Edited by author 05-15-2002 05:26 PM
Debate Successes and Challenges

As I indicated in class, both the successes and challenges of the group project can tell us a great deal about unit cohesion and leadership challenges in the war, and the process of community formation afterwards. There is also a great deal of contextual information to be derived from the presence or absence of accessible and relevant sources about specific characters and their views.


COOLEST THINGS IN OUR GROUP
*Was group dynamics - pulling together to formulate our characters platform and reconstruction stance.
*Learning how well the rest of my group "knew their stuff and got into character.
*I got to work with people that I didn't really know and it was interesting to watch the group dynamics and see how everything fell into place. In the end, I think it turned out well.
*A delightful harmony of academic philosophies.
*The coolest part of the debates was preparing a formal opening speech which would catch the attention of all other groups. Wording the statement so it would not be able to be turned around on the group and get across the ideas that we believe in.
*The debate itself was really interesting.
*Coolest thing in getting group to debate: putting everything together in a Quicktopic board; doing opposition research (being the "mole").
*Sharing ideas on how to carry out the debate. Trying to change into the persons of our character.
*My group tried to get me to dress up as gvt. Person - the coolest part was that it didn't work out.
*Discussing the true nature of our character. Deciding which members of the opposition to attack.
*The coolest thing was looking at so many ideological constitutionally based arguments in the case of Anthony's trial for voting which went back to the idea of the experiment of republicanism, but also could be changed to apply to so many different situations. It really showed the fine line of constitutional interpretation
*The best thing in preparing for the debate was learning about the various viewpoints of leaders during the time of Reconstruction.
*Progressively uncovering tidbits of information about our character and stumbling over things that made us say, "Oh! We can use that."
*I guess it was finding some really good source material (in the forms of letters and books) and being able to use that in the debate so that we could use his language when speaking.
*We prepared for ways our opponents would try to attack us and ways they'd agree with us. We tried to come up with ways to divert the debate to issues we were strong in.
*Finding ways to undermine the opponents arguments.
*One coolest thing was that I think despite being toward the end of the year our group has tried to be innovative in the way we approach the debate. For example we were going to dress up a member of our group in clothes representing our character.
**** was willing to wear a dress. . . but he didn't.
*Listening/discussing different interpretations of virtually the same material - everybody brought his/her own perspective to the group.
*Trying to figure out how our character would interact with/react to other characters in the debate (making inferences).
*Learning about the intimacies of the character's personality and the role in the Civil War and Reconstruction.
*The best thing was that although there was not information now available, he was a typical radical and it was easy to find information on them as a group.


GREATEST CHALLENGES IN OUR GROUP
*Was finding my character's precise/specific reconstruction views - (e.g. on womens' civil/pol. Rights) -
*limited amount of information available.
*Finding time to do research, finding the books at the eleventh hour.
*Getting together to organize our information and coming up with questions for the opposition.
*Getting the project prepared over beach weekend.
*Our greatest challenge for our group , Andrew Johnson, was preparing a debate that would stay away from Johnson's beliefs against the 14th amend. And Civil Rights Acts, and focus not so much on equality but states rights.
*Trying to keep certain issues about our representative from coming up during the debate.
*Getting everyone excited about participating in the actual debate (ie, deciding speaking parts).
*Trying to change into the person of our character.
*To argue that Susan B. Anthony had ideas that were applicable to the debate - it seems we were the delegate that no one really cared much about.
*The wealth of information, and sorting through it all. *Deciding what questions to ask in such a short time.
*The greatest challenge was finding specifics about things like land redistribution, because women's rights was so much more a key issue for Anthony.
*Acting like my character would in a Congressional debate against people he would disagree with for various ideological differences.
*Simulating our character's responses to the views of the other debate members without entering our own thoughts or created nations; also, trying to take on the attitude that we had the best view (this technique makes debates much easier).
*Time. It was difficult to find a time when we could all meet. We had to do a lot of research on our own and then only have one meeting to put it all together.
*The greatest challenge was trying to defend a plan that we didn't necessarily agree with. We had to highlight the positive parts of our plan.
*Finding adequate information on our character and anticipating how he would respond in a given situation.
*Our biggest challenge was to get all members of our group motivated and a direction and a goal to follow. This was because we were unsure of how the debates would go and because it was right around beach weekend.
*Motivation
*Finding opposition research
*We were all pretty tired and were late to get started. The lack of opposition research was not encouraging either.
*Finding information about characters that allowed us to infer (accurately) how they'd act/react.
*Disagreements about character stories.
*Finding alliances and arguments to pose towards other debaters.
*One of the hardest things was that it was hard to find information on our guy. Unlike the other members of the debate our guy was not very prominent and did not have many books on him.

After reading todays selections, the overriding theme was the continuing distrust and hatred of blacks by uncompromising Southern men. Charles Nordhoff spoke of Mississippi politics "in melancholy condition," just because the state had a colored majority in the vote. I think they were sweating because they knew that blacks were gaining the power to get back at the Southern oppressors who enslaved them for hundreds of years. It was scary, yet not at all ironic to read Governor Adelbert Ames' account of the riot in Clinton Mississippi September 1875. During the war, guerillas rode around terrorizing and killing blacks and Unionists, and the Clinton riot was just another chapter added to the racist violence. It's crazy to think that 'white liners' just rode up to a barbeque and started shooting down black men, women and children. The war might have been a step backward for blacks because they were more in the spotlight and whites had more of a reason to hate and commit violence against them.
     Representative Lamar's assailment of Reconstruction and the problems with it can only be blamed on Southerners themselves. He called Northern politicians in the South "completely insulated from the traditions, the feelings, the interests..." of the South. As we all know, the South brought their plight on themselves and deserved to deal with whatever the victorious Union felt inclined to make them do. They should have thought about the consequences before they entered the war, so they should have just sucked it up and dealt with it. It is my opinion that they got off to easily. I would have enslaved them for awhile to see how they like that horrible lifestyle.

The readings today just emphasized how controversial Reconstruction was and how difficult it was for the government to form policies that pleased everyone. Thaddeus Stevens was adamant about keeping control away from the states and letting freed blacks vote in southern states. I think he echoes the thinking of many when he says, "Have not loyal blacks quite as good a right to choose rulers and make laws as rebel whites?". I was surprised that he admitted to having ulterior motives to boost the Union party. Although he says it is the only way to ensure a strong nation I can understand how his opponents accused him of being power-hungry. In this selection he sounds like he thinks a good reason for blacks to vote would be to keep "rebels" out of the national government. I tend to agree with Sherman when he urges caution in creating Reconstruction policies. I do think that the rebellious states should face some kind of consequences, but keeping them from voting and holding office could only cause resentment and hostility. Furthermore, it simply widens the division between the two sections of the country. I think Sherman had the right idea when he said, "after providing all necessary safeguards for white and black, let us reconstruct society in the rebel states on the broad basis of universal suffrage".

I agree with most of what Hunter said concerning the rights position of the blacks in the South. They appeared to have no rights, or even less than the did before the war. But I don't agree that the war set them back. Of course now they were subject to all of the whites scrutiny and hate, yet they were still givin the opportuinty towards upward mobility, something they had never had in the previous 200 years of slavery. I think if you ask any of the freedmen, they would tell you that life may have been tougher free (without the stability of meals every day and a roof over their heads), but they would still much rather have the free life, where there is the potential for change. There is always that threat, of complete failure, but the hope of a better life prevails and spurns the freedmen to fight on through the persecution.

I disagree with Sherman in his views on reconstruction. He had a right to be cautious with the South, but keeping them from office is a great idea. Those positions of office and influence are what got the nation into this mess, therefore the federal governemtn should avoid making a fatal mistake, that could lead to another rebellion. I agree with Stephanie in that pressing down the rich, white southerners could potentially be dangerious, but I think that danger is much less of a factor when those men are not in a position of power. It may widen the division in the short term, but that division would only occur in the minds of the radicals, consisting of a very small faction of the South. Rather the average southerner would see the light and come to understand that every man is created equal and deserves equal rights. Keeping the elite landowners out keeps the brainwashing out, letting the reconstruction process move along without hinderance.

