Reconstruction: A Concise History by Allen C. Guelzo (review)

Reconstruction was one of the most complicated times in the republic’s history, a time of grave uncertainty for a nation recovering from civil war. Though relatively short in length (generally considered to only have lasted for fourteen years) its effects were broad and transformative, fundamentally reshaping the path of the United States for future generations. To attempt to summarize the era in fewer than 150 pages would seem to some as an expression of scholarly masochism and to others as simply impossible. Yet Allen C. Guelzo has taken up such a task with his new book Reconstruction: A Concise History. Though not a perfect account of the period, Guelzo succeeds in his ultimate goal, as he provide a thoroughly researched yet easily accessible introductory text on one of America’s most fascinating periods.

Reconstruction has long been categorized into two distinct phases: Presidential Reconstruction and Congressional (or Radical) Reconstruction. And while Guelzo has not abandoned these traditional terms, he has reshaped the way in which we organize the history of Reconstruction. Guelzo posits that Reconstruction neither began with the Presidential phase nor did it end with the demise of Congressional Reconstruction. Rather, Reconstruction began during Lincoln’s presidency with policies sanctioned by the Emancipation Proclamation and the authorization of military governments in rebelling states. Although these efforts laid some of the preliminary groundwork for the future of Reconstruction, Lincoln’s plans were neither fully realized nor even clearly articulated before his untimely assassination in 1865. As Guelzo notes, “Lincoln was such a private person, and so tight-lipped a politician, that it is impossible to project what further plans he would have developed” (8). Indeed, Lincoln’s role in reforming the Union and reestablishing America’s federalist structure was cut short, and consequentially he has been pushed to the margins of Reconstruction’s history. The very structure of Guelzo’s book, in fact, references this marginalization of Lincoln, relegating his role in the book solely to its introduction. The future of Reconstruction was thus inherited by the butting heads of Congress and Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson.

Johnson’s presidency, with its numerous problems and constitutional crises, becomes the launching point for the bulk of Guelzo’s history. Guelzo’s goal in much of the text is to highlight the ways in which factionalism and internal schism within the federal government worked to undermine the goals of Reconstruction. No place in the era’s short but influential history is a better starting point than Johnson’s presidency. When Johnson was picked as Lincoln’s Vice President, the gesture was far more symbolic than practical. Johnson was the only representative of a rebelling state in the House or Senate who had rebuked secession and remained loyal to the Union throughout the conflict. Lincoln’s pick was that of “a lifelong Tennessee Democrat” and his running-mate functioned “as a way of demonstrating the Republicans’ bipartisan dedication to re-union” (15). No one imagined that this token candidate would inherit the presidency during one of its most trying times in its history, yet he did and his lifelong affiliation with the Democratic Party proved to be a consistent thorn in the side of Radical Republicans such as Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner.

Guelzo notes that Benjamin Wade, one of the most vocal vanguards of the Radical Republicans, once confided in Sumner that “to admit the States on Mr. Johnson’s plan” would amount to “nothing less than political suicide” (27). Indeed, allowing the Southern states as they were to reform their governments the way they saw fit would have wrested control of both the House and the Senate from Republicans and rested it firmly in the hands of Democrats. It is at this moment that Guelzo firmly identifies the connection between the failures of Reconstruction and the nature of American politics. Party interests and the pressure of securing votes helped to undermine the experiments of Reconstruction, and Guelzo suggests in his history...