An interpretation of Reconstruction, by Arieh Sclar

“All agreed that black suffrage had been a political blunder and that the Republican state governments in the South that rested upon black votes had been corrupt, extravagant, unrepresentative, and oppressive. The sympathies of the "Dunningite" historians lay with the white Southerners who resisted Congressional Reconstruction: whites who, organizing under the banner of the Conservative or Democratic Party, used legal opposition and extralegal violence to oust the Republicans from state power. Although "Dunningite" historians did not necessarily endorse those extralegal methods, they did tend to palliate [moderate] them. From start to finish, they argued, Congressional Reconstruction—often dubbed "Radical Reconstruction"—lacked political wisdom and legitimacy.”

• Historian Adam Fairclough

1. What would a Dunningite historian think about (choose two and explain)?

2. The Freedman’s Bureau

3. The Impeachment of Johnson

4. The Reconstruction Plan of 1867

5. The 1876 Compromise

6. The Redeemers