This passage shows how badly the Republican party suffered during Reconstruction in the late 1870's. Many people in the South had problems with Reconstruction. The book states that the Republican party could have been the reason why Reconstruction failed. It seems that in these years, the southern people and the former slaves reversed roles. The South felt oppressed like the slaves did before the war. These ideas are shown in Lamar's excert. Lamar is upset because he said that they came to the South and took control of their governments, and confiscated their lands. Other problems in the South included trying to control groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the White League of Louisiana. The Kellog letters were interesting because you never really hear about small incidents such as this. This whole reading for tonight was interesting because the Southerners were put in the slaves positions(although not nearly as bad) and they thought that the government was taking away all their rights. What were the whites doing to the blacks before the war?

The chapter on "Southern Republicans and the Problems of Reconstruction" gives the reader different views on Reconstruction and Federal intervention in the South. Each article demonstrates the various feelings of americans depending on where they are living. James Orr touches upon the idea of the newly freedman in society. He also discusses blacks in government and if it is possible that the governemnt can work while their are mixed races within. Lamar talks about his feelings towards Northerners. Lamar distastes the North as the Federal Government is taking over the local and state governemnts and replacing the old with the North. These new people in office are trying to impose laws and regulations that are not befitting to the South. Lastly, White talks about the violence towards those, mainly Northerners, who are trying to change the South. Consequently, brutal murders are taking place as bands of men are trying to expel the North. It was interesting to me that I have not been taught much about these bands of men in the South who were committing crimes to get rid of Northerners and those not from the South.

Just wanted to begin by saying that judging from the reactions in class today, I think it is easy to see how the different problems of Reconstruction (especially land confiscation) could get very ugly very easily. I was at first more convinced by the argument on behalf of the "contractual" owners of the land (however immoral their claim may have been), if for no other reason than I am somehow convinced by their "legally" justified claim to the land. Delving more deeply into how those lands had been acquired in the first place, however, kind of throws the whole picture into jeopardy for me; to be honest, even with the benefit perspective, I am not quite sure what to make of the whole situation.

With respect to the views expressed in the readings for Wednesday, I tend to second Stephanie's acceptance of Sherman's need for caution; it may well be true that the only way in which to fully render the verdict of the war was by harsh control and, sometimes, punishment, but the spirit of personal retribution and "scores to be settled" was rampant, and I believe caution was the only possible way to make sure this sentiment didn't override legitimate attempts at recreating civil society. To sort of combine what Stephanie and Sean have said, also, barring certain groups from voting would definately have brought about resentment, a powerful force (as we saw vividly portrayed in the Ash book); however, keeping former Confederates out of positions of power (as outlined by the 14th Amendment) was a pretty workable solution to keep down the possibility of another "hijacking" of the progress of Reconstruction. One other thing I just wanted to note: I find it interesting the way leaders during the time (as in all times, probably) molded ideologies to fit whatever they needed them to do--i.e. Thaddeus Stevens says "the rebel states . . . should be made republican in spirit, and placed under the guardianship of loyal men." (Major Problems 315). In order for this plan to work, spirit is the only realm in which republicanism could exist, because the concept of guardianship as a political form basically precludes the full extension of the republican form of government, because power is controlled by those "more wise and more virtuous" than the common set of people. In viewing full force the contradiction in terms which existed at this point, I am almost amazed to be living in the world I do today.

Doh! I hit the wrong button, or combination of buttons, and my entire post, right when I was about to post, was deleted. So I'll try again...

To me, Powell's essay on carpetbaggers was enlightening; I used to think of carpetbaggers as bloodsucking lawyers coming down from the North to take all the South's money. Well, this essay throws some facts at me and offers some good explanations of who the carpetbaggers were and why they came. Powell makes it clear that they were neither "penniless adventurers" nor the bloodsucking lawyers that I'd thought they were. They were, for the most part, educated people with a chance to make some money in a fairly legitimate manner: going to the South to help reconstruct. Sounds like a good idea, but as usual, the implementation was harder in actuality than it sounded on paper. I think that where the carpetbaggers and their constituencies were on good terms with each other, Southern society had a good chance of slowly but surely developing. To me, it's not a question of who were the bad guys and who were the bad guys; rather, it's a question of how well these people worked together to rebuild the South after the ravages of the Civil War left it badly wounded.

