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WILLIAM A. DUNNING: The Historian as Nemesis Alan D. Harper William A. Dunning, more than any other man, is responsible for the view of Reconstruction held by die majority of Americans. Formidable as has been die influence of John W. Burgess, James Ford Rhodes, and James Schouler, Dunning must stand alone in die front rank as the historian of that complicated chapter in the national story. His interpretive studies of die period, seconded and elaborated by his students, created a body of doctrine ready to die hands of succeeding scholars. It was the "Dunning thesis," above everytiiing else, diat produced for us the popular stereotype of Reconstruction, a stereotype whose central figures are, in the words of Horace Mann Bond, "die shiftless poor white scalawags; the greedy carpetbaggers; the ignorant, deluded , sometimes vicious Negroes; and die noble, courageous and chivalrous Soudirons who fought and won die battle for White Supremacy."1 Dunning's view was quite simple: Negro incapacity was responsible for the failure of Reconstruction. The freedmen, by reason of their inferiority , were not only inept in their political and vocational ventures but also peculiarly vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous whites. The latter took hold in die Soudi upon die institution of Radical Reconstruction and, maintaining political control through manipulation of their black dependents, waxed fat in fraud and peculation. The Negroes themselves, confounding liberty with license, poisoned the social and political life of die Soudi dirough their irresponsible exercise of freedom. Behind diese sinister forces in the vanquished region stood a band of greedy men in Congress, guided by leaders devoid of humane principles, who sought economic advantage and political control through emasculation of the South. The whole structure, however, depended upon diat darling of advanced Northern opinion, the ignorant and incapable freedman, die instrument in whose name the exploiters carried out their designs. Dunning's entire analysis of Reconstruction, as we shall see, 1 Horace Mann Bond, "Social and Economic Forces in Alabama Reconstruction," Reconstruction in the South, ed. Edwin C. Rozwenc (Boston, 1952), p. 32. 54 grows logically out of this understanding of Soutìiern conditions in die decade following die Civil War. The objection might be raised, at diis point, diat die Dunning diesis has come under increasingly heavy attack during the past twenty-odd years and ought to be, in consequence, a subject of declining interest to historians. The next most recent full-scale study of Reconstruction in the South, nevertheless, is a vindication of Dunning's interpretation.' An investigation of textbooks in American history used widely in our colleges and universities reveals that the vicious and die absurd predominate in die portrayal of Reconstruction.3 This is even more true of high school texts, in which simplification of material serves to highlight the cruder colors. The understanding of Reconstruction developed by Dunning and die scholars who were products of his seminar has provided die view of die period to which most Americans have been subjected. Its enduring pervasiveness alone justifies our taking a look at that interpretation and its sources. To say diat Dunning was a racist is hardly original, yet to pass the point on that account would be a serious error. Merely to make the statement does not tell us how much of a racist he was. It tells us nothing of the degree to which he accepted Soutìiern stereotypes of the Negro or the degree to which these affected his historical judgment . Such matters merit our attention. Estimating Negro attitudes and behavior during Reconstruction, Dunning wrote: The negro had no pride of race and no aspiration or ideals save to be like the whites. With civil rights and political power, not won, but almost forced upon him, he came gradually to understand and crave those more elusive privileges that constitute social equality. A more intimate association with the other race than that which business and politics involved was the end toward which the ambition of the blacks tended consciously or unconsciously to direct itself. The manifestations of this ambition were infinite in their diversity. It played a part in the demand for mixed schools, in the legislative prohibition of discrimination between the races in hotels and theatres, and even...

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