Posts Tagged ‘history’

Some old writings of mine (that I and others?! read)

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

This evening I was clicking around various things on my computer and ended up reading some old writings for 11th and 12th grade English class. This eventually led to perusal of the two English “portfolio” sites I had to make in high school (or rather, I had to make something with foo-content on the web, and whereas most people just put up a pbwiki, I spent hours playing with HTML and CSS … because it was a good excuse to).

They are located at

http://wip.donaldguy.com (11th grade “works in progress page”, updated in late 12th grade as part of portfolio project, collection of essays and such from 9th-12th grade with some self-analysis) and

http://english.donaldguy.com (12 grade portfolio site, contains mostly reflection on my high school experience, some select pieces from the above with commentary/rewrites, a few new pieces)

It is always interesting to peruse the writings of the person you once were, and this was no exception. I don’t really have much to say about them right now, other than … it’s just interesting. Since a lot of the writing (more on the second) had to be about myself… it’s interesting to look at both what I said and how I said it. There’s a certain arrogance certainly. And also a certain certainty of purpose that I wish I could recapture. Oh well. In any case, I invite you to look through both of them and make comments here about what is there, here or by email/zephyr/etc.

It’s also interesting to compare the two as websites beyond their content: looking at the quality and motivation of their design, layout, etc. And contrast that with a more recent web project of mine like the work I did on http://myquestforcollege.com.

I thought an interesting self-analytic pursuit for a Sunday evening.

Irrelevantly:

Fun facts: For a reason I can’t, for the life of me, figure out, if you google Donald Guy, the fourth result is my 12th grade essay ostensibly on Merry Shelly’s Frankenstein titled “the Dangers of Passion” which somehow ends up being about nuclear proliferation and the danger of creation without oversight. … No, I don’t know either.

In general, wip.donaldguy.com gets a confusingly high amount of traffic. This year-to-date 8777 pages have been loaded off of it. Not mostly me, I assure you. Over its lifetime it has averaged 55 unique hits per day.

Looking at the referrer report of this months’ stats (something I assure you I don’t do normally, but was doing cause of this entry), I discovered that my analysis of lincoln’s second inaugural address is linked to from this (admittedly rather long) guide for 6th grade language arts teachers to “use the internet effectively”. Fuck if I know.

The internet is weird and so am I,

~Donald Guy

Lame punt: history paper from earlier this term

Monday, April 5th, 2010

So… I am writing a 12 page paper about communes right now … I don’t have the time or energy to also blog. … so have a quasi-non-sensical paper about Reconstruction (the other paper for this class so far this year):

