National Corruption and Reconstruction

I am not an expert on the history of Reconstruction. I know enough to realize that it was a complex time in our history and many people’s perspectives on the period are polarized. One perspective has whites in the South as evil racists doing all they can to reimplement slavery or at least white supremacy. The other side sees the Reconstruction state governments as incompetent and corrupt.

There is also a modern political alignment and leftists see reconstruction through the Marxist interpretation of WEB Du Bois and Eric Foner and people on the right tend toward the interpretation of Willian Dunning and his proteges.

My first comprehensive introduction to Reconstruction came from reading John Hope Franklin’s narrative history titled Reconstruction After the Civil War. Published in 1961, Franklin’s work appears to be balanced and he addresses contentious elements directly and with a point of view backed up with sound facts and logic. He is an example.

“Most opponents argued that the troubles of the state and local government arose from the extravagance and corruption that, in turn, resulted from the abnormalities inherent in ‘negro-carpetbag-scalawag’ rule.” He goes on to quote J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton who studied under Dunning and wrote his thesis on North Carolina during Reconstruction. Franklin reports that Hamilton believed that the presence of negroes in politics had the effect of “blunting the moral sense of white people”.

Hamilton rejects this on the following grounds:

• There were a small number of blacks in politics, especially in North Carolina
• North Carolinians had a “highly developed political sense” and a “high standard of political morality” making it is unlikely that a few blacks could impact it.
• There were “national forces conducive to the decline of public morality…and the South was not immune”.

Franklin then goes on to discuss the issues with corruption across the country due to the rapid expansion of the economy and the significant role government played in facilitating the expansion. It makes sense to me that this led to more opportunities for corruption and government incompetence, and it didn’t just happen in the South.