Talk:Reconstruction

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Contents 1 Continuity Issues 2 Unsectioned Text 3 Offed sentence 4 oh boy 5 New Additions 6 Merge 7 Military Reconstruction 8 Fake Wilson Quote 9 White Scholar/Black Scholar?? 10 Some historians/Other historians 11 Moderate? 12 Oberholtzer blockquotes 13 Removal of biographies 14 Foner 15 Litwack is most definitely primary source 16 Offensive Revert 17 standard terminology 18 references need to be grouped 19 Notice of Intent to Place POV and Fact Tags on This Article 20 What about discussions of African-American officeholders during this period? 21 It's Time to Make This Article the Best Article It Can Be 22 It's Time to Make This Article the Best Article It Can Be 23 Support for an expanded view of Reconstruction 24 Archiving Talk Page and 4 Tildes 25 Sourcing 26 delete POV -- the article has to be balanced ? 27 Article is discriminatory in its focus 28 Wiki policy: all major POV must be heard 29 A structural proposal 30 Weighing in on the focus of the Reconstruction page 31 Summary 32 Correction to the impeachment reference in the second paragraph 33 caption 34 What ended Reconstruction? 35 Vandalism

[edit] Continuity Issues

This article has numerous time continuity problems. Specifically, in numerous sections, references to events jump 'back and forth' between Lincoln and Johnson, leaving readers to guess as to which particular administration or timeframe the editor is referencing.--Fix Bayonets! 13:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsectioned Text

Perhaps the page could also use a discussion of the "Radical Reconstructionism" which was proposed and rejected; i.e. the stringing up of Confederate leaders, stripping property from southern plantation owners and distributing it to freed slaves, etc.

This page should be disambiguated in some way. First, there the word reconstruction in general. Next, we have Reconstruction. That is explained here as the period after the US Civil War, but I bet there are more countries were periods are called Reconstruction in one way or another. Any suggestions for a good way to disambiguate? jheijmans, Friday, June 28, 2002

• I moved it to disambiguate. If anyone disagrees very much, feel free to move it back.--Pharos 19:03, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Also the text is hopelessly POV or downright incorrect: "Much of the impetus for Reconstruction involved the question of civil rights for the freed slaves in the southern states" It was a matter for civil rights of African Americans whether or not they ever had been slaves. Even if you consider as legitiamate the decree issued in the dying days of Dixie that all African Americans were deemed slaves, this would not account for African Americans living in the North who had never been slaves bu who had journeyed to the south. And this is just one issue with the etxt. How come no mention of Thaddeus Stevens???? Harry Potter

I agree that the page needs much more work--and a good starting point would be discussing Thaddeus Stevens. I frankly do not understand much of the rest of what Harry Potter says, but the best way to resolve those uncertainties is for someone to take him up on his suggestion to expand and rewrite this. I do not, however, think that it lacks a NPOV; on the contrary, it accurately restates the general outlines of the history of this era.

As an aside, I have corrected some of the confusion caused by failure to distinguish state-mandated from private discrimination. The same problem was built into the article on Jim Crow. Italo Svevo.

hmmm, just reading in my history book - it says that there were ~20,000 soldiers stationed in the south, can anybody verify that?? --Mobius 09:09, Mar 19, 2004 (UTC)

"The initial flurry of Reconstruction civil rights measures was eroded and converted into laws that expanded racial dictatorship throughout American institutions and everyday life. The resurrection and expansion of the racist society provided a solid basis for both the pronounced limitations of the American labor movement and the associated paucity and frailty of democratic social entitlements in the U.S." -- BIASED?

[edit] Offed sentence

Under "Culture Clashes", the last paragraph is "1870 (Georgia was the last on July 15), and all but 500 Confederate sympathizers were pardoned when President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Amnesty Act on May 22, 1872. Reconstruction nev" — nev-what? Anyone know what that should be? Thanx 68.39.174.150 23:20, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] oh boy

...is this article a mess. No one seems to be working on it, which probably explains it. I don't have time to work on it either; if anyone else ever does, some mention needs to be made of the fact that this is a hugely contentious historical issue, and some mention made of different interpretations. Specifically, this article makes no mention of the long standard interpretation that reconstruction failed because blacks were not sufficiently educated to take advantage of freedom (I don't agree with this interpretation myself, and I think that it's been pretty thoroughly shot down, but it is still fairly popular (Gone with the Wind) and needs to be discussed. NoahB 03:24, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it does need some work. Though it could be a lot worse. :-) There should be something about the Dunning school, of course, one of the many things I had been planning on doing at Wikipedia was adding stuff here, based on Foner's book, which was pretty much what thoroughly shot down the old, as you say, long standard "interpretation". At least I'll add this book to the references now for a start.--John Z 04:05, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it needs work. From the article: "people both black and white who participated in this exciting point in American history." I'm not going to put an NPOV tag on the article, but people who actually lived through Reconstuction and its aftermath had a very different view of it than this article presents. Bubba73 (talk) 20:25, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I have started work on it, starting with bibliography and historiography. It is a highly contentious issue, so I suggest the best solution to POV wars to to clearly state the various POVs involved. Wikipedia is noty an umpire, but we wshould let all the players wear their colors. Rjensen 08:26, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New Additions

Dunning School is now mentioned, and so to is a legacy of Reconstruction and some historical styles drawing from Foner.

Looks good! Major improvement.--John Z 14:22, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

Radical Reconstruction into Reconstruction.

[edit] Military Reconstruction

This article seems to lack substance, facts. I suppose the problem is in the Military Reconstruction section (maybe others also) which really says nothing much about what happened. It does not give start or end dates. It does not say what military units were involved, their composition, base camps, operations, whatever it was they they did. They must have been doing something, right? State by state. The underlying articles on the Reconstruction Districts don't say much either. If someone knows this information, I think it would be helpful to add it to the article. Thanks Hmains 00:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

very good point. I'll try to add some detail. Rjensen 01:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fake Wilson Quote

The movie "Birth of Nation" did use genuine Wilson quotes from a history book he wrote in 1901, praising the KKK. The alleged quote by Wilson: "It is like writing history with Lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." is fake. The quote itself first appeared in a magazine article in 1937 quoting an unnamed Hollywood source. Wilson explicitly said he did NOT approve of the movie. His top aide wrote the NAACP: "...the President was entirely unaware of the nature of the play before it was presented and at no time has expressed his approbation of it."--Letter from J. M. Tumulty, secretary to President Wilson, to the Boston branch of the NAACP. See Roger Ebert's discussion which noites there is no evidence whatever that Wilson said that at: [1] Wilson explicity wrote that he "he disapproved of the “unfortunate production.” " [Woodrow Wilson to Joseph P. Tumulty, Apr. 28, 1915 in Wilson, Papers, 33:86.] The quote is show to be fake in Link, Wilson The New Freedom (1956) p 252-4. Rjensen 00:41, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] White Scholar/Black Scholar??

