Preview

William Dunning Reconstruction Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
606 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
William Dunning Reconstruction Analysis
1 & 5.) The first article by William Dunning discusses black codes and negro suffrage. Dunning speaks of how black codes were not proof of a likelihood to bring back slavery, and how legislatures repealed acts that lent themselves to such offensiveness. Blacks became equals as long as the military command could reach. His overall view seems to be that army force and desire for political power was the only reason for an incoherent proceeding. Dunning examines the Reconstruction time immediately following the Civil War, where blacks were not enslaved, but still suffered from segregation. It mainly focuses on blacks during the period fright after the civil war. The second passage by Erin Foner explores the notion that emancipation meant equality, when, in fact, it did not. The blacks were free from slavery, but not free in the way white American’s of the time were free. The black codes broke the laws laid out by the free labor principles and brought rage from the Republican party. This passage also discusses the period of Reconstruction immediately following the Civil War. However, this passage specifically examines both blacks and whites.
2.) …show more content…
His words seem to explain the black codes as something that was not wrong. He also justifies the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment by saying, “a dignified refusal by honorable men to the instruments of their own humiliation and shame.” Dunning also speaks of “an unintelligible proceeding” which is brought on by greed for power in politics. On the other hand, I believe Foner is for the inclusion of freed blacks and the Reconstruction process. He is fending for the African Americans; speaking of how “the death of slavery, did not mean the birth of freedom.” I believe each author’s point of view is clouded by their feelings over the Reconstruction process, neither seems objective in their
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Unequal Freedom Summary
    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Unequal Freedom Summary

    According to Glenn, the South was extremely affected by the depth as well as the scope of structures that maintained coercion and harassment in the labor markets and denied political and civil citizenship rights (142). From this paragraph, I understand that black men faced systematic removal from any form of property ownership as well as voting, while women were enslaved. Consequently, a resistance ensued through the local contestation sites; they congregated to fight disparities premised on stereotypes (135). Thus, by identifying key areas of inequality, blacks in the South were well-positioned to challenge white oppressors.…

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Eric Foner's Forever Free
    • 1644 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Eric Foner's Forever Free

    In Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction, author Eric Foner analyzes the traditional understandings of the Reconstruction period immediately following the American Civil War. Foner begins by explaining that such traditional understandings came from white Southerners who blamed their misfortunes on greedy Northerners and inept African Americans. Rather than agreeing with such traditional understandings, Foner attempts to overthrow such beliefs by arguing in favor of African Americans. Particularly through their development of beneficial institutions, their creation of new economies, and their contributions to both local and national governments.…

    • 1644 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Douglas A. Blackmon's Slavery By Another Name
    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Douglas A. Blackmon's Slavery By Another Name

    In schools around the US, students are taught that past the civil war, slavery became nonexistent. However, as I read through Douglas A. Blackmon’s Slavery By Another Name, I realized that slavery did not stop in 1865, but that it had continued for decades after, with arguably worse conditions and restrictions. In his book, Blackmon describes the struggles of African Americans after the 13th Amendment’s enactment. He describes the south’s transition from pre civil war legalized slavery to the post civil war modern industrial slavery.…

    • 690 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Washington vs DuBois
    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Washington vs DuBois

    On January 1, 1863, the United States’ Negro population was proclaimed “henceforth and forever free” according to President Abraham Lincoln’s establishment of the Emancipation Proclamation. However, years after its release, the Negro population was still mistreated. After the Civil War, white southerners were relentless in establishing themselves as the superior race. The newly implemented Black Codes restricted African Americans' of their new freedom and essentially began a new form of slavery. African Americans experienced violent discrimination and devastating poverty daily. In an attempt to diminish this oppression, two great and well respected leaders of the black community, Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois, offered contrasting approaches. Both methods contributed to the movement; however, one was more appropriate for the time period. Overall, Washington’s philosophy of self help and acceptance of discrimination was the better fit.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Huckleberry Finn and Jubilee: Historical Background
    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Huckleberry Finn and Jubilee: Historical Background

    Current events spur an author’s imagination and can be the basis for their novels. In The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and Jubilee by Margaret Walker, the ideologies in the Reconstruction Era are the foundations of their novels. Hence, major social and racial issues derived in the aftermath of the American Civil War immeasurably shaped the purpose of Mark Twain’s and Margaret Walker’s writing.…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Reconstruction Dbq Apush
    • 1031 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Reconstruction Dbq Apush

