After the American Civil War, several movements for ethnic
separatism and political self-determination significantly shaped
the course of Reconstruction. The Union Leagues mobilised African
Americans to fight for their political rights and economic security
while the Ku Klux Klan used intimidation and violence to maintain
the political and economic hegemony of southern whites. Founded in
1858 as the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, the Irish American
Fenians sought to liberate Ireland from English rule. In Fenians,
Freedmen, and Southern Whites, Mitchell Snay provides a compelling
comparison of these seemingly disparate groups and illuminates the
contours of nationalism during Reconstruction. By joining the
Fenians with freedpeople and southern whites, Snay seeks to assert
their central relevance to the dynamics of nationalism during
Reconstruction and offers a highly original analysis of
Reconstruction as an Age of Capital and an Age of Emancipation
where categories of race, class, and gender -- as well as
nationalism -- were fluid and contested. After the American Civil
War, several movements for ethnic separatism and political
self-determination significantly shaped the course of
Reconstruction. The Union Leagues, which began during the war to
support the northern effort, spread to the South after the war and
mobilised African Americans to fight for their political rights and
economic security. Opposing the Leagues was the Ku Klux Klan, which
used intimidation and violence to maintain the political and
economic hegemony of southern whites. Founded in 1858 as the Irish
Revolutionary Brotherhood, the Irish American Fenians sought to
liberate Ireland from English rule. Mitchell Snay provides a
compelling comparison of these seemingly disparate groups in
Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites, illuminating the contours
of nationalism during Reconstruction. Despite their separate and
often opposing goals, the Fenians, Union Leagues, and the Klan,
Snay reveals, shared many characteristics. To various extents, they
were secret societies that sought to advance their mission through
both political and extra-political means. Both the League and the
Klan employed elaborate rites of initiation and secret passwords
common to nineteenth-century fraternal organisations. They also
shared a similar political culture of secrecy, conspiracy, and
countersubversion. All three groups were quasi-military in
structure and activities and shared a desire for the control of
land. Among the three organisations, Snay shows, the Fenians
provide the clearest case of nationalist aspirations along the
lines of ethnicity, though the rise of racial consciousness among
both southern whites and blacks also might be seen as expressions
of ethnic nationalism. According to Snay, the political culture of
Reconstruction encouraged the nationalist ambitions of these
groups, but channeled their separatist impulses along civil rather
than ethnic lines by focusing on questions of freedom, citizenship,
and suffrage. In addition, the Republican emphasis on colour-blind
equality limited overt expressions of national identities based
solely on ethnicity or race. Unlike southern whites and blacks,
Irish Americans are seldom mentioned in Reconstruction histories.
By joining the Fenians with freedpeople and southern whites, Snay
seeks to assert their central relevance to the dynamics of
nationalism during Reconstruction and offers a highly original
analysis of Reconstruction as an Age of Capital and an Age of
Emancipation where categories of race, class, and gender -- as well
as nationalism -- were fluid and contested.
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