I am wondering why the race of DuBois is singled out for identification on this important page. Should the race of the other scholars also be noted? Unless I hear back, I will add white scholar to all of those I can establish are or were indeed "white," or I will remove "black" from the identification of DuBois. Comments? skywriter 21:34, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

• • There certainly is a difference. DuBois established himself as a major leader of the Black community, and most of his work for 75 years was focused on explaining what it meant to be black. That is why he is important. None of the white scholars listed depicted themselves as white in their books or tried to assume leadership of the white community. Rjensen 00:02, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I did not question his importance. I question the label. How can people be free of racial prejudice when white historians see others as black historians and not simply as historians? Is a scholar not a scholar? To identify one historian by his race, as though that somehow explains his thinking, and to fail to identify other historians by their race singles out the fellow identified by race, and implies that his writing is influenced by the color of his skin in a way that somehow does not affect the writing of other historians. To think for 10 seconds that white historians are not influenced by their racial background in the subjects they choose to pursue or in the viewpoints they espouse is, on the face of it, not believable. So the Dunning School ignores the very real concerns of black people in favor of siding with Klansmen and their "Redeemers." I wonder why. Is it that they are white historians with a viewpoint? Then, the argument can be made, out of a sense of fairness, tht it is fair and proper to identify them with clarity as to whose viewpoint they represent, and as to the color of their skin, as you seem to think is necessary to identify DuBois, whose area of interest is evident from his book titles. His writing is not so much concerned with explaining what it means to be black as describing what it means to be black under a white heel, the daily discrimination, the economic disadvantaging, the repetitive humiliation, the unequal opportunity. Do you continue to object to removing the term "black" from the DuBois descriptor? Does not Marxist better inform as to what is his thinking? skywriter 09:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I rephrased it to make clear that DuBois wrote explicitly on behalf of the black community--unlike the other black scholars in the bibliography. Dunning school did NOT ignore the real fears of blacks. Hiding this info on DuB does not do a service to our users. Rjensen 12:18, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The rewording makes sense.skywriter 06:25, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Enlightening exchange, and good resolution of conflict. I agree with S's assertion that undue focus on a person's race flies in the face of increased racial tolerance. What was the big deal with Olympian Shani Davis being the first black in an individual event to medal? This was no big color barrier. Every day you read about someone being the first ___ or ___ to serve as Undersecretary to the Assistant of something or other. This is NOT A BIG DEAL anymore.

Such references distract from the subject matter. One day I want to hear, "That skywriter is a credit to the human race." ;) skywriter 16:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

race was a big deal in the 1860s, which is why we have the article. And in the 1930s. It did not accidentally happen that race disappears--lots of people were involved like DuBois. Rjensen 17:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some historians/Other historians

The following is too vague. Which historians argued what should be stated and the material sourced.

Some historians have speculated that the disputed election was handed to Hayes in a political exchange for an end to Reconstruction in three states; this theory characterizes the settlement of that election as the Compromise of 1877. Other historians see the Hayes victory as reflecting a desire for conflict less between the the races and between elites of the North and South, and an increased will to integrate the white Southern social hierarchy into the larger American society.

skywriter 15:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moderate?

You mention Lincoln and Andrew Johnson as moderates. While Lincoln probably would've been less harsh than the Republican Congress was, Johnson was a southern democrat from Tennesse. He was no moderate. Reconstruction took place only by override his vetos constantly.

Lincoln vetoed the key Radical reconstruction proposal (Wade-Davis) and in turn they opposed his plans. What he would have done --who knows? Johnson in early 1865 was the favorite of the Radicals. He switched after he became president (for reasons unknown) to being the chief opponent of the Radicals. On the other hand he did not join the southern conservatives and insisted they accept the moderate proposals (like 13th amdt). so historians call him a moderate after summer 1865. Rjensen 22:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oberholtzer blockquotes

There are two excessively long blocks of text from Oberholtzer that will soon be removed if they are not paraphrased or shortened. Oberholtzer is also only one of the Dunning School. skywriter 09:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

excessively long? No, I don't think so. Wiki history articles are full of very long quotes from EB1911 -- sometimes the entire article--and no one has objected. The POV on Oberholtezer [Dunning] is clearly indicated, and the result is a variety of viewpoints for the user. The first one on Black Codes is a very detailed and accurate summary of a critical issue (the Black Codes). The other is a good synthesis of the Conservative southern viewpoint. It would be almost impossible to rewrite these without falling deep into POV problems. Rjensen 09:51, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

There is an entire article on the Black Codes. The Oberholtzer quotes are too long and confusing and written in antiquated language that few readers will plough through. It will be substituted by white southern viewpoint with more clarity. skywriter 10:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of biographies

The page subject is Reconstruction and the references should explicitly refer to that. So as not to make this section excessively long, the following three references more properly fit on the Wikipedia pages for these individuals. okay? (Donald is already referred to once in reference section). Castel, Albert E. The Presidency of Andrew Johnson (1979) Donald, David. Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (1970), the major biography Donald, David. Lincoln (1996), pro-moderate.

skywriter 10:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Foner

Is Foner a neoabolitionist? yes. For example see Facts of Reconstruction, Race, and Politics: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin by Eric Anderson, Jr. and Alfred A. Moss, eds. - 1991 Page 210: "Eric Foner reflects neoabolitionist, affirmative-action ideas in stating that blacks claimed a right to the land as compensation for their unrequited toil..." [2] Rjensen 10:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

That he reflects certain ideas does not conveniently make Foner a member of "a school." Instead of labels, use descriptive terms that non-insiders can readily understand. As I pointed out on the Talk page of a related article, the word neoabolitionist is not in any commonly used dictionary. That makes it insider-speak and a prime candidate for editing. I object to labeling that fails to explain content. I object to the labeling of the Dunning School which fails to describe its content in any meaningful way. Similarly, the term "moderate" is meaningless to contemporary readers as is the word "radical," though both are used in the context of this Reconstruction article though fail to explain what those terms mean. These labels do not convey meaning and it is not clear what's behind the labels.

Further, in what way is Fleming a primary source any more than any other writer/historian is? (I moved Fleming to secondary source and immediately it was moved back.) Fleming represents a group of historians who opposed citizenship and voting rights for people who were not white like himself. Like other historians with viewpoints, he is a secondary source. If you want primary sources, try Leon Litwack. He certainly manages, after all these years, to turn up a treasure trove. Fleming is now being returned to secondary source. here's the text.-- Fleming, Walter L. Documentary History of Reconstruction: Political, Military, Social, Religious, Educational, and Industrial (1906). very broad collection of primary sourced. skywriter 10:50, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Fleming's carefully edited collection of primary sources is the best that has ever been created. It's false to say he opposed citizenship or voting rights for blacks. Rjensen 10:53, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

And Mr. Fleming's viewpoint is???? skywriter 10:57, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Fleming's survey was synthesis of Dunning school (and is so labeled). However his Documentary History consists of several hundred short excerpts (a page or two) from a very wide range of primary documents. He makes a good effort to include all possible topics and all viewpoints. The editors' introduction to Foner's own book says: "James Ford Rhodes, Ellis Oberholtzer, John W. Burgess, and Vernon Parrington to the schools of William Dunning, W.E.B. Du Bois, Walter Fleming, and Allan Nevins. It is to this distinguished lineage of Reconstruction scholars that Professor Foner belongs." (Foner, Reconstruction, page xvii) Most of them are included in the bibliog, as they should be. Rjensen 11:18, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

That says Foner wrote about the Reconstruction, as did the others. It does not say he is (a word that is not in any commonly used dictionary): neoabolitionist. skywriter 11:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The quote from the editors of Foner's book says that he is part of a "distinguished lineage of Reconstruction scholars" and those are the ones we should include in reading list (and so include.) For Foner as neoabolitionist see a standard work honoring a leading black scholar: Facts of Reconstruction, Race, and Politics: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin by Eric Anderson, Jr. and Alfred A. Moss, eds. -1991 Page 210: "Eric Foner reflects neoabolitionist, affirmative-action ideas in stating that blacks claimed a right to the land as compensation for their unrequited toil..." Wiki articles include a range of audiences, some of whom should be able to handle unfamiliar words. The "neo-ab" term is used only in the bibliography for people looking for advanced reading; wise policy is to identify the POV of the authors on this controversial topic. (One point is not very controversial--everyone seems to consider Reconstruction as failure.) Rjensen 12:28, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

That is your viewpoint -- and the viewpoint of the Dunning crowd -- but certainly not "everyone" as you claim.

