“The World Turned Upside Down: Reconstruction in Texas”
“The World Turned Upside Down: Reconstruction in Texas”
1. Introduction: The Myth vs. the Reality of Reconstruction
2. Wartime Reconstruction
3. Postwar Reconstruction
4. Congressional Reconstruction
5. Undoing Reconstruction
6. Enduring Impacts of Reconstruction in Texas
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The Myth vs. the Reality of Reconstruction
The Myth:
At the end of the Civil War, in which Southerners had fought valiantly against the brutal invasion forces of the North in an effort to protect local institutions and states rights, the South lay broken and destitute. Rather than trying to reunite the country as peacefully and quickly as possible, the victorious North set out on a deliberate policy of rape, pillage, plunder, and vindictive punishment.
The South was invaded and controlled during Reconstruction by vengeful Union soldiers, opportunistic carpetbaggers, and treasonous scalawags. The Yankee carpetbaggers were opportunists who came to the South to get rich in the aftermath of conquest through theft of money, land, property, etc. Their allies were the treasonous scalawags - Southerners who had always favored the Union, had opposed secession, and in some cases had even taken up arms against their countrymen during the Civil War. These traitors were now placed by military force into political power in the South.
These forces - the Union army of occupation, the carpetbaggers, the scalawags, and the ex-slaves they easily manipulated - subjected Southerners to unethical, unprincipled, and inhumane punishment during Reconstruction. Representative Southern leaders were displaced by Negro politicians and Yankee Republicans. They stood the South on its head - freeing slaves, ruining the economy, raising taxes, and using military force to savagely perpetuate their control. The effects were to last for decades, making the South a subjugated colony of the North - no longer the equal it had been.
The Reality:
1. Introduction: The Myth vs. the Reality of Reconstruction
2. Wartime Reconstruction
3. Postwar Reconstruction
4. Congressional Reconstruction
5. Undoing Reconstruction
6. Enduring Impacts of Reconstruction in Texas
_______________________________________________________________________
The Myth vs. the Reality of Reconstruction
The Myth:
At the end of the Civil War, in which Southerners had fought valiantly against the brutal invasion forces of the North in an effort to protect local institutions and states rights, the South lay broken and destitute. Rather than trying to reunite the country as peacefully and quickly as possible, the victorious North set out on a deliberate policy of rape, pillage, plunder, and vindictive punishment.
The South was invaded and controlled during Reconstruction by vengeful Union soldiers, opportunistic carpetbaggers, and treasonous scalawags. The Yankee carpetbaggers were opportunists who came to the South to get rich in the aftermath of conquest through theft of money, land, property, etc. Their allies were the treasonous scalawags - Southerners who had always favored the Union, had opposed secession, and in some cases had even taken up arms against their countrymen during the Civil War. These traitors were now placed by military force into political power in the South.
These forces - the Union army of occupation, the carpetbaggers, the scalawags, and the ex-slaves they easily manipulated - subjected Southerners to unethical, unprincipled, and inhumane punishment during Reconstruction. Representative Southern leaders were displaced by Negro politicians and Yankee Republicans. They stood the South on its head - freeing slaves, ruining the economy, raising taxes, and using military force to savagely perpetuate their control. The effects were to last for decades, making the South a subjugated colony of the North - no longer the equal it had been.
The Reality: