It is very important to remember that the radical faction of the Republican
Party was nearly gone by the death of Senator Charles Sumner in 1874.
Absent the political will amongst the public and in the governing Party,
tied to the Republican's loss of the House of Representatives in November,
1874;  it is not surprising that the bold plans of 1863-1866 were set aside.
Moreover, the Republican Party was the party of industrialization and
northern industrialists had a much greater interest in extensive cotton and
tobacco production, both for home processing and consumption and for export,
than in an expensive democratization of the South.

Regarding Virginia, there was strong Republican and northern industrial
support for Mahone's interracial coalition, particularly from the accession
to the Presidency of Chester A. Arthur, but this was strategic not
reformist.  Mahone went to the Senate in 1881 as an Independent and voted to
organize the body for the Republicans.  Mahone and Riddleberger broke the
"solid South" keeping the Republican Party in control of the Senate for much
of the 1880s.

Arthur was the leader of the stalwart faction within the Republican Party,
interested in winning elections and little else.  Had the
Readjuster-Republican coalition maintained its control of Virginia
governance past 1883, considerable change may have been made in Virginia
(perhaps no disfranchisement, stronger labor unions, etc.) but I doubt that
this would have had much affect on the deep South.

When liberation and justice came it came because ordinary church-going black
folks put their lives on the line throughout the South.  For the most part
the federal government followed, it did not lead.

Harold S. Forsythe
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Hershman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 1:02 PM
Subject: Re: Nicholas Lemann's "Redemption"


> The question of why the victors in the civil war were unable to
> refashion Southern society, to ensure full freedom for the former
> slaves, has been asked by historians in a serious way since the 1960s.
> Most have concluded that the North lacked the commitment to overcome
> white Southern resistance and/or tired of the struggle by the late
> 1870s. A new book (2006) by Charles W. Calhoun, _Conceiving a New
> Republic: The Republicans Party and the Southern Question, 1869-1900_,
> is the latest look at the matter. Calhoun stresses the obdurateness of
> the white southern "redemption" in waring down the northern commitment
> to equal rights. He has a good chapter on the 1890 Lodge Elections Bill
> (called the "Force" Bill by the southern Democrats), the one really
> serious attempt from the mid-1870s until the Civil Rights Movement of
> the 1960s to promote black voting rights. Part of the problem stems, I
> think, from the 19th century concept of laissez faire as it applied to
> government action. Along with federal protection of rights, a strong
> Freedman's Bureau needed to operate for at least a generation after
> emancipation to help provide the social, economic, and educational basis
> to help to achieve full citizenship and overcome some of the impediments
> of slavery.
>
> Jim Hershman
>
> [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>>Whether by generally non-violent means in Virginia, or by far more blatant
>>tactics in the Deep South, Reconstruction was undone, as described by
>>Lemann's
>>book, Ayers's review, and most of the posters on this topic, from various
>>points of view.
>>
>>Why it was allowed to happen?  White Southerners had just gotten their
>>clocks
>>cleaned rather thoroughly, more so than any other Americans before or
>>since.
>>The North could have done anything it wished.  Were whites in the North,
>>and
>>their government, able to win the war, but not prepared to win the peace,
>>or
>>willing to spend and sacrifice what that victory would have taken?  From a
>>certain perspective, it looks like they were unwilling to "stay the
>>course," but
>>chose to "cut and run."  Or pehaps, they just did not care very much about
>>the
>>freedmen.
>>
>>Or pehaps the situation in the South (like Iraq) was unwinnable.
>>
>>I'm reminded of another war we lost.  Sidney Lens dedicated The Forging of
>>the American Empire (1971) "To the children of Vietnam, who are being
>>murdered
>>and maimed by my government--and yours."
>>
>>Michael B. Chesson
>>U/Mass-Boston
>>
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