Repeating the Franklin cite is not persuasive. Repeated use of a word that is NOT in most dictionaries is beyond the pale. Claiming further that the word neoabolitionist defines Foner and a host of other historians is not helpful to readers, advanced or not. Please find another way to describe each historian and stop relying on a word that is a crutch and most certainly not in most dictionaries. skywriter 12:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh don't worry about being beyond the pale! Wiki readers and even editors are allowed to learn new words. "Neoabolitionism" has been used to describe the historiography for over 30 years. It's used by leading scholars--but not by People magazine. The point is a serious one: Foner deliberately goes back to the abolitionists for their interpretation of Reconstruction and the Civil War. We live in a world of "neoconservatives" "neolibertarians" and all sorts of other neos. It's not a naughty word. Rjensen 13:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Insults do not win your argument either. Neoconservative happens to be in mainstream dictionaries. "Not in most dictionaries" does not translate to "not in People magazine." I am surprised your vocabulary is so limited that you can not find a synonym or descriptive term to explain what you want to say. Neoabolitionist is most consistently used by writers sympathetic to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. skywriter 13:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Litwack is most definitely primary source

Read the book, the reviews, the book jacket, the description in the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize to learn that Litwack's two most acclaimed books are based nearly in their entirety on primary sources untapped by earlier historians. And, he does not bother to take sides with the various "schools." Ignoring them, he lays plain the factual accounts.

What is the basis of your claim that Litwack's epic works are not based on primary sources?

In wholesale reverting of this page, Rjensen, you also reverted edits, such as removal of improper italics, and other edits that made this page better from a copyediting perspective. Please be more careful. skywriter 19:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Primary sources were written by people who were there at the time. Litwack was born 60+ years later so he was not there. He indeed used primary sources --and so did most of the scholars on the list. What historians write is always called "secondary sources", and should be listed as such. (Blaine was indeed there and can be considered a primary source on Congress.) My apologies for reverting some formatting! Rjensen 20:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Then Ira Berlin and Harold M. Hyman are secondary and Du Bois is primary. skywriter 21:18, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Berlin is a splendid collection of hundreds of short primary sources ( 1 to 3 pages each) pulled out of the archives. The volume listed I think is a condensed version of a multi-volume set. Hyman is a little different. He has a small number (maybe 25 or 30) long items (10-30 pages) -- all speeches or pamphlets published at the time. (They are hard for undergraduates to use. but very solid.) In every case we have a short one paragraph or so introducing the document. Also online and should get listed: the complete Congressional Globe (official reports of all debates in Congress.) DuBois was born after the war and he used printed sources, so that's "secondary". [User:Rjensen|Rjensen]] 21:29, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

You violate your own rule of what is a primary source. Du Bois was born before Hyman. You wrote: Primary sources were written by people who were there at the time. Which is it? You can not have it both ways. skywriter 23:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I am entirely disappointed in your rewrite of the Litwack blurb because it is false and is now corrected. skywriter 23:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The following biographies are excessive for an article on Reconstruction, and should appear instead on the biographical pages. Castel, Albert E. The Presidency of Andrew Johnson (1979) Donald, David. Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (1970), the major biography Donald, David. Lincoln (1996), pro-moderate. Randall, James G. Lincoln the President: Last Full Measure (1955) pro-moderate. Trefousse, Hans L. Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth-Century Egalitarian (2001). pro-Stevens Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography (1989). hostile to Johnson Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005). Wartime politics. skywriter 23:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Rjensen--I have no desire to engage in a revert war with you and ask that you argue your case on this page. Based on my acceptance of the argument that you made yesterday, I made certain changes in agreement with your argument, that "Primary sources were written by people who were there at the time." Now I find out that you have changed your argument and your definitions! I pointed out that Du Bois was born earlier than Hyman, whom you want to insist is a primary source. And yet, you want to make an exception for Hyman and Berlin but not Litwack who makes widely acclaimed use of primary sources. It is also false to say Du Bois relied solely on printed sources. Then again, since when is it a problem to rely on printed sources? Because your arguments are inconsistent, and to that extent illogical, and now appear clearly to be based on personal viewpoint, and splitting hairs, I reject the idea of separating sources into primary and secondary. They will now be References. skywriter 12:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Offensive Revert

It is highly offensive to continue to label Alrutheus Taylor "black perspective" when no white historians are labeled as "white perspective." That was corrected yesterday and yet without discussion on this Talk page, reverted. Black historians of this period, including Taylor, were systematically ignored by the dominant and flagrantly racist Dunning School. skywriter 13:00, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

No it is not offensive: that is how he labelled himself (he used "Negro"). His work was in fact not ignored--who made that claim? Rjensen 16:22, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Out of interest, who is this supposed to be offensive to skywriter? 144.173.6.67 10:54, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] standard terminology

Terms like radical, moderate, carpetbagger, scalawag, Freedmen, Conservative are used by all historians regardless of school. (They were used by the players in the 1860s and were NOT invented later by Dunning.) the terms are not controversioal, but they are specific and should be used correctly. Wiki has to use them or readers will be baffled. It is false that all southern whites thought or voted alike. They split (most were Conservatives/Democrats, a large minority were Scalawag/Republican.) This is a complicated subject covering 15 years in 11 states and Washington, and is in the state standards for every state, so many thousands of students will be coming here for help. Rjensen 14:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] references need to be grouped

Primary sources have to be grouped separfately or no one will figure out what is what. Rjensen 22:38, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notice of Intent to Place POV and Fact Tags on This Article

1. After the Civil War, Reconstruction is the single most contentious area of U.S. history yet no one would know that by reading this article.

2. Very few of the viewpoints represented on this page are traced to specific historians, and one reference goes nowhere. Given that the entire history of Reconstruction has been rewritten from entirely different viewpoints over the last 50 years, it is crucial that this article use citations. The failure to source what is written results in the false notion that there is agreement here on the facts. There is not. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Most of what is on this page is not sourced, and that is a real problem.

3. It is the subjective viewpoint of one person contributing to this page that W.E.B. Du Bois is not a primary resource for this article, yet Du Bois was a contemporary of others represented as primary resources, and he authored one of the most important books on the Reconstruction era. This non-neutral viewpoint has resulted in an editing war in the reference area. The last edit of the bibliography reverts to an old version that does not acknowledge that modern historians reject the viewpoint that is repeated multiple times in this article-- that Reconstruction was a failure. That viewpoint was dominant during the Jim Crow era but is no longer dominant. There are other scholarly viewpoints not represented in this article, and descriptions of those viewpoints have been repeatedly removed or modified in favor of the turn of the 20th century historians whose scholarship has been questioned. I have previously argued on this page that Du Bois writing is a primary resource for this era,and the argument has been ignored.

4. The person who has repeatedly removed viewpoints that do not match his own original research indeed has placed a reference in this article to his own web pages, a factor otherwise known as independent research, which is not countenanced on Wikipedia. One (but not the only) problem with transferring that original research to this and related articles is that the work of African American Reconstruction writers was ignored until I added them to the reference section. I am sorry to say that since then, there has been an editing war over how those books will be described. I am no longer willing to spend the time writing descriptions only to find them hacked shortly afterward. I would rather place factual and point of view tags on this page to get these disagreements into the sunshine.