Edited by author 05-16-2002 08:00 AM
A thought on yesterday's discussion of land reform -- which ties into Shannon's comments on Thaddeus Stevens and his "guardianship" of the "more wise and the more virtuous": who guards the guardians? I think one can make a good case for Stevens as an anti-democratic force rather than a liberator, if his ideas are seen to be so utterly uncontestable in their planned implementation. (Or maybe I'm still thinking too much like Alexander Stephens ...)

This comment leads into the question of legal title to land. Even if the law has its origins in fraud, theft, violence, etc., the rule of law is (I think) preferable to disorder. If Congressional Reconstructionists had begun large-scale land redistribution (aided by the destruction of large numbers of Southern land records in the war), how would they again have "fixed" the title? Would land ownership be left in a perpetual state of flux? Who would farm land if he -- white or black -- couldn't be certain that he would own the land tomorrow? The undermining of the faith of the people in legal title might have been beneficial for the freedmen in the very short term, but I wonder how one gets the genie back in the bottle.

To counter Austin's comment, where he used to think of carpetbaggers as "bloodsucking lawyers," when I thought of reconstruction (please don't be offended, this is a biased northern education typing here that has been proved wrong by this class and my classmates) I thought of white southerners a lazy, racist, grumpy kind of people. Grumpy is probably the closest thing to truth, seeing as how the south was taken charge of by the people who defeated them. But not necessarily lazy or racist, and I was happy to be wrong when reading Chapter 13. Nordhoff's idea on not antagonizing the blacks to help a party politically is a very modern point of view that probably didn't get into full effect until after the Civil Rights movement in the next century. I think that this proves that some kind of idealogical political reform atleast tried to happen in the south during reconstruction, even if reconstruction itself was not entirely a successful thing.

I remember learning about the Civil War in high school and hurrying through Reconstruction as quickly as possible so that we could get on to the next (more interesting) topic. What a shame! Reconstruction, it seems, is just as significant-if not more significant- than the actual battles and wartime policies because its laws and policies have (directly and indirectly) shaped the nation we live in today! The problem of rebuilding an entire culture is certainly an interesting and vexing one and I have found our discussions on Reconstruction very interesting so far. Anyway, the readings for Wednesday (this is late, i know...sorry!), provided a new perspective on the whole issue. Michael Les Benedict claimed that Republican Reconstructionists were not the radicals we often consider them to be...rather, they were conservatives who attempted to carry out reconstruction with the least amount of national govt. intervention possible. Thaddeus Stevens, one such Republican, claimed that "This doctrine [of "negro equality"] does not mean that a negro shall sit on the same seat or eat at the same table with a white man. This is a matter of taste which ever man must decide for himself. THE LAW HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT..." (major problems 316). Maybe even the "Radical" Republicans weren't so radical after all! Or maybe, like Shannon said, Stevens was merely "molding ideologies" to gain southern compliance??

I have to agree with Janna. It seems like all other history classes I've taken have just skimmed over Reconstruction too. Who knew it was so complex? The readings in major problems were very interesting. However, I'd rather react to the discussion in class yesterday. Whose property is it, anyway? Should the people who have actually been working the land for two hundred years be allowed to finally have what they have been working all along? Or should we give it right back to the white plantation owners? Don't they deserve SOME punishment for the war? I just have this urge to put the plantation owners in their place for once. They have ruled the land for far too long. I'm not sure this would help matters any, but it seems like it would be good. Doesn't it?