    The era from 1860 to 1877 was a time of reconstruction and revolution in America. Many constitutional developments aided the reform movement, such as the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which granted African Americans voting and civil rights. Though these changes seemed like a step in the right direction, social values such as white supremacy didn’t allow things to go as planned. Despite the fact that African Americans were granted rights on paper, they still weren’t treated equally. Actions of violence from the Ku Klux Klan threatened African Americans. Although slavery was considered abolished, people became partially enslaves due to the Mississippi Black Codes and sharecropping.…

    • 1031 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    American Revolution Dbq Essay
    • 917 Words
    • 4 Pages

    American Revolution Dbq Essay

    Black suffrage is an important social development that helps change American society. Document D represents the different opinions of moderate and radical republicans on the issue of slavery. Moderate republican, Gideon Welles argues that slavery should be set aside instead of abolished. An important request that Blacks have after they are freed is that they should be given the right to vote. Document C is a petition from African American citizens to the Union convention of Tennessee, in this petition former slaves are sternly stating that they helped fight for the Union army and therefore, they deserve the right to vote. If former rebellious Southerners are allowed to vote, then African Americans should be given the right to vote as well. Document C especially shows that Blacks don’t have any rights during Johnson’s Reconstruction era. White supremacists, or the Ku Klux Klan, believe strongly that African Americans should not vote and they will go to radical extremes to prevent them from voting. Document I symbolizes the cruelty of the Ku Klux Klan by showing two white supremacists shaking hands over a crest with two Black people cringing in pain. This image not only represents the cruelty of the KKK, but also how social developments are not revolutionary. When the Northern military left the South, this allowed for the…

    • 917 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    progressive dbq
    • 887 Words
    • 3 Pages

    progressive dbq

    With the era of American Reconstruction in America during the mid to late 1800’s came a sense of opportunity and hope for its people. America was on the move as nation, railroads being built faster than ever and the freedmen looking to find their niche in society. Although in the beginning the government provided support for these new citizens, efforts toward reconstruction faded as the years passed. Those efforts faded to a point where they were all but nonexistent, and with the unwritten Compromise of 1877, what feeble efforts that were left of reconstruction were now all but dead. Politically, reconstruction failed to provide equality by pulling Federal troops from the South, allowing former Confederate officials and slave owners to return to power. Socially, it allowed those political figures back into power which allowed state legislatures to pass “Black Codes” quicker, insuring that the lives for freed blacks would not improve. Economically, the government’s poor regulation of the South allowed for the creation of another form of slavery, otherwise known as the sharecropping system. Thus, the actions of the American government during Reconstruction did not ensure equal rights to all freedmen.…

    • 887 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness
    • 1926 Words
    • 8 Pages

    New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness

    "Following the Civil War, it was unclear what institutions, laws, or customs would be necessary…

    • 1926 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Richard Wright's Black Boy In English Class
    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Richard Wright's Black Boy In English Class

    Prior to the twentieth century, the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case, Plessy v. Ferguson, had established the “separate but equal” doctrine. The Court ruled that both the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendment granted “‘absolute equality of the two races before the law,’ [however] such equality extended only so far as political and civil rights, not ‘social rights’” (McBride). The ruling of this case had legalized segregation, and as a result, the Jim Crow laws, which were a series of Southern state laws that enforced discrimination against African Americans, became a deeply rooted part of society. Wright’s account of the early twentieth century allows us, as readers in the twenty-first century, to better understand to what extent racial prejudices affected the individuality of African Americans. He writes that in the South, their role in society had restricted them from aspiring to higher political, social, and economic status. Moreover, he highlights the psychological consequences of racism. Members of the black community exercised severe self-restraint in front of white people for their own safety. Therefore, survival during the time period of Black Boy depended upon passivity and conformity to structural racism, ultimately living in a world of limited knowledge and…

    • 1209 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Reconstruction After Civil War Essay
    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Reconstruction After Civil War Essay

    The end of the Civil war in the year 1865 gave about four million slaves their freedom. However, the process of rebuilding the south during this era provided so many challenges that the country faced. The president, Andrew Johnson, and his administration had introduced legislation restriction “black codes” with the aim of controlling the behavior of former slaves and…

    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    White Resistance to the Civil Rights Movement
    • 1501 Words
    • 7 Pages