5. I have previously argued that the labels on this page and linked pages are insufficient, that the content of the labels-- what the different groups stood for i.e. radical, moderate, carpetbagger, scalawag, Freedmen, Conservative-- must be defined just as acronyms must be spelled out. For example, the words "radical" and "moderate" mean very different things in different eras. To assume readers know what the writer intends is to assume mind-reading. This article and those pages that link from this article are deficient in this area.

I would be happy to see arguments against the placement of tags on this page. I am unwilling to continue pretending there is agreement while scholarly viewpoints are suppressed. Skywriter 04:04, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The following, written higher up in this thread, is unsupported opinion, and non-factual. It is also pretentious in that all whom the article currently lists as primary used some printed material, like Du Bois, as as well as other resources.

DuBois was born after the war and he used printed sources, so that's "secondary". [User:Rjensen|Rjensen]] 21:29, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Skywriter 04:10, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

DuBois was born in 1868 and Reconstruction ended in 1877 when he was 9 years old. He took a PhD in 1896. "PRIMARY SOURCE" means written by people who were on the scene at the time, and SECONDARY SOURCE means written later by historians like DuBois. "Primary" does NOT mean better than secondary. Rjensen 04:28, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

He was born BEFORE at least one writer of that period whom you claim is PRIMARY. Your own reference does not fit your definition. Skywriter 04:41, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

several historians (like Fleming, Berlin, Hyman) collected and reprinted documents from the 1860s and 1870s. For example speeches, letters, newspaper clippings, editorials, and government reports. Those documents are primary sources and are heavily used by scholars. The history books written by Fleming, Berlin, Hyman -- and DuBois, Litwack etc --are ALL considered secondary sources. See the wiki article on Primary source. Rjensen 04:52, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

You are sourcing to yourself as one of the writers of the Wikipedia article on Primary Sourcing. Skywriter 09:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Your edits appear to be intolerant of differing viewpoints. Trust is lost when this happens repeatedly. When anyone fails to cite sources, more trust is lost and the one who does it appears to be cherry picking viewpoints to match his/her own. This is in part about the biased reference section as much as it is about the article itself, as described above. If you want to show Du Bois not as a primary source, quote an authoritative source who says so, and not your own personal viewpoint. The removal of text again last night with the weak claim that it is "POV" is another example of the substitution of personal unsourced viewpoint for unsourced viewpoint. Lack of sourcing has weakened this article to the point where it can be argued that it should be thrown out and begun from scratch. THE CENTRAL WEAKNESS OF THIS ARTICLE IS THAT THE READER CAN NOT VERIFY CLAIMS BECAUSE NEARLY ALL LINE ITEMS LACK SOURCING. Skywriter 10:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

This page, by historian Richard W. Slatta of North Carolina University, does a very good job in explaining the differences between primary and secondary sources. According to his explanation, Du Bois would not be a primary source (unless you are writing an article about Du Bois). His use of primary sources to write his own interpretation of Reconstruction makes it a secondary source in an article about Reconstruction. I hope this helps. --Kfreeland 23:48, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about discussions of African-American officeholders during this period?

I find the information in this article to be incomplete. It does not include much information on the individuals involved in Reconstruction. I am referring specifically to the thousands of black office holders.

The above remark was added by User: Ladb2000.

I concur with the statement by Ladb2000 and suggest we begin adding this information and deleting unsourced material.

The focus and thrust of this article ignores the solid work done in this field over the last 50 years, and for the most part, puts forward the view of former slave holders and those who took their place. That is exactly why I placed the fact and POV tag on the article. The scholarship is shoddy in that it fails utterly to source the material. Thus we are left wondering about its origin. When a criticism is made, someone adds another non-sourced claim to modify the original, and it is like a merry-go-round with no exit, and no recourse to the true documentation. My feeling is this article should be either trashed and begun again or all non-sourced material removed and we can start all over again, this time using citations. Skywriter 20:12, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] It's Time to Make This Article the Best Article It Can Be

Reconstruction is one of the least understood periods in American History. Most American high school students know very little about this period. They know more about the Civil War and the periods after Reconstruction. This article should serve as a corrective measure for this trend. Instead, we have a hodge-podge article that is going in a hundred different directions. The result is, an article that in many ways, mirrors the lack of understanding of the actual time period. I am going to start revising this article. We are starting from scratch. We also have a mistaken impression of Reconstruction. The election of African-American officeholders and the imposition of a codified system of segregation in the South was not something that occurred over night as soon as the Federal troops were removed or the state legislatures became Democratic. In Florida, most African-American officeholders (there were over a thousand) held there offices after 1876. I believe that Professor Eric Foner is correct when he places the starting date in 1863 with the Emacnipation Proclamation. However, we have a very restricted definition, if we automatically end the period at 1877. The period really ends with the codification of segregation and the Jim Crowe order of the South. Reconstruction overlaps with Redemption, and vice-versa.

User: Ladb2000.

[edit] It's Time to Make This Article the Best Article It Can Be

Reconstruction is one of the least understood periods in U.S. History. Most American high school students know very little about this period. They know more about the Civil War and the periods after Reconstruction. This article should serve as a corrective measure for this trend. Instead, we have a hodge-podge article that is going in a hundred different directions. The result is, an article that in many ways, mirrors the lack of understanding of the actual time period. I am going to start revising this article. We are starting from scratch. We also have a mistaken impression of Reconstruction. The election of African-American officeholders and the imposition of a codified system of segregation in the South was not something that occurred over night as soon as the Federal troops were removed or the state legislatures became Democratic. In Florida, most African-American officeholders (there were over a thousand) held there offices after 1876. I believe that Professor Eric Foner is correct when he places the starting date in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation. However, we have a very restricted definition, if we automatically end the period at 1877. The period really ends with the codification of segregation and the Jim Crow order of the South. Reconstruction overlaps with Redemption, and vice-versa. The Supreme Court provides the best indicator for when this period ends. As early as 1873, the Court narrowly interpreted the 14th Amendment in the Slaughterhouse Cases. Once again, the Supreme Court ruled narrowly on the issue of rights for the freedmen, in the Civil Rights Cases (1883). The death-knell of the interracial democracy spurred on by the end of the Civil War, was in 1896 with the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. I believe that we should take a more expansive approach to the period. Reconstruction should be the period of time between 1863 and 1896.

User: Ladb2000.

I'm looking through my books on this but I believe Foner et al. pretty much agree that Reconstruction ended definitively with the Hayes-Tilden compromise election in 1886 in which Tilden won the popular vote. Florida votes among others were in contention. A deal was cut. Tilden agreed to give up his claim to the Oval Office and Hayes agreed to end Reconstruction and all protection for African Americans. I'll come up with something more definitive. Thank you for volunteering to work on this. Skywriter 04:49, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Do you know where the archives of the Talk page are. They are important to preserve for the historical record. Thanks. Skywriter 04:50, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Support for an expanded view of Reconstruction

Canter Brown Jr. disagrees with Foner et al. And he has a point. His book on Florida's officeholders illustrates that most black officeholders, in Florida at least, took office after 1876. Also, North Carolina was another odd state that had a longer Reconstruction. In general, race relations up until the consolidation of Jim Crow and Segregation, were much more fluid than most people want to admit. Until the mid to the late 1880s, and in my opinion, until 1896, there is still a fluidity, in spite of Redemption.

[edit] Archiving Talk Page and 4 Tildes

Here's the page on archiving. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_archive_a_talk_page

The previous talk page can not be deleted. It must be archived.

