, 1861	June 25, 1868	January 2, 1877
Alabama	January 11, 1861	February 4, 1861	July 14, 1868	November 16, 1874
Georgia	January 19, 1861	February 4, 1861	July 15, 1870	November 1, 1871
Louisiana	January 26, 1861	February 4, 1861	June 25 or July 9, 1868	January 2, 1877
Texas	February 1, 1861	March 2, 1861	March 30, 1870	January 14, 1873
Virginia	April 17, 1861	May 7, 1861	January 26, 1870	October 5, 1869
Arkansas	May 6, 1861	May 18, 1861	June 22, 1868	November 10, 1874
North Carolina	May 21, 1861	May 16, 1861	July 4, 1868	November 28, 1876
Tennessee	June 8, 1861	May 16, 1861	July 24, 1866	October 4, 1869

See also

• Black Codes in Northern USA
• Carpetbagger
• Dunning School
• Freedman
• Freedmen's Bureau
• History of the Southern United States
• Jim Crow law
• Neoabolitionists
• Redeemers
• Redemption (U.S. history)
• Radical Republican
• Scalawag

References

Primary sources

• Berlin, Ira, ed. Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867 (1982), unusually rich collection of primary documents about Freedmen
• Blaine, James. Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield. With a review of the events which led to the political revolution of 1860 (1886), this article incorporates parts of this text. Survey of national politics written by a former Radical Republican leader who became much more moderate.
• Fleming, Walter L. Documentary History of Reconstruction: Political, Military, Social, Religious, Educational, and Industrial (1906). Uses broad collection of primary sources.
• Hyman, Harold M., ed. The Radical Republicans and Reconstruction, 1861-1870. (1967), primary source collection of long political speeches and pamphlets.
• Barnes, William H., ed. History of the Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States. (1868) useful collection of primary government documents.
• Harper's Weekly leading New York magazine; pro-Radical
• Charles Sumner, "Our Domestic Relations: or, How to Treat the Rebel States" Atlantic Monthly September 1863, early Radical manifesto
• DeBow's Review major Southern conservative monthly magazine; stress on business, economics and statistics
• Thomas Nast cartoons, pro-Radical editorial cartoons
• Reconstruction Act March 2, 1867
• Reconstruction Act March 23, 1867
• Reconstruction Act July 19, 1867
• Reconstruction Act March 11, 1868

Surveys

• Dunning, William Archibald. Reconstruction: Political & Economic, 1865-1877 (1905), Dunning School argued that black voters were duped by Carpetbaggers into supporting wholesale corruption. Sees Reconstruction as a failure.
• Walter Lynwood Fleming, The Sequel of Appomattox, A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States (1918) short survey from Dunning School. Sees Reconstruction as a failure.
• Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988), influential recent history of Reconstruction; emphasizes total abolition of slavery and emancipation of Freedmen as independent actors (not dupes or victim); says Reconstruction was a failure.
• Foner, Eric. "Reconstruction Revisited" in Reviews in American History, Vol. 10, No. 4, The Promise of American History: Progress and Prospects (Dec., 1982) , pp. 82-100, review of the historiography
• Litwack, Leon. "Been in the Storm So Long" (1979). Pulitzer Prize. National Book Award. Narrative based almost entirely on primary sources, including interviews with ex-slaves and diaries and accounts written by former slaveholders.
• Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. A History of the United States since the Civil War. Vol 1: (1917) Northern historians who agrees with Dunning School, sees Reconstruction as failure.
• Perman, Michael. Emancipation and Reconstruction (2003), a short survey.
• Rhodes, James G. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6. (1920). 1865-72. original research into national politics; sees Reconstruction as failure. Also vol 7: 1872-77 (1920)
• Stalcup, Brenda. ed. Reconstruction: Opposing Viewpoints (Greenhaven Press: 1995). Using primary documents, presents opposing viewpoints on many of the central issues.
• Stampp, Kenneth M. The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1967); pro-Radical
• Trefousse, Hans L. Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction Greenwood (1991), 250 entries
• Wilson, Woodrow. The Reconstruction of the Southern States (1901) written before he became president; Sees Reconstruction as failure.