The Inevitable Failure of Reconstruction
by Donald Guy

Reconstruction is a poorly defined term. Approximately, it refers to the period of American History from roughly 1865 until 1877. It was a period which saw a lot of changes, a large cast of prominent figures, and a neigh uncountable number of noteworthy events, but above all, it was a period of poorly defined terms. It was a period when such diverse terms as “property”, “freedom”, “United States of America”, and even “person”, whose definitions had long been considered immutable, found their definitions challenged, changing, and above all, unclear. Due to these ambiguities, as well as the numerous and conflicting opinions held by the important peoples of the day, it is hard, if not impossible, to concretely define what exactly the goals of Reconstruction were and whether they were accomplished. In a sense, the real goal was simply to figure out what exactly terms like those listed above would mean in the future. By the very nature of this goal, the passage of history inevitably partially accomplished it. It did not, however, accomplish it completely, nor could it really have been expected to. In, thus, being an incomplete revolution, as well as because of the violence and injustice that marked the period, this author deems it a failure.
Reconstruction, the period, followed in the wake of the American Civil War. Reconstruction, the movement, was born of necessity to take up and continue resolving the essential issues over which that war was fought: namely, local autonomy and the rights of the individual. Coming out of the bloody conflict, the most concrete questions over which the war was fought were resolved: with the military surrender and subsequent political dissolution of the Confederate States of America, secession became distinctly not a right of a state; with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, slavery was officially over in the US. What remained, after that war, was a country with a recently-decimated, newly-augmented population of free individuals, newly reunited in theory but with no clear path to move forward, in practice. In this relative chaos, two general schools of thought inevitably emerged: one which advocated a speedy return to the status quo antebellum and another which looked to build a “perfect” society from the ruins of the post-war nation. Along the way, the proponents of each view also needed to deal with the gritty details of putting a ruined nation back together, restoring its economy, and figuring out the particulars of the post-war government, starting with reunification of the states.
Shortly after Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson ascended to the oval office and Presidential Reconstruction began with a distinct leaning toward the speedy restoration of the status quo, particularly in the south. Johnson attempted to quickly restore statehood to the former Confederacy before congress came to session. This action and the governments set up to run the restored states were met with outcries from prominent northerners. Fredrick Douglass, for example proclaimed that “These pretended governments, which were never submitted to the people, and from participation in which four millions of the loyal people were excluded by Presidential order, should now be treated according to their true character, as shams and impositions.”1 And they largely were treated as such; when congress did come to session, it refused to seat the newly-elected southern delegates, many of whom were former Confederate officials.
It quickly became an issue what was now going to be the definition of “a state”, and at what point such a state could hope to regain representation in Congress. Many, like Johnson, advocated for a rapid reintegration, claiming that it was improper (indeed, unconstitutional) to make any decisions for the nation until it was done. Sounding vaguely similar to Douglass, Johnson claims (in vetoing the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill) that “There could be no objection urged that the States most interested had not been permitted to be heard… Great burdens are now to be borne by all the country, and we may best demand that they shall be borne without murmur when they are voted by a majority of representatives of all the people.”2 Others, however, saw the fact of the southern states’ disenfranchisement as a ripe opportunity to force reform on them while they could not prevent it. Over persistent presidential vetoes, a number of laws were enacted attempting chiefly to reform southern society (and American society at large). Chief among them was the Civil Rights act, which laid the foundation for the Fourteenth Amendment.
Disenfranchisement was, however, the least of the south’s problems. In addition to being war-torn and reeling from defeat, the former confederate states and their citizens found themselves in quite a pickle, economically. To put it simply, the south was poor. To put it more subtlety, the entire notion of value in the south had been undermined: land values had plummeted, slaves were now free and no longer considered assets, confederate paper money printed and invested in as an expedient during the war was rendered legally worthless, and in this situation those who had previously been able to afford slaves, hence did not have labor management as an issue, were now expected to follow a “free labor” paradigm and pay their workers, just as many of their life savings had evaporated into thin air. The only thing of which value was certain was crops and, in the wake of destroyed harvests followed by bad harvests, the raising of crops became itself a source of debt. To pay this debt, southerners needed loans, but the only assets against which they could get liens were futures on valuable crops–namely cotton. This created a huge drive to cotton farming, lowering the self-sufficiency of the region in abandoning food farming, while flooding the cotton marker and, along with fresh supplies competition Egyptian Cotton, undermining the market value. Meanwhile this growing dependency on cotton, along with the loss of slaves to emancipation led to a huge labor crisis as new arrangements needed to be made. Southern blacks, having not insubstantial bargaining power despite the laws in place to undermine their freedom, demanded more autonomy in the fields confounding southern planters who had grown up with the notion that their (now-former) slaves were subservient and that they could always control them. Indeed, what was occurring was largely that the southern people were, against their will, being made to reassess who was and was not “a person.”
Meanwhile, the freedmen themselves were also having to deal with their newly found “personhood.” Even where growing up in slavery had not embedded any notions of a man or woman’s limitations, he or she was still suddenly moved from being property, to being entitled to own property (at least once the 14th Amendment assured his or he right to not be deprived of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”). This fact was even more confused (especially in the earlier years) by the enactment of Black Codes that severely limited his or her rights and created various stations of ersatz slavery and in later years of Reconstruction by the fear of violent repercussions to being too opinionated or too vocal in their personhood. In the midst of this, each freedperson had to find a new place for himself in the social order (often being legally compelled to do so or face prosecution under “vagrancy” statutes). While most freedpeople wished little more than to own their own land and be a self-sufficient farmer, land which should have plentiful, was denied them (or in worst cases, granted and later revoked). From the planters’ need for labor and the freedmen’s need for work and desire for autonomy, the sharecropping system was developed. Though probably an improvement on most ex-slaves’ former station, this system along with persistent discrimination did little to help disambiguate the notion of what it meant to be “free.”
While all these social and economic confusions were going on in the south, there was a great degree of disagreement about it and its merits in the north and in Washington. Many northerners who strongly supported the freepeople’s plight (and many who followed a generally progressive mindset) saw a distinct need for the economic revitalization of the south in short order for the country to survive in some semblance of its former self. In this way, they admitted into their programs more than a little traditional thinking and goals, seeing the black work force as still that best suited for the cotton fields. Even the Freedman’s Bureau, ostensibly set-up to protect the interest of the freedpeople and generally pretty successful in doing so had a number of agents who spent a lot of their time arranging contract work for black’s and occasionally even forcing them into such contracts against their will. In the north, like the south the “freedom” and the “personhood” afforded to freedmen was a large issue. One specific issue that sparked a lot of interest from the northern community (Radical Republicans in particular) was black suffrage. After extended debate and political considerations on both sides of the aisle, universal male suffrage was eventually granted in the 15th Amendment. This did not really result, automatically, in the ability to vote (simply the right), sadly. As it turns out, while during Radical Reconstruction congress managed to pass several laws over presidential vetoes, they did not always have the power to enforce them.
Methods of enforcement of new social orders in the south was, from the beginning one of the biggest issues and one of the most futile pursuits of the period. It is the opinion of the author that Reconstruction was never capable of sufficiently defining the new nation because so many of the old opinions were so ingrained that there was never really hope of replacing them in a few years. In fact, the only effective way with any hope of truly changing the social order would have been to educate several generations in the new facts of the new social order before allowing the region returning to self-determinism. It is sometime stated that perhaps the most positive legacy of Reconstruction politics, and almost certainly the most positive legacy of the Freedman’s Bureau were the public educational systems and universities it managed to set-up for freedpeople’s children. Unfortunately, these never could have been sufficient. These schools mostly, if not only, taught black students. In order to effectively transform the region would have required teaching children of each race to think kindly upon their counterparts of the other. (possibly even in integrated schools). Unfortunately, such a system was never to come to pass. Some of the few public schools that did exist before the war (such as those in North Carolina or Tennessee) were actually dissolved to avoid the possibility of being “required to educate the negros in like manner”3 after emancipation. In general, the notion of keeping the southern states disenfranchised for a long time until they were deemed socially acceptable and ready to be readmitted was considered. On January 26, 1867 in a long speech given on the floor of the House of Representatives, George Washington Julian of Indiana suggested basically that, saying:

The withdrawal of federal intervention and the unchecked operation of local supremacy would as fatally hedge up the way of justice and equality as the rebel ascendency which now prevails. Why? Simply because no theory of government, no forms of administration, can be trusted, unless adequately supported by public opinion. The power of the great landed aristocracy in these regions, if unrestrained by power from without, would inevitably assert itself. Its political chemistry, obeying its own laws, would very soon crystallize itself into the same forms of treason and lawlessness which to-day hold their undisturbed empire over the existing loyal element. What these regions need, above all things, is not an easy and quick return to their forfeited rights in the Union, but government, the strong arm of power, outstretched from the central authority here in Washington, making it safe for the freedmen of the South, safe for her loyal white men, safe for emigrants from the Old World and from the Northern States to go and dwell there ; safe for Northern capital and labor, Northern energy and enterprise, and Northern ideas to set up their habitation in peace, and thus found a Christian civilization and a living democracy amid the ruins of the past. That, sir, is what the country demands and the rebel power needs. To talk about suddenly building up independent States where the material for such structures is fatally wanting, is nonsense. States must grow, and to that end their growth must be fostered and protected. The political and social regeneration of the country made desolate by treason is the prime necessity of the hour, and is preliminary to any reconstruction of States. Years of careful pupilage under the authority of the nation may be found necessary, and Congress alone must decide when and upon what conditions the tie rudely broken by treason shall be restored.4

Somewhat unfortunately, in my view, G.W. Julian’s strategy of longer martial rule was not adopted and though martial rule was temporarily put in place, relatively straightforward requirements for readmission to the union were put in place about the same time. Within a few years, all the former confederate states had successfully rejoined the union and returned to self-determination with the exception that under the 14th amendment, Confederate officials and veterans were not allowed to serve in political office (though to what extent this was followed is questionable at best). Along with this came the practical disenfranchisement of black voters through both the implementation of poll taxes and other measures as well as violence. As history would go on to show, racism was still deeply ingrained in the American mind and the southern mind, in particular. The mere fact of the need of the further Civil Rights movements of the late 1960s to the present are more than enough evidence to show that, in establishing who was truly “a person” with equal protection of the law, Reconstruction was a failure.
Reconstruction was a turbulent time. With the end of slavery and reorganization of labor the notions of ownership and freedom became much less clear than they had ever been before. Despite the inroads made by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, who is truly a full member of society in America has remained in doubt up through the present (e.g. the Gay Marriage debate). The Economic Panic of 1873 heralding in the Long Depression represented a failure to reestablish the economic well-being. While the country was reunited in name, the north and south are still culturally different, and while through the age of world wars and globalization a national identity has coalesced, the country remains far from unified with north and south being significantly (though far from the most significantly) split on opinions of national politics and other issues. In short, in failing to clearly define these things, Reconstruction was a failure, but realistically it had to be. Redefinition of a nation, of a culture takes generations. That redefinition remains ongoing to this day.

1Fredrick Douglass, “Reconstruction”, https://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/21H/sp10/21H.102/courseMaterial/topics/topic2/readings/Reconstruction_documents/Reconstruction_documents.pdf (accessed February 16, 2010)

2Andrew Johnson, “Veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill”, Andrew Johnson, His Life and Speeches by Lillian Foster, New York: Richardson & Co., 1866, http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1940 (accessed February 16, 2010)

3Gov. Jonathon Worth, quoted from: A Brief History of Reconstruction by Eric Foner, p.96 , New York: Harper Perennial. 1990.

4George Washington Julian, “Regeneration before Reconstruction”, Speeches on political questions [1850-1868]
pp. 352-3, Cambridge: Riverside. 1872. http://books.google.com/books?id=0CBYAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA352&ots=02NNbtb0Kl&pg=PA352#v=onepage (Accessed Feb. 16, 2010)