Please use four tildes to sign messages. It is the only way people will know who wrote what on a crowded page. Thanks. Skywriter 05:02, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm re-adding the lost archive. If someone wants to archive the older sectiono of this page based on the instructions at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_archive_a_talk_page plase have it. Meanwhile, please do not delete the Talk page history. Thanks. Skywriter 15:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sourcing

Regarding the following entry, the Patton cite does not support the claim that Lincoln did not want suffrage for any African Americans except veterans. It also does not reflect that as Johnson's thinking. Is there a more precise source? Or should the sentence be reworded or removed? Later in the article is a claim that Lincoln did support African-American suffrage. Skywriter 16:57, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Most moderates, like Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, wanted suffrage for black army veterans but not other African Americans. Johnson for example (as Governor of Tennessee) said, "The better class of them will go to work and sustain themselves, and that class ought to be allowed to vote, on the ground that a loyal negro is more worthy than a disloyal white man." [Patton p 126]

I have removed the following because the citation does not support the statement.

Historians point out, however, that the most black politicians were not unlettered slaves, but free blacks, especially from the North. [Foner 1988 p 285-6]

Skywriter 19:34, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Foner says black leaders were "mostly freeborn urban mulattoes." and "northern blacks assumed a conspicuous role." [Foner 1988 p 285-6] Rjensen 19:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The above is out of context. There are much more direct statements in Freedom's Lawmakers (with numbers) which I will add. Skywriter 19:44, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] delete POV -- the article has to be balanced ?

Haven't contributed to this article (wow a lot or recent activity!) or Wikipedia for a while, but the last rv by Rjensen - who has clearly done a lot of good work on the article - with the above comment deserves some comment. In several ways the "deleted POV" by 170.110.243.157 abides by Wikipedia policy better than the current "balanced" text, which has some unacceptable features.

Compare the reverted

Foner and the neoabolitionists^{[citation needed]} historical research highlighted the legislative achievements of the Republican state governments, and contradicted the claim that these governments were more corrupt than their successors.

to the present

Foner and the neoabolitionists^{[citation needed]} minimized or ignored the corruption^{[citation needed]} and waste caused^{[citation needed]} by Republican state governments, and emphasized that poor treatment of Freedmen was a worse scandal and a grave corruption of America's republican ideals.

One can't make factual statements, especially essentially pejorative ones like "minimized or ignored" unless every reputable scholar - including of course Foner himself - would make them. This is absurd. The deleted version attributes views to Foner et al, in the correct manner.

Unless there is universal agreement on the factuality and influence of increased corruption in Reconstruction, and there is not, then the references to it must be better phrased, and the pro and con arguments made clearer. The sentence it contained needs to be recast, but "perceived" corruption contains a valid point. I'll make some changes but I wanted to give an explanation first.John Z 21:54, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

There exists a large amount of credible scholarship developed over the last 50 years showing that the charges linking Reconstruction to corruption were wildly overblown and that they were used as excuses mostly to reverse civil rights gains, which was accomplished. This Wikipedia article leans heavily in favor of the controversial Dunning School which championed that claim and also favored slave owners and former Confederacy leaders who made that claim. This article ignores, for example, that African American Reconstructionists were the leading proponents of public schools, which all but did not exist until they were developed during Reconstruction. This point was made forcefully by W.E.B. Du Bois in his article "Founding the Public School in America" published in Black Reconstruction in America (1935) and in the article by Du Bois published in the American Historical Review July 1910, p. 781. Its title is "Reconstruction and its Benefits."

I object to the exclusion of Du Bois and other viewpoints from this article, and I continue to protest the serious lack of sourcing in this article, a point previously made but not addressed.

There has been a running claim by an editor, who has engaged in an edit war on this topic, that Du Bois's work on Reconstruction is not primary source work. That POV ignores that Du Bois was a contemporary of Archibald Dunning who ignored the work and contributions of Du Bois, just as at least one editor of this article systematically marginalizes Du Bois and his contributions. Dunning, who founded a school of historiography that has been parsed for its hostility to, and mischaracterizations of African Americans, was the dominant influence in textbooks produced in the first 60 years of the 20th century, and it is the viewpoint of the Dunning school that pervades this article, making it suspect and non-neutral in viewpoint.

The failure to source the text in this article makes it unverifiable, and therefore, in violation of Wikipedia standards for facts. (Sooner or later that will change. The unsourced material will be removed because it is unsourced and therefore unverifiable.)

An example of the marginalization of the viewpoints of Du Bois and his successors is the continual efforts by one editor to identify and therefore dismiss Du Bois in the Reference section as a "Marxist" when he was much more than that and, as his biographer ably points out, his views were sufficiently diverse that he can not be pigeon-holed, and yet, we find this pigeon-holing going on right in this article. This is wrong. Skywriter 17:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I did not notice that revert. Clearly the more accurate statement is this: Foner and the neoabolitionists[citation needed] historical research highlighted the legislative achievements of the Republican state governments, and contradicted the claim that these governments were more corrupt than their successors. HOWEVER, Foner has said he does not accept being called a neoabolitionist, that the term makes no sense, and does not reflect his work. Someone else pointed out that it is a derisive term used most often by folks who dislike the rewriting of Reconstruction history in the last 40 years, historians who were students of Foner's and others. I looked it up. It is not in the dictionary, as I have pointed out here before, and when googled, it is obvious it is a term popularized by its usage here on Wikipedia. The term also does not cover people who have written in the last few decades about Reconstruction but were not Foner students. Skywriter 22:57, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The term "neoabolitionist" is in common use by historians. Foner has never repudiated it. It basically makes the point that the historian follows the abolitionist critique of the 1860s which emphasized the rights of blacks.Rjensen 11:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article is discriminatory in its focus

This article leans very heavily in support of the Confederate viewpoint of Reconstruction. Various attempts to balance the article are consistently reverted.

The latest example is Rjensen's deletion of the sourced description of this title: - * Coulter, E. Merton. The South During Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1947). Dunning School "Considered by many scholars to be historical apologies justifying southern secession, defending the Confederate cause, and condemning Reconstruction in the style of his mentor (J. G. de Roulhac) Hamilton. These works, along with his other writings, presented a powerful intellectual paradigm useful to those opposed to the mid-century crusade for civil rights reforms."[3] Coulter's account is highly controversial. The deletion of the explanation, as was done, can be construed as racial bias. Along with the Civil War, Reconstruction is the most controversial area of U.S. history. The exclusion of mainstream viewpoints that differ from the pro-Confederate viewpoint is not acceptable. A continued exclusion of differing viewpoints will result in an immediate tagging of this article as biased and factually challenged. Skywriter 08:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

TotallyDisputed now resides with this page as Rjensen chose to revert rather than discuss. This article has deserved a Totally Disputed tag for quite some time. I held off on placing it, with the hope that Rjensen would allow alternative viewpoints. As he is militant in his stance of editing out viewpoints that differ from his own, there is no choice but to tag the page and hope others will assist in bringing balance to a highly unbalanced article.Skywriter 08:16, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Skywriter added an annotation that tells nothing of the content or accuracy of one major book. That is straight POV--if the source had said it was "a brilliant performance. Professor Coulter has examined an amazing amount of material... and has shown a profound grasp and understanding of this complex period" I fear he would not have included that. (That is a quote from the review by a Northern scholar in a leading history journal.)

