The South Returns to Congress: Men, Economic Measures, and Intersectional Relationships, 1868-1879 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The South Returns to Congress: Men, Economic Measures, and Intersectional Relationships, 1868-1879. By Terry L. Seip. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983. Pp. xii, 322. $25.00.) During Reconstruction, there were 251 representatives from the South in Congress. Yet, until Terry Seip's The South Returns to Congress, no historian had really examined these men and what they did. Charles Beard and Howard K. Beale assumed that the Republicans among them aligned themselves with the dominant northeastern wing of the party, while C. Vann Woodward argued that the Democrats who later took their place also followed a similar course. But, after analyzing the southerners' voting record and the nature of their interaction with northern Congressmen, Seip concludes that this was not the case, and thus offers an important reinterpretation of a significant aspect of Reconstruction history. The first section of the book provides a profile of the South's Congressmen —who they were, why they joined their respective parties, and what problems they experienced getting elected. Although it is comprehensive and interesting, this part of The South Returns to Congress is mainly descriptive and is neither very innovative nor particularly conclusive in its observations. That, however, cannot be said for the body of the work in which the author examines the position the southerners took on the economic issues as well as the way the national parties, particularly the Republicans, treated the South's delegation. On the first of these, Seip finds that, rather than being uncritical allies of the northeastemers, southern Republicans were either merely qualifiedly supportive, as was the case with the Public Credit Act of 1869, the debt refunding measures of 1870, and the Specie Resumption Act of 1875, or else they were thoroughly opposed, as occurred over the "Inflation" bill of 1873 and the silver remonetization issue of the mid1870s . Instead of taking their cue from the dominant northeastemers, the South had an agenda and needs of its own. Starved of currency, the region needed an increase in the supply of money and more banking facilities. Consequently, its representatives voted solidly against contraction and in favor, not necessarily of inflation and paper money, but of an expansion of the volume of currency and a fairer distribution . And usually this meant that they found themselves in alliance with Congressmen from the Midwest, not the Northeast. Moreover, for the most part, this perspective and course of action was taken later BOOK REVIEWS173 by the Democrats as well, so that party did not produce division on financial and economic issues in the South. The other focus of the study is the treatment accorded southern Congressmen, especially by Republicans. Southerners of both parties pressed constantly for federal subsidies for rivers, harbors, and levee building, but as regularly they were rebuffed by the North, rarely obtaining more than a fifth of the available, though rapidly diminishing, appropriations. Even the Texas and Pacific railroad project, which northerners proposed for creating a southern transcontinental route, turned out to be more beneficial to northern interests, as, for example, the Pennsylvania Railroad in particular. So, contrary to Vann Woodward 's claims, southern Congressmen took little interest in it. A final indicator of northern disdain for the South, especially among the Republicans , was the refusal to concede to southern Congressmen major committee assignments or influential offices, while simultaneously rejecting pleas from southern Republicans for funds and prominent speakers for their invariably desperate election campaigns. The South Returns to Congress presents convincing evidence that the national Republicans saw Reconstruction in such narrowly political terms that they virtually abandoned the party's southern wing from the very beginning. It also demonstrates that the South's Congressmen of both parties did not succumb to northern pressures but instead demanded persistently those measures that would meet the region's economic needs. These findings clarify a central but neglected feature of the intersectional politics of the period and make Seip's carefully researched and well-written book a most important contribution to the history of Reconstruction. Michael Perman University of Illinois at Chicago Building an Antishvery Wall: Bhck Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830-1860. By R. M. J. Blackett. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press...