Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites: Race and Nationality in the Era of Reconstruction (review)

The relationship between race and nation during the Civil War has always vexed the study of the period. In the case of the Emancipation Proclamation, nationalism, from all appearances, triumphed over racism in the North, as the mass of Northerners continued to fight the South just as fiercely after the proclamation as they had before. Surprisingly, among African Americans, North and South, nationalism triumphed over merely “racial” goals as well. From Frederick Douglass to the recently freed field hand, African Americans desired the flag and the franchise. But for Irish Americans in the North, the pattern seems different. With the New York City draft riots in July 1863, ethnic identity appeared to triumph over nation for some Irish Americans.

It occurred to Mitchell Snay that such relationships, as yet poorly understood for the period of the war, were even more poorly understood for the period of Reconstruction. And in this well-written and solidly researched book he explores the relationship between race and nationality in that period. The result is a book wholly original, as far as I know, in that it juxtaposes three groups not previously compared, Fenians, freedmen, and Southern whites. To get a handle on the difficult subject, he chooses to write about the groups “from the perspective of nationalism” (6). In particular, he seizes on a distinction commonly made between “civic” and “ethnic” nationalism.

Perhaps the most convincing similarity pointed out is the common role of “semi-secret, fraternal, paramilitary societies” among these groups in their political aspirations in early Reconstruction: the Fenians, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Union Leagues. Focus on the land issue, which begins about halfway into the book, somewhat undermines the unity sought by the approach through the idea of nationalism. The land issue, important in the rural South in Reconstruction for both white and black people was, as Snay realizes, rather abstract for Northern Irish Americans who lived and worked in cities.

After considering land, he resumes examination of ethnic and civic nationalism which restores a more striking similarity of comparison: ethnic nationalism proved weak for all three groups. Fenians cherished an ideal of freedom over any fancied racial separatism. African Americans generally preferred to say that God made all His people in the same divine image. Southern white people, Snay says, came closest to an ethnic nationalism in a prevalent belief in white supremacy. In the end, he concludes that civic nationalism triumphed, along with the Republican party, which attempted to steer these groups away from ethnic nationalism.

The conclusion that “the Civil War was a modernizing and liberalizing experience” is surely correct, and yet one puts this book down feeling that something may be missing (175). Nationalism is not quite satisfactorily dealt with. In particular, the white Southerners are a poor fit. They were by no means united, and those who longed for a return of the Confederacy surely knew that their nationalist aspirations had been dashed. In Reconstruction they decided to live within the greater American nation but protect themselves from the national will by embracing a new and rigid constitutionalism. Fenians might more properly be called “vicarious nationalists,” as they hoped for national independence for Ireland, a land far from their own. Only the African Americans proved to be truly nationalistic, pinning their hopes, for the most part, on being identified by all as true Americans.