The historian Eric Foner has presented the Reconstruction as a
failed opportunity to achieve emancipation and equality for black
Americans. Here, Simpson (History/Arizona State Univ., Let Us Have
Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction,
not reviewed) persuasively argues that, given their circumstances,
the four Reconstruction presidents generally did as well as they
could. The Reconstruction has always been controversial. For
decades, scholars believed that the postwar policies of the
Republicans were unduly vindictive and punitive. Yet some in recent
years have charged that Congress was pusillanimous, half-hearted,
and ineffectual in ensuring the equality of the South's ex-slaves.
Such judgments, Simpson observes, fallaciously attribute the
perspectives of the present to the past, "as if critics are seeking
some sort of validation for their own views on race." He shows
that, despite attitudes afloat that would be considered racist
today, the Reconstruction presidents (with the exception of
Johnson) were generally sincere in assisting African-Americans in
overcoming the legacy of slavery, but were constrained by the
19th-century understanding of the presidency as an office of
limited powers. Lincoln's priorities were winning the Civil War and
preserving the Union; though he truly hated slavery, his
emancipation policy was intended as a means to another end.
Johnson, who shared white Southern antagonism toward
African-Americans, sought a return to Jacksonian democracy of the
past, but became bogged down in internecine disputes with Congress.
Ulysses Grant, the author contends, was a pragmatist who balanced
competing goals of restoring harmony to the former Confederate
states and realizing black citizenship, yet was driven by
circumstances beyond his control. Though sharing the goals of
Reconstruction, Rutherford Hayes, in a final how to political
necessity, withdrew federal troops from the South, unwittingly
ensuring decades of second-class citizenship for African-Americans.
A powerful analysis of a darkly formative period in American
history. (Kirkus Reviews)
During and after the Civil War, four presidents faced the challenge
of reuniting the nation and of providing justice for black
Americans--and of achieving a balance between those goals. This
first book to collectively examine the Reconstruction policies of
Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Rutherford
B. Hayes reveals how they confronted and responded to the complex
issues presented during that contested era in American politics.
Brooks Simpson examines the policies of each administration in
depth and evaluates them in terms of their political, social, and
institutional contexts. Simpson explains what was politically
possible at a time when federal authority and presidential power
were more limited than they are now. He compares these four
leaders' handling of similar challenges--such as the retention of
political support and the need to build a Southern base for their
policies--in different ways and under different circumstances, and
he discusses both their use of executive power and the impact of
their personal beliefs on their actions.
Although historians have disagreed on the extent to which these
presidents were committed to helping blacks, Simpson's sharply
drawn assessments of presidential performance shows that previous
scholars have overemphasized how the personal racial views of each
man shaped his approach to Reconstruction. Simpson counters much of
the conventional wisdom about these leaders by persuasively
demonstrating that considerable constraints to presidential power
severely limited their efforts to achieve their ends.
"The Reconstruction Presidents" marks a return to understanding
Reconstruction based upon national politics and offers an approach
to presidential policy making that emphasizes the environment in
which a president governs and the nature of the challenges facing
him. By showing that what these four leaders might have
accomplished was limited by circumstances not easily altered, it
allows us to assess them in the context of their times and better
understand an era too often measured by inappropriate
standards.
General
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