Like Janna, Sara, and Austin, the most recent readings challenged some of my preconceived notions about Reconstruction. I was particularly surprised by the Benedict essay, which portrayed Republicans as far less Radical than I would have imagined. Also, I might have suspected that carpetbaggers and Southerners alike were more than just "bloodsucking lawyers" or "lazy, racist, grumpy kind of people," but the Powell and Nordhoff essays really made that clear. So I wonder, how did the fairly hesitant Republicans become "radical" in popular opinion, and how did the educated, generally well-intentioned Northerners become vile carpetbaggers? One answer might be found in the actions of Jefferson Davis after the war, rewriting history to make it appear that states rights was his primary motivation. In a similar fashion, instead of the victors writing the history of the war, those who lost gave their own version in a conscious effort to elevate themselves. So given this rewriting of history and the resistance to confiscation, it certainly seems that the old aristocrats didn't get the punishment they deserve.

Is it through Reconstruction that we can judge and measure the true ideals of Northerners and of Republicans in the areas of blacks' rights and postwar intentions? In Abbot's piece, the tone changed from an idea that the Radicals were doing right to Republicans basing decision on sectional advantages.

Guelzo may be right that the loss of the Radical leaders like Stevens and Sumner wore the radical ideals away from the Republican Congress. Or, were they just a minority with significant influence during the war and immediate postwar? The Northerner's true intentions are evident in ignoring southern pleas of monetary funds for the Southern Republicans, tax relief, redistribution of national currency, federal aid for education, and other southern internal improvements.

Through today's readings, I question the true intentions of Northerners and of Republicans. I find that the radicals and the abolitionists were few in number with influence during the war. After the war, however, Northern and Republican ideals surfaced. "Northern Republicans, for the most part, were no more enthusiastic about their black allies in the South than they were about their white supporters. The party only reluctantly endorsed Negro suffrage in the South." (p417). This quasi hypocrisy also is seen in the presidential election of 1876. The Northern Republicans traded military rule in three southern states for Hayes to be president.

One also needs to remember the difficulty the Republicans faced, though. How do you integrate black voters with white northern voters who also have the same bias and racism? How do you set up a political base in the South? Or, should you even try since you have control and can win "without the South"?

To answer Neal's question, it seems that the Radicals were only as strong as their leaders. Before the war, during the war, and immediately following the war the radicals were a small minorty with very vocal leaders. It was only through Johnson's actions that the radical wing collected new members. With the loss of the vocal leaders the 'radicals' came back towards the middle. It seems as though the Radicals were just a small minority, but because they were so outspoken and took up against Johnson, the moderates decided to join them and upon the loss of this outspoken few, no longer were these radical views held so the former radicals took their original stance as moderates.

Also talking about the Radicals, it didnt seem many people believed in the radical policies passed during their tenure. Congress is passing the laws, but no one is enforcing the laws. Grant will not use the army to put down violence, the Freedman's Bureau is disbanded, the Supreme Court finds ways to not up hold the legislation.

Although this really doesnt have to do with the readings I thought I might throw it in anyway. When I read in Guelzo about the corruption in the Buchanan administration I thought about something I learned earlier this week. Three members of the US House of Representatives are presumed to have been deliberately poisoned at a banquet during the inauguration of President James Buchanan. I found this to be quite odd, that at an inauguration, 3 members of Congress would be poisoned.

Reading Guelzo makes me rethink some notions that I had earlier, and that most people have even now. I was talking with Dr. Benson the other day and he made the comment, if you were to ask someone if blacks voted in the 1870s they'd say of course not. In the reading today we see it was more than voting, but political offices too. If you asked someone if a Mississippi Senator, LA governor pro tem, and so on in the 1870s were black, well of course they'd say no. For some reason no one knows about the blacks voting or the blacks involved in politics in this day. It makes me wonder why we are so uninformed about this.

I agree that the voice of the radicals is only as loud as their loudest leader. The presence of Sumner seems like a large driving force, however. He is pretty tough on Grant. I can admire Blaine's moderate view. "... it is too late to debate it. It has gone by." He goes on to say that even if he had a strong opinion it probably wouldn't be worth it to bring it out.

That view goes along with my major thought of this reconstruction time. It was so very political. Things really hadn't changed all that much because of the war. There were still these great chasms between parties and regions.