A Short History of Reconstruction (1863-1877)

In a try to article the significant matters of reconstruction, Eric Foner amassed his publication Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. This publication was the cornerstone for the abridged type titled, A Short History of Reconstruction. The shorter type is an very good study of Reconstruction, and does not read as though it were patched simultaneously for lightweight reading. Foner locations all the foremost matters premier up reconstruction, and then completing his publication soon after the end of reconstruction and the election of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876.

In the preface of his publication, Foner talks about the historiography of Reconstruction. He remarks that throughout the early part of the twentieth 100 years numerous historians advised Reconstruction as one of the darkest time span of American history. Foner remarks that this viewpoint altered throughout the 1960s as revisionists lost new "light" on reconstruction. The revisionists glimpsed Andrew Johnson as a obstinate racist, and examined the Radical Republicans as "idealistic reformers authentically pledged to very dark rights." (xiii) Foner remarks farther that latest investigations of reconstruction contend that the Radicals were really rather cautious, and most Radicals held on to their racist outlooks and put up very little battle as the whites one time afresh started to rule the south.

Foner primarily recounts the African-American know-how throughout the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Foner contends that African-Americans were not easily numbers that took little or no activity in the events of the day. Foner remarks the enlistment of thousands of African-Americans in the Union armed detachment throughout the war. Foner furthermore remarks that numerous of the African-Americans that finally became municipal managers had at one time assisted in the Union Army. Foner states, "For men of gifts and aspiration, the armed detachment flung open a doorway to advancement and respectability." (pg. 4) Foner remarks that as reconstruction progressed, African-Americans were the goals of aggression and racism. Foner recounts some lynchings and other brutal actions blacks were subject to.

Foner accepts as factual that the transition of slaves into free laborers and identical people was the most drastic demonstration of change following the end of the war. Foner remarks how African-Americans were finally compelled to come back to the plantations, not as slaves but as share croppers, and were therefore presented to a new pattern of slavery. Foner contends that this placement presented a new class structure to the South. Foner states "It was an financial transformation that would culminate, long after the end of Reconstruction, in the consolidation of a country proletariat created of a new owning class of planters and merchants, itself subordinate to Northern financiers and industrialists. (pg. 78) Foner shows how both blacks and whites laboured to use the state and localized authorities to evolve their own concerns and set up their respective location in the developing communal orders.

Another topic Foner locations in his publication is racism itself and the interconnection of rush and class in the South. Foner remarks that racism was not just ...