National politics

• Belz, Herman. Emancipation and Equal Rights: Politics and Constitutionalism in the Civil War Era (1978) pro-moderate.
• Belz, Herman. A New Birth of Freedom: The Republican Party and Freedman's Rights, 1861-1866 (2000) pro-moderate.
• Benedict, Michael Les. The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1999), pro-Radical.
• Benedict, Michael Les. A Compromise of Principle: Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction (1974) pro-Radical
• Benedict, Michael Les. "Preserving the Constitution: The Conservative Bases of Radical Reconstruction," 61#1 Journal of American History pp 65-90
• Blight, David. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2000). Examines national memory of Civil War, Reconstruction, and Redemption, North-South reunion, and the retreat from equality for African Americans.
• Donald, David H. The Politics of Reconstruction. (1965). Examines voting records of northern Republicans.
• Gambill, Edward. Conservative Ordeal: Northern Democrats and Reconstruction, 1865-1868. (Iowa State University Press: 1981). Political history of Democratic Party unable to shed its Civil War label of treason and defeatism, even as it successfully blocked a few elements of Radical Reconstruction.
• Gillette, William. Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879. Louisiana State University Press: 1979. Traces failure of Reconstruction to the power of Democrats, administrative inefficiencies, racism, and lack of commitment by northern Republicans.
• Harris, William C. With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union (1997) portrays Lincoln as opponent of Radicals.
• Hyman, Harold M. A More Perfect Union (1975), constitutional history of Civil War & Reconstruction.
• Kaczorowski, Robert, The Politics of Judicial Interpretations: The Federal Courts, Department of Justice and Civil Rights, 1866-1876. Describes when the Justice Department fought against politically and racially motivated terrorism in the southern United States.
• McKitrick, Eric L. Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (1961) portrays Johnson as weak politician unable to forge coalitions.
• Montgomery, David. Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862-1872 (1981). Emphasis on labor unions in North.
• Simpson, Brooks D. Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
• Summers, Mark Wahlgren.The Press Gang: Newspapers and Politics, 1865-1878 (1994)

South: regional, state & local studies

• Coulter, E. Merton. The South During Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1947). Dunning School
• Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt. Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 (1935), ISBN 0689708203; (1998 edition with introduction by David Levering Lewis ISBN: 0684856573.) Marxian interpetation of class conflict; stresses Freedmen roles
• Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt "The Freedmen's Bureau," (1901)
• Fields, Barbara Jean, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland (1985)
• Fischer, Roger. The Segregation Struggle in Louisiana, 1862-1877. (University of Illinois Press: 1974) Study of free persons of color in New Orleans who provided leadership in the unsuccessful fight against segregation of schools and public accommodations.
• Garner, James Wilford. Reconstruction in Mississippi (1901), state history reflects Dunning School
• Hahn, Steven. A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (2003)
• Harris, William C. The Day of the Carpetbagger: Republican Reconstruction in Mississippi (1979) state history
• Holt, Thomas. Black over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina During Reconstruction. (University of Illinois Press: 1977). Black elected officials, their divisions, and battles with white governors who controlled patronage and their ultimate failure.
• Kolchin, Peter. First Freedom: The Responses of Alabama's Blacks to Emancipation and Reconstruction. (Greenwood Press: 1972) Explores black migration, labor, and social structure in the first five years of Reconstruction.
• Mandle, Jay R.. Not Slave, Not Free (1992).
• Olsen, Otto H. ed., Reconstruction and Redemption in the South (1980), state by state, neoabolitionist
• Perman, Michael. The Road to Redemption: Southern Politics, 1869-1879 University of North Carolina Press. 1984. detailed state-by-state narrative of Conservatives
• Simkins, Francis Butler, and Robert Hilliard Woody. South Carolina during Reconstruction (1932). Dunning School
• Taylor, Alrutheus, Negro in South Carolina During the Reconstruction (1924) ISBN: 0404002161 Black perspective
• Taylor, Alrutheus, Negro in Tennessee 1865-1880 (1974) ISBN 0871521652 Black perspective
• Taylor, Alrutheus, The Negro In The Reconstruction Of Virginia 1926, Black perspective

External links

• Jensen's Guide to Reconstruction History, 1861-1877 (2005) links to many sources
• Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: Reconstruction
• "Reconstruction Historiography: A Source of Teaching Ideas" by Robert P. Green, Jr. (1991)
• Reconstruction: The Second Civil War 2004 PBS film (180min) & transcript, examines the Reconstruction era and exposes northern discomfort with free blacks -- which contributed to the denial of their civil rights after Reconstruction -- for an additional 100 years until the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.
• "Reconstructing the Poetry of John Willis Menard" by Gilbert Wesley Purdy. Book review/essay with considerable historical information about the Reconstruction South.
• Explore an in-depth timeline of Reconstruction
• American Civil War Research & Discussion Group - Fields Of Conflict - Containing 1500+ Links And 400+ Articles.