“The Most Shameful Decade In Our Entire National History, A Moral Collapse Without Precedent”: Reconstruction in the South

Brutal, hypocritical, corrupt and made in the U.S.A.

Reconstruction (typically 1865-1875) is probably the least-discussed topic in American history. It’s like the drunk uncle who crashed into the side of the church, or the niece who works the pole down at the jiggle joint. It’s one of those shameful things that many would prefer to not discuss, like “Stumpy Joe” Childs of Spinal Tap choking on someone else’s vomit.

And with good reason. It was a shameful, shabby nasty episode. The headline is lifted from James Truslow Adams, a historian of the 1920s and 1930s. Charles Bowers, an Indianan who was a popular historian in the 1920s, said that the Southern people were “put to the torture chamber… never have American public men in respectable positions, directing the destiny of our nation, been so brutal, hypocritical or corrupt.” (Thanks to Dr Clyde Wilson for the quotes; my Reconstruction box is unpacked.) The Gilded Age which followed – also known as the “Progressive Age” – is much more fun. It was also funded largely by the wholesale loot…