Let me challenge Sywriter: has he read the Coulter book or not? Rjensen 08:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

That Professor Coulter's intentions in his teaching were to re-establish the Southern Confederacy is freely admitted on the State of Georgia history web site by means of a direct quote from him. The following is an excerpt from the State of Georgia's History Encyclopedia. The entire article is instructive, and should settle the question of Mr. Coulter's intent. [4]

E. Merton Coulter (1890-1981) Ellis Merton Coulter, a University of Georgia professor and historian of the South. Writing with purpose and teaching with passion, Coulter emerged as a leader of that generation of white southern historians who viewed the South's past with pride and defended its racist policies and practices. He framed his literary corpus to praise the Old South, glorify Confederate heroes, vilify northerners, and denigrate southern blacks. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 greatly altered Coulter's South, advancing a social revolution that had been defeated in the Reconstruction era. But he himself remained unreconstructed. Published in 1968, his small volume Negro Legislators in Georgia During the Reconstruction Period casts black lawmakers as unmitigated villains who made a travesty of good government. Little wonder, he concludes, that "Georgians ... should have done whatever they could to prevent Negroes voting and sending such representatives to the legislature." By the time of his death in 1981 Coulter had lived well beyond the point in time when his works had successfully bolstered the white vision of the South's proper social order. To him this was the ultimate tragedy, for decades before he had proclaimed with fervor, "In my teachings I am still trying to re-establish the Southern Confederacy." A project of the Georgia Humanities Council, in partnership with the Office of the Governor, the University of Georgia Press, and the University System of Georgia/GALILEO. Copyright 2004-2006 by the Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?path=/HistoryArchaeology/HistoriansHistoricalOrganization/Historians&id=h-851

Skywriter 08:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Coulter wrote a different book on the Confederacy--one that is not at issue here. Bailey (who wrote that excerpt) doesn't seem to like Coulter. But the issue for books is their content not personality conflicts. (Coulter's POV is Dunning school, which is clearly indicated). Coulter says his goals are: "to discover as far as possible what were the aspirations of Southern white Radicals and Negroes and what was their defense against charges made by traditional Southerners," and "to give greater attention to the lives of the people, white and black, in their many interests and activities apart from politics." He says (ch 1) "The Civil War was not worth its cost.... It freed the slaves, upset a social and an economic order, strengthened the powers of the national government, and riveted tighter upon the South a colonial status under which it had long suffered. What good the war produced would have come in time; the bad would not have come at all." I don't happen to agree with that (I'm a strong Lincoln supporter) but Wiki does not allow editors to exclude solid scholarly books for that reason. Rjensen 09:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

There is a large body of work that corrects the deeply racist views of Coulter. That Rjensen insists on permeating this article with his views contributes to the bias of this article.

... and his junior high school text History of Georgia (1954). Published in the same year as the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision mandating public school integration, Coulter's junior high text taught children that slavery greatly benefited southern blacks, and emancipation negatively altered their condition. "People in the South did not believe the Negroes ... would know how to vote," Coulter wrote. Because former slaves often "sold their votes to dishonest people who wanted to win elections," Coulter assured Georgia's youth that the white people of their state determined that blacks should not participate in elections and "worked out a special plan" that kept "most of the Negroes from voting." Similar themes permeated Coulter's other works. To him the term Georgians applied to whites only; the state's black inhabitants constituted a subservient, inferior, and threatening element. [5]

It is appropriate that Professor Rjensen find someone to defend more respectable in light of revised history written in the last 50 years, rather than polluting Reconstruction articles with the deeply divisive Coulter.

For a serious treatment of Coulter, showing due respect for the esteem in which he was held during the Jim Crow years when his book was published, but dissecting his thoroughly racist viewpoints, please see John Hope Franklin, Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938-1988 (Louisiana State University Press, 1989) pp. 24-48. It is an article that first appeared in The Journal of Negro Education, Volume XVII, Number 4 (Fall, 1948) and addresses the evolution of the origins of Reconstruction historiography, and the propensity of the Dunning School historians including Coulter to omit and distort beyond any relationship to the facts-- the history of African Americans and their Radical Republican allies during Reconstruction. Franklin's article is especially prescient and relevant because it is also a keen analysis of the endemic problems of racism with this Wikipedia article on Reconstruction.

Skywriter 16:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki policy: all major POV must be heard

Wiki rules are that in controversial issues, all major positions have to be explained in a clear and fair manner. Few if any topics in American history are as controversial as Reconstruction. So what we have are people who think the presentation of views they disagree with is unacceptable. That however is not the Wiki way. If people see unbalanced statements, then please let's hear about them, one by one. Rjensen 10:26, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

See above discussion, and see threads throughout this Talk page that have laid out the objections, one by one. Skywriter 16:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Commenting on the principle (not on the substance), I agree completely. We need not assert in the article that THIS POV has finally been shown to be correct but rather we should describe all POV's accurately and fairly. --Uncle Ed 16:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Try it again: what is the #1 sentence that Skywriter objects to and how would he rewrite it? Rjensen 23:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Like Ed Poor, I concur with Professor Jensen in this statement: "Wiki rules are that in controversial issues, all major positions have to be explained in a clear and fair manner." As Ed Poor said, " we should describe all POV's accurately and fairly." The failure to do exactly that is central to the problems with this article.

This article is more anti-Reconstruction than Reconstruction.

• 1. First paragraph fails to acknowledge that this and the Civil War are the most hotly contested areas in U.S. history.
• 2. The article fails to explore the areas of dispute, fairly or not. It merely ignores that the dispute exists. The article presents historiography that has been overthrown in the last 50 years, meaning scholarship that has lost credibility exactly because it pushes deeply racist views of Reconstruction that most reputable scholars no longer abide.
• 3. The article fails to fairly or accurately portray the role of free African Americans and newly freed slaves in Reconstruction. This is quite a remarkable thing, after the race had been held in bondage for several hundred years, and the Reconstruction era was the first time black people had been accepted, at least for a few short years, or at least in theory, on an equal footing in the United States.

That, of course, was reversed by the end of Reconstruction and the terrible period of reaction that set in, the legal (Jim Crow) aspects of which were not overthrown for another nearly 100 years.

• 4. The article fails to address the successes of Reconstruction and the Freedmen's Bureau, while it lasted, particularly in the area of advocacy for and establishment of public school education in the South, which previously had not existed on a wide scale.
• 5. The article fails to take into account the great transformation from a slave work force to a free work force, and the achievement of the Freedmen's Bureau in making that happen.
• 6. The article does not integrate the scholarship of W.E.B. Du Bois, John Roy Lynch, or Alrutheus A. Taylor, all black scholars of Reconstruction, into the main article on an equal basis with the white turn of the 20th century historians. It does not even nod to the scholarship of the contemporary John Hope Franklin, who has written extensively of the era and its historiography. Instead, this article all but ignores them, and instead adopts the outlook of the pro-segregation turn of the 20th century white historians who alternated between a hostile and condescending view of black people.
• 7. The article assumes too much, lacks definitions, making it difficult to read. The assumptions are in the area of labels that do not fairly describe in neutral terms what each term means.
• 8. The article conforms to the turn of the 20th century white scholar pro-segregationist view that the central fact of Reconstruction was "corruption." As Eric Foner, points out in Freedom's Lawmakers, the judgments in this distorted view stemmed "from a combination of racism and an apparent unwillingness to do simple research."
• 9. The article uses lengthy quotes that could be best summarized in encyclopedic fashion.
• 10. Discussion of reforming this page and adding disputed tags has been in progress for several months. Like the firing of Confederate big guns at Fort Sumter that launched the American Civil War, the following entry precipitated the immediate tagging of this page with the totally disputed tag:

Coulter, E. Merton. The South During Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1947). Dunning School. Called "a brilliant performance. Professor Coulter has examined an amazing amount of material... and has shown a profound grasp and understanding of this complex period" [review in Mississippi Valley Historical Review by Henry Simms, (1948) 35:234); the only region-wide history; exposes and condemns corruption

Comment:

a. Henry Simms is best known for being lynched. [6] The entry should properly be Henry Harrison Simms.

b. This is a perfect example of pro anti-Reconstruction views dominating this article.

