A Reconstruction Thought Experiment

According to Eric Foner Reconstruction was “portrayed by many historians as a time when vindictive Radical Republicans fastened Black supremacy upon the defeated Confederacy, Reconstruction has since the late 20th century been viewed more sympathetically as a laudable experiment in interracial democracy.”

It is cavalier to characterize the chaos and suffering that was Reconstruction as a failed experiment. Did the people of the South know they were part of an experiment? Radical Republicans were not vindictive, just mad social scientists? What was the hypothesis? An experiment connotes there was a plan and an educated guess of what they expected to happen.

Here is a thought experiment. My hypothesis is that people like Professor Foner would not like the conclusion a reasonable person comes to at the end of this experiment. Imagine the following in the year 1865:

• The population of New York and Pennsylvania is 40% to 50% black and blacks do not have the vote.
• There will be an election in 12 months where blacks can vote for the first time.
• A small percentage of white voters will be disenfranchised for supporting their state over the national government.
• The Federal government begins educating blacks on voting and promoting one party over another through government agencies analogous to the Freedman’s Bureau.
• Schools are set up to educate blacks and they tend to support the party that the government agency promotes.
• Out of state charitable organizations focused on the black population are promoting the same party as the federal government agency.
• It is clear the result of these combined efforts will be that the established political power in the state will be significantly curtailed if not removed altogether.

The conclusion I come to is that there would be negative reactions from whites in Pennsylvania and New York like the reactions of whites in the South including violence. The Radical Republican policies were either vindictive or incompetent as with just a little thought one can see that such an “experiment” as constructed was never going to end well.

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog