Customer Reviews

The Reconstruction Presidents

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this book on the recommendation of a colleague who thought it might affect my over-simplistic, and Eric-Foner-derived, view of Reconstruction as a failure of northern will. It certainly did.

Like Foner, Simpson does view Reconstruction as a failure, a tragedy, and a lost opportunity. But he emphasizes two factors throughout his study of four presidents: original design flaws in congressional Reconstruction that made it unsustainable, and the changing strategy of the Republican Party for achieving a national majority, which gradually made Southern Republicans expendable.

In terms of the individual chapters, Simpson's impatience with those who dragoon Lincoln into one view or another of the path Reconstruction should have taken is palpable and compelling; we really don't know, he argues, the direction this highly improvisational politician might have taken had he lived through his second term.

The chapter on Johnson is probably the least interesting, if only because it reinforces earlier views of him as an obstinent racist committed to a view of constitutional restoration that made any real Reconstruction impossible. Simpson does add to the evidence that the effort to remove him from office was in many respects half-hearted and poorly executed.

For me, the biggest revelation offered by this book is its view of Grant (Simpson's speciality). He comes across as an exceptionally sincere and surprisingly flexible leader whose Reconstruction policies were eventually frustrated by both southern and northern political developments. He also never had the legal tools to conduct a genuine Reconstruction.

Simpson views Hayes as a man who was consistently wrong in his assessment of prospects for a biracial Republican Party in the South, but whose errors nicely coincided with what most northern Republicans wanted at that time: a purely non-southern GOP power base in which angry memories of "the Rebellion"--the so-called "bloody shirt"--replaced any real interest in Reconstruction.

In the end, Simpson suggests, hardly anyone other than Grant and the ineffectual, divided and often corrupt southern Republican leaders was willing to take the steps necessary to carry out an effective Reconstruction policy. In that sense his broad conclusions do parallel those of Foner, though he generally treats Reconstruction as doomed from the beginning.

As Simpson explains at the very beginning, this book focuses on presidential leadership rather than developments on the ground, and thus complements Foner's efforts nicely. It's also a very compact book, and easily readable in a few dedicated sittings. I recommend it highly, particularly at a time when the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth has drawn new attention to this era of American history.

One of the most intriguing possibilities one can surrender to is the notion of how history may have differed if consequences were altered. The Reconstruction Presidents examines the lives of the 4 men faced with the challenge of tightening the newly formed knot of the once more Unified States. Beginning with Lincoln, who may have had the vision of the plan before a precise bullet wound dimmed it, Simpson ponders how reconstruction may have begun under Lincoln's reign. With the abrupt arrival of Andrew Johnson and his blatently racist views, reconstruction was lost during these formidable years. The torch passed to Ulysses Grant, who lives in infamy as one of the nation's least effective presidents. He was forced to clean up the damage and mistrust done by Johnson and unify not only blacks and whites, but political and demographic groups alike avoiding the chance of offending any particular group. Simpson poses the question, if Grant had not been in office, who would have and where would the country have gone? I enjoyed the notion of perhaps reanalyzing Grant's presidency. The least known, Rutherford B. Hayes, some would say was the benefactor of a nation willing to surrender and come together. Simpson presents a man who may not be remembered in history by the common citizen, but makes him no less important. An interesting viewpoint on a debated subject.

Simpson makes us wonder what Lincoln's post-war policies would have been, had a carriage accident kept him from his appointment at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865. How would he have resolved the conflict between two of his goals, reconciling the (white) elites of North and South on the one hand, protecting the newly freed men and women on the other? What would "reconstruction" have meant to him? In his second inaugural address, Lincoln spoke of "malice toward none" and "charity for all." But that is an aspiration, not a program. Would it have been possible to act in a way that both the old plantation aristocracy and their former chattels would have regarded as charitable?! Simpson reminds us that by the end of 1865, President Johnson and the Republican Party had gone their separate ways. The leaders of the party, firmly in control of Congress, theorized that the states that had seceded had committed a sort of juridical 'suicide' and could only be restored to life when it, the Congress, thought they had proven their fitness. In the meantime, military occupation and control would continue. That was a difficult policy to pursue, though, if the commander in chief of that military thought reconstruction ought to end, the freedmen left to their fate in the face of the Klan. Congress tried to address this situation by ensuring that it had in the President's cabinet a friendly secretary of war, thus short-circuiting the chain of command. Johnson is in many ways the "heavy" of Simpson's reading of the period. Simpson is, accordingly, sympathetic to the difficulties faced by the leaders of that Congress and to their eventual decision to end those difficulties through the extraordinary process of impeachment and trial. All in all, this is not a perfect, but it is a fascinating, book.

No study of Reconstruction has ever offered such a perceptive comparative analysis. The sole critic among these reviews appears to have something of an obsession with the author, as evidenced on the Yahoo Discussion Group "civilwarhistory2." That's unfortunate. Read and decide for yourself.

Anyone who knows anything about Reconstruction would agree that it began during the Civil War: Lincoln himself spoke of his Reconstruction proposals. Setting aside tripe from neo-Confederate propaganists and KKK defenders, I'd read the book and judge for yourself.

Reconstruction was AFTER Lincoln. Someone needs to point this out to Mr. Simpson. Andrew Johnson attempted to do the same type of Reconstruction Lincoln wanted, "let'em up easy". The Radicals hated Johnson, as Johnson turned out NOT to be their puppet, and he REALLY was a Democrat. Simpson feels the need to bash Johnson, as HIS HERO, GENERAL Grant,[look at his books] was the NEXT President. According to Simpson Grant was in fact one of the BEST Presidents!! (Right!!!LOL) Finally, Simpson pushes all the blame on those Southern people. Get real Mr. Simpson, contrary to your writing, (just because YOU write something, does NOT mean it is fact), the South was not wearing black hats, and the North was not wearing white hats. This book is full of anti-southern propaganda, hoping gullible readers will take it as fact. It's a waste of money. I give it only one star, as I can't give it a zero, which it deserves.