For example, both John Hope Franklin and Eric Foner, among many other historians, have written critically of Coulter. Foner wrote, "Anti-Reconstruction scholars faithfully echoed Democratic propaganda of the post-Civil War years. "The Negroes," wrote E. Merton Coulter in 1947, "were fearfully unprepared to occupy positions of rulership," and black officeholding was "the most spectacular and exotic development in government in the history of white civilization... [and the] longest to be remembered, shuddered at, and execrated." As late as 1968, Coulter, the last wholly antagonistic scholar of the era, described Georgia's most prominent Reconstruction black officials as swindlers and "scamps" and suggested that whatever positive qualities they possessed were inherited from white ancestors." The foregoing is quoted directly from:

Coulter, E. Merton. The South During Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1947)-- the book that Professor Jensen contends readers should know as a brilliant performance. Professor Coulter has examined an amazing amount of material... and has shown a profound grasp and understanding of this complex period.

So, you can see, this dispute is about the quality and content of this article. Most of all, it is about fairness in the interpretation of this most important era in U.S. history. Skywriter 10:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

To respond to Skywriter. First (1-2-3-6-8) it is false that the article represents only old historiography. As the bibliography shows, it reflects all scholarly views. Foner is the most relied-upon source. Coulter (10) is listed in the bibliography but not relied upon for even one sentence in the article. As for long quotes (9), several are very useful non-POV summaries, as on Black Codes, or Lincoln's views; others (Views of the Conservatives in the South) were added by Skywriter himself, and now he complains about his own additions! As for the Blacks and the Freedman's Bureau (3-4) it has its own long article (much of it added by rjensen) that goes in depth into what it accomplished and where it failed. As for historigraphical controversy (1), that is covered at length in the "Legacy" section, and the bibliography is annotated to show author's POV's. I think Skywriter is complaining about the failures of Reconstruction rather than the failures of the article itself. Rjensen 20:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A structural proposal

Participants express contrasting views of the purpose of Reconstruction, moderate and radical approaches, the role of Blacks in society, the end of the era, and reasons why Reconstruction failed.

I have adapted the table of contents of the following book for this purpose. Reconstruction: Opposing Viewpoints compiled and edited by Brenda Stalcup ISBN 1565102266

The advantage of using this stucture, which would be credited to Stalcup without using her running commentary, is that it relies only on primary sources, and offers a pro and con for each area of controversy. This proposal resolves the imbalances and chronological confusion in the current article. All of the primary sources are out of copyright. Because Reconstruction was deeply polarized by those who wrote about it, the opinions of historians are clipped, and kept to the end as representative historiography.

We do not have to summarize the arguments of these particular individuals if other primary sources are available. It is important that each area of dispute be put forward fairly and even-handedly.

• Intro would present the fact of sharply opposing viewpoints. The areas of divisiveness would follow. Each element would contain a representative paragraph with a link to the originals if they can be found. A brief paragraph could follow each section saying how the disagreement was resolved.

• Reconstructing a Nation: Opposing Plans

Reconstruction Is an Executive Function by Abraham Lincoln

Reconstruction Is a Legislative Function by Henry Winter Davis

• The South Is a Separate, Conquered Nation by The Joint Committee on Reconstruction

The South Is Not a Separate, Conquered Nation by Andrew Johnson

The South Is Willing to Accept Reconstruction by Ulysses S. Grant

The South Is Unwilling to Accept Reconstruction by Carl Schurz

• Moderate Reconstruction: The President Versus Congress

The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 Should Not Be Enacted by Andrew Johnson

The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 Should Be Enacted by Lyman Trumbull

The Fourteenth Amendment Violates States' Rights by Andrew J. Rogers

The Fourteenth Amendment Does Not Violate States' Rights by John A. Bingham

President Johnson Should Be Impeached by Charles Sumner

Johnson Should Not Be Impeached by James Grimes

• Radical Reconstruction

Carpetbaggers Have Harmed the South by William Manning Lowe

Carpetbaggers Have Helped the South by Oliver Morton

The Ku Klux Klan Is a Peacekeeping Organization by John Brown Gordon

The Ku Klux Klan Is a Terrorist Organization by The Federal Grand Jury

More Federal Intervention Is Needed in the South by Joseph Gurney Cannon

Additional Federal Intervention in the South Is Unnecessary by Henry Lillie Pierce

• The New Social Order

Blacks Should Have the Right to Vote by Frederick Douglass

Blacks Should Not Have the Right to Vote by Benjamin M. Boyer

Southern Land Should Be Given to the Freed Slaves by Thaddeus Stevens

Southern Land Should Be Returned to the Owners by Burwell C. Ritter

Blacks Are Capable of Holding Public Office by Henry McNeal Turner

Blacks Are Not Capable of Holding Public Office by James S. Pike

Segregation Should Be Maintained by Henry Davis McHenry

Segregation Should Be Abolished by James T. Rapier

• The End of Reconstruction

The Compromise of 1877 Will Help Reconstruction by John Mercer Langston

The Compromise of 1877 Will Harm Reconstruction by George Washington Cable

Blacks Should Stay in the South by Frederick Douglass

Blacks Should Leave the South by Richard Theodore Greener

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 Is Unconstitutional by Joseph P. Bradley

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 Is Constitutional by John Marshall Harlan

• Historians Debate Reconstruction

Reconstruction Failed Because Republican Reforms Were Too Radical for American Society by William R. Brock

Reconstruction Failed Because Republicans Were Not Committed to Racial Equality by C. Vann Woodward

• The Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

Skywriter 22:51, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Unlike college students who use the Stalcup reader, Wiki editors are not allowed to do original research. We only tell users what the scholarship says--what is the purpose of ignoring the hard work of over a thousand scholars, who use vastly more sources in much more depth? Rjensen 22:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Professor Jensen's claim that the proposal entails any original research is neither verifiable nor plausible. It is a straw man argument. The purpose of pointing out the overt racism of the Dunning School (and its most recent 20th century champion,(Coulter) all of which was spoon-fed to unsuspecting students for more than 60 years by the majority of the white historians of the 20th century, including Woodrow Wilson) is to repair the damage this school of historiography did. This is a large part of the "thousand scholars" to whom Professor Jensen refers.

Remember that Professor Jensen continues to insist (see discussion earlier in this page) that Coulter's version of history is not only respectable but admirable. He actually inserted this in the bibliography where it remains to this moment. The constant piling on of references to the bibliography does nothing to improve the article. I understand that Professor Jensen is emotional about this because he sees it as his handiwork rather than a collaborative enterprise. I appreciate the feeling, which unfortunately accounts for the frequent reverts of contributions by people who come by, look at this article, try to balance its bias, and walk away reverted-- by the primary writer. The structural model above is useful in measuring bias in the article itself. For example, we can see there were indeed various sides to the viewpoints expressed in this article that are unmistakably absent from this article.

Wikipedia does not champion one side over another, and yet this is the effect of leaving the article the way it stands.

For example, the article asserts the claim-- without opposing viewpoint-- that blacks were not ready to vote or rule. The article fails utterly to explore opposing scholarship, chiefly the black Reconstruction historians who challenged dominant white historian's views. The black historian' views were trampled and ignored during the long years of segregation by the "thousand scholars" who dominated the writing of history books and journals during the Jim Crow era.

There is no identification of the brief period when Confederates were denied the vote or of the widely discussed opinion among Unionists that the Confederate leaders were traitors who deserved hanging. All this is vague, and any reader walks away with the confused claim that some vague "corruption" that is never defined was responsible for the failure of Reconstruction, and that this "corruption" somehow justified the taking away of civil rights from black people for the next 80 years. That really is the central failure--and tragedy-- of Reconstruction, and yet the view of this article never makes that point. It doesn't even address it.

