Progressives have been on a mission to fundamentally
transform the United States for over 150 years.
The great leap from federalism to nationalism couldn’t have happened
without the War of Northern Aggression and Reconstruction. Southern secession became a catalyst for
centralized power and ironically will lead to the dissolution of a union the
Yankee invaders purportedly wanted to save.
Before anyone gets offended, I want to emphasize this
post is about Progressives, the U.S. Constitution and the federalist principles
therein and not about slavery. I realize
this distinction can be difficult for some; however, one must try to analyze
this perspective from a federalist viewpoint.
How can one define Reconstruction? You would think it a term for an epoch in
American history where the conquerors helped the vanquished get back on their
feet by easing them into the union after a devastating civil war. This interpretation is completely false. What happened was the equivalent of the
Progressive Era’s Eugenics Movement:
Southerners will restructure the way they think, act and live their
lives according to the dictates of their Yankee masters, or be sterilized from
the political process. Congressional
Reconstruction was all about power and control and to hell with federalism.
The Radical Republicans wanted to ensure their
hegemonic rule by forcing the 14th Amendment upon a prostrate
people. Twelve states refused to swallow
this poisoned pill, which had a provision that disenfranchised southerners who
volunteered to fight for the Confederacy.
This act of defiance brought about the third phase of Reconstruction: the South was divided into five military
districts and ruled by military governors.
Military occupations breed resentment and enmity
which ultimately leads to failure.
Reconstruction was and is considered a colossal failure. A generation of historians, often referred to
as the Dunning School, documented the abuses and corruption of the Radical
Republicans and their agents of occupation.
This resentment manifested itself in the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow
laws that were implemented shortly after the Northern occupation was lifted.
If you are a
student of the Reconstruction era, you’ll notice that today’s colleges and
universities are filled with Marxist who has a bitter resentment toward the so-called
Dunning School. Almost every book I’ve read
on this subject contains what can only be considered a smear campaign against
these early historians. Eric Foner in particular
impugns the character of these men by assigning racist motives. Ironically, these men were northerners and
one reporter, James Pike, served in the Lincoln administration. I’ve never experienced this kind of vitriol
in other disciplines of history.
However, one must note today’s Reconstruction historians
subscribe to the tactics of W.E.B. Du Bois who invented one of Saul Alinsky’s Rules
for Radicals: "Pick
the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the
support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not
institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
Du Boise seems to be a guiding figure for today’s
historians, not to mention the fact that he too was a Marxist. There seems to be a consensus by Progressives
that the failures of Reconstruction were the defunding of the Freedmen’s Bureau
and a lack of willingness to redistribute land and money which translates into
confiscation of property. Some even
consider the withdrawal of troops a contributing factor as well. Few are willing to accept that invasion, occupation,
disenfranchisement, and forced homogenization were the main factors for the
failures of Reconstruction.
One thing is for sure; Progressives will not accept
the failures of a top-down centralized government, perhaps that’s why today’s
Marxist historians are so vitriolic in their condemnation of critics of
Reconstruction.