    White Resistance to the Civil Rights Movement

    Throughout Reconstruction, southern whites felt constantly threatened by legislation providing rights for former slaves. The Civil Rights Bill of 1875 was the last rights bill passed by congress during reconstruction. It protected all Americans’ (including blacks) access to public accommodations such as trains. With the threat of complete equality constantly looming, violence toward former slaves gradually increased in the years following the Civil War. Beatings and murders were committed by organized groups like the Ku Klux Klan, out-of-control mobs, and individual white southern men. During Reconstruction, white southerners had limited governmental power, so they resorted to violence in order to control African-Americans. Although it is true that some whites embraced the prospect of a new interracial landscape for America, many more reacted with hostility. They feared social and political change, and were very uncomfortable with the fact that their old way of life seemed gone for good. Although there were many forms of massive resistance to the Civil Rights Movement and what it stood for, the impact of white resistance, both violent and nonviolent, on this period in America’s history is truly immeasurable. There are two scholarly works that not only trace the white resistance movement with historical accuracy, but also stress the plight that African Americans felt at this tumultuous time in history. The books that I am referring to are “Massive Resistance: The White Response to the Civil Rights Movement” by George Lewis, and “Rabble Rousers: The American Far Right in the Civil Rights Era” By Clive Webb. Although these works are both written about the same period in history, they depict much different points of view concerning white resistance and what brought it on. The “southern way of life” encompassed very distinct mixtures of economic, cultural, and social practices. Because of this, integration of African Americans into everyday life…

    • 1501 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Reconstruction Revisited
    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Reconstruction Revisited

    Foner writes that nowhere, was the transfer in black life more profound than in politics. The amazing political mobilization of the black community was one of the most striking features of that period, along with the emergence of a new black political class. At the beginning of the Reconstruction, blacks turned to ministers and men who had achieved prominence as slaves to represent them politically. During Congressional Reconstruction, prominent black artisans, who possessed skill, independence and often literacy, who where deeply apart of the freedman’s community served as a bridge between the black world and the public political sphere dominated by whites. Black politicians where not perfect and had flaws of their own. Thomas Holt, author of “Black Over White” is quoted within “Reconstruction Revisited” that “largely, black leaders from the free racially mixed class of Charleston, were not concerned enough with the needs of the black community and failed to act in the interests of black peasants.” It was not only the divisions within the black community that shaped the course of the Reconstruction. Division within the white community also helped shape the course of the Reconstruction. Federal, Army and state authorities were equally indifferent to the freedmen’s aspirations. Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau to create a new social order by government mandate. This Bureau had many jobs all of which where focused on giving blacks a better life. Southern state governments enacted black codes modeled after the slave codes that existed before the Civil War and President Johnson did nothing to prevent this while Congress did its best to…

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Founding Fathers View on Slavery
    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Founding Fathers View on Slavery

    During the earlier years of the United States, there was a group of leaders who led the new country all the way through the American Revolution and into the 19th century. This class of men, known today as the “Founding Fathers”, had a substantial impact on the early growth and development of the United States. However, the Founding Fathers were conflicted regarding many of the defining problems of the time period, including slavery and how to approach this horrific matter. Some men saw the African-Americans as males who were almost if not entirely equal with the white race. On the other hand, some viewed the African-Americans as in superior to white men. The majority of the Founding Fathers agreed, nonetheless, that slavery was inappropriate in the country in which they were instrumental in founding and creating. Possibly the most significant disagreement among the Founding Fathers in regards to slavery was how to get rid of slavery for good in a peaceful method.…

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sexual Violence Against African-American Women: Beyond Slavery, Beyond the Physical
    • 1649 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Sexual Violence Against African-American Women: Beyond Slavery, Beyond the Physical

    The Civil War literally changed the “landscape” of America overnight. At least 600,000 men, both Union and Confederate, never returned to their families. Five years of separation forced the North and South to live as “one”. In theory, slaves became freedmen and equal to their white counterparts. Post-bellum America was difficult for everyone, but it was the South who endured the most hardship. Southern Democrats were now at the mercy of Northern Republicans, forced to rebuild their governments with the federal “blueprint” in mind. Former government officials and property-owners found themselves powerless and landless, respectively. The plantation economy of the South fell victim to out-sourcing, overproduction, and the harsh reality that free labor was now obsolete. Speaking of free labor, freedmen were now in control of their own destinies. Many African-Americans were uncertain of what their “destiny” might be, but one thing was certain: they wanted to be truly free. White Southerners refused to let blacks become equals; no set of amendments or laws were going to stop them. This white “goal” set the stage for race relations in the South for the next hundred or so years. Whites had numerous tactics to ensure that white supremacy reigned. Antagonizing at the polls, circumventing laws that protected blacks, and segregating ever aspect of life imaginable were some of the obvious strategies we see in our history textbooks. However, one tactic is often overlooked, despite its significance. The systematic sexual violence against African-American women gave insight to the mentality and hypocrisy of white supremacy, transcending slavery, the Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights movement. Not only did the constant raping of black women by white men transcend centuries, it evolved in meaning. During slavery, black women suffered in silence as their master’s abused them. The Reconstruction marked the beginning in which freedwomen were speaking out, captivating the nation’s…

    • 1649 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More