If this article represented the scholarship of Eric Foner on any level, which Professor Jensen claims it does, then it would have made the point that the Dunning historians offered very little in the way of evidence that "corruption" was the reason for the failure of Reconstruction, and it would have supported Foner's view of civil rights. Indeed, there was some corruption-- Du Bois freely conceded that point 75 years ago in his massive work on Reconstruction, but as he also pointed out, corruption happens whenever there are big government programs, and those were the actions of a few bad actors, and not the defining fact of Reconstruction. Du Bois emphasized there were successes, such as the widespread establishment of public schools, during the brief period that was Reconstruction, but no, there's no emphasis on that in this confusing Wikipedia article.

Instead we are force-fed the view of plantation owners--and their military arm (the Klan)-- that corruption dominated Reconstruction, and that blacks were too stupid to vote or to participate in civil society. Du Bois and Foner, of course, proved them wrong by citing example after example yet Wikipedia militantly ignores this.

Over the months when attempts have been made to revise bits of the deeply biased views in this article, the response has been an insistence on, and continuation of the arguments on labeling that lack definitions and that adopt the bias of segregationists, such as the label "neoabolitionist" which up thread it was documented, is not in the dictionary, and has only been popularized by references in this and related articles in Wikipedia and by segregationist web sites. (Please spare us another rant on why that terminology is super duper. This is a genuine case where Wikipedia popularizes a term, then claims it is "popular" or standard usage. It is not. There was in addition one now ancient reference by Vann Woodward, and perhaps one other in a journal. That does not a school make. Now this is orignal research by Professor Jensen that appears in the link to his own list that he placed in this article.

Professor Jensen insists that Foner has not rejected the neoabolitionist label but I happen to know he has. When I began working on this article, there were no references to the black historians of Reconstruction, including the primary source -- John R. Lynch. This reflected bias from the outset. I added all of the black Reconstruction historians, and I note now that the ignoring of the work of Du Bois and Lynch and Altherus and even John Hope Franklin, by the dominant historiography taught in American public schools contributed to the racism and the pain of the 20th century. We have a chance here to reflect on the work of the two schools -- the segregationist viewpoint, and the viewpoint of black historians and scholars like Foner. We owe it to the integrity of the article to fairly present both. Right now, it does not.

Instead, we present the views of one, and someone claims it represents Foner, when it does not.

In his introduction to Foner's epic rewriting of Reconstruction, Henry Steele Commager, the series editor, noted that "...It is to this distinguished lineage of Reconstruction scholars that Professor Foner belongs, and in nothing is he more distinguished than in his independence and originality. The most striking feature of that independence is his insistence that the Negro was the central figure and the most effective in Reconstruction: in this he was, to be sure, anticipated by the great Negro leader, Du Bois. To the support of his thesis, Mr. Foner has brought a prodigious body of evidence, organized it not only skillfully but also, we may almost say, with stylistic genius, and produced what is a scholarly convincing Reconstruction of what is indubitably the most controversial chapter in our history."

There is nothing in this Wikipedia article to suggest Foner's central thesis-- that black people were central to Reconstruction, and that Du Bois was his forbear. There is also no acknowledgement that Reconstruction is the most controversial chapter in U.S. history.

Instead, there was an ongoing fight in the history of this Wikipedia article on how Du Bois would be described. RJensen insisted on baiting him as a "Marxist" or marginalizing him as a black writer. I insisted his epic work in his early life on Reconstruction was important in its own right and irrelevant to what philosophy he espoused at age 93. Forget bringing the unique views of Du Bois into this article. The fight was over baiting him or not baiting him in the bibliography.

Perhaps Professor Jensen will find areas of compromise. I hope so. Now that he has rejected an alternative outline, perhaps he, or some other editor, will come up with an outline for discussion. I am not wed to the outline I proposed above. I am, however, devoted to the idea of fairly representing the various viewpoints.

This article barely nods to the most significant outcome of the end of the Civil War in that it meant the overturning of hundreds of years of systemic slavery in the United States. That there was a brief period of assistance to former slaves and to white citizens after the Civil War is central to Reconstruction and merits some discussion in this article where the term Freedmen's Bureau appears not at all. It was the transformation of slave labor to free labor that underlies what freedom was all about. Skywriter 00:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weighing in on the focus of the Reconstruction page

I think we need to agree upon a common framework for this article. We also cannot ignore the work of thousands of scholars. I have contributed a fair amount of articles highlighting various figures from Reconstruction.

Feel free to examine the following articles

African-American Officeholders During Reconstruction

Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs

Thomas Van Renssalaer Gibbs

Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

John Willis Menard

James D. Lynch

Nathan Lord

As a student of this time period, I can vouch for the fact that we definitely need to set some standards for this article. However, the very nature of the subject does not easily lend itself to a neutral point of view. However, the majority of scholars do agree that Reconstruction was a failure, not because it was tried, but because it failed to deliver civil and political equality to newly freed blacks. We must discuss other kinds of historiography and other points of view, without ignoring the accepted wisdom of thousands of scholars. While I am in favor of having a definite framework that sets out clear and concise points for discussion, we cannot tie ourselves down to one writer or one single point of view. Ladb2000

The article as it now stands covers all the main points of Reconstruction, national and regional, with a reasonably good bibliography. Skywriter seems to think there is bias and POV out there--but seems unaware that he might have some himself. For example he strongly criticized books he has never read. He might for the fun of it look at what he is condemning. Rjensen 00:54, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Rjensen falsely alleged-- For example he strongly criticized books he has never read.

Rjensen, you disappoint. Always a mistake to speak of what one provably knows not a thing about.Skywriter 02:23, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I can read between the lines. If Skywriter had actually read the books he would not make his claims. For example he mixed up Coulter's book on reconstruction with his book on Civil War, which is unlikely if either had actually been read. Rjensen 04:38, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Summary

A lot of users only read the summary section, especially of a long article like this. They want to find out what Reconstruction was -- who were the main players. Rambling rhetoric is not called for. Summary should have: major names, key dates, major events, major issues. Rjensen 01:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey if the facts are gonna be disputed i dont think itll be good for me to use this site as reference where could i go for correct undisputed facts? thx

66.8.212.222 06:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)A.S.66.8.212.222 06:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

try the World Almanac and Book of Facts. Rjensen 06:09, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Correction to the impeachment reference in the second paragraph

The article stated that the Radicals "nearly impeached" Johnson. In fact, they did impeach Johnson, who was then tried and acquitted by the Senate. It's an important distinction, and needs to be factually accurate. Cybernetic 00:50, 8 June 2006 (EDT)

[edit] caption

This is not accurate. It is well-documented that the Freedman's Bureau provided aid to both races. It did not discriminate. To suggest that it did so in a caption is misleading. In a call for "white supremacy" and an end to the Freedman's Bureau, this Conservative/ Democratic racist poster from 1866 ridicules the loafing black man subsidized by the Bureau in contrast to the hard working white man who does not get federal money. Skywriter 19:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What ended Reconstruction?

I know next to nothing about Reconstruction, so I came to the Wikipedia to learn about it. The first thing I noticed is that the article says it ended in 1998. That kind of supprised me, so I searched the article for some indication of when, precisely, Reconstruction ended and could find nothing indicating that it ended in 1998 (or even in 1898, in case 1998 had been a typo). Jsminch 12:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Some user replaced the words "Lincoln" with "Sadam" (sic, obviously vandalism. Reverted to Lincoln.