Redeemer: Encyclopedia - Redeemer

Redeemer

Redeemers, a loose political coalition in the post-Civil War U.S. South, consisted of prewar Democrats, Union Whigs, Confederate army veterans, and individuals interested in industrial development. They sought to "redeem" the South by undoing the changes brought about by Radical Republicans. Although the various groups had widely different visions of the South, they shared a commitment to implement stricter economic and political control of blacks. Their coming to power was commonly referred to as Redemption.

Redeemer - History

In the late 1870s Redeemers won many state and local offices by vowing to dismantle the "corrupt" Reconstruction system. In power they cut government spending, shortened legislative sessions, lowered politicians' salaries, scaled back public aid to railroads and corporations, and reduced support for public education. They also passed laws requiring blacks to sign labor contracts and imposed poll taxes and taxes on tools and farm animals--measures that placed an added burden on tenant farmers and sharecroppers, black and white alike. The Redeemers' policies inhibited regional economic development and exacerbated the class strife and racial violence that followed the war. It must be emphasized, however, that the process of stripping blacks of their rights was a gradual one; it was not as if blacks had full civil rights in January of 1877, and had lost them by December. African Americans continued to vote in significant numbers well into the 1880s, and black Congressmen continued to be elected, albeit in smaller numbers, until the 1890s. (George Henry White, the last Southern black of the post-Reconstruction period to serve in Congress, retired in 1901.)

The Redeemers, also known as Bourbon Democrats, faced their biggest challenge in 1890 with the Agrarian Revolt. The activities of the Farmers Alliance and the newly created People's Party threatened the control the Bourbon Democrats held in the South.

Redeemer - Historiography

In the years immediately following Reconstruction, virtually all blacks and many Northerners held the view that Reconstruction was a noble experiment. By the turn of the century, however, profesionally-trained historians had come to see Reconstruction as a tragedy. The chief manifestation of what one historian called "the Tragic Era" was the extension of suffrage to freedmen, a policy that led to misgovernment and corruption. Reconstruction, in a word, violated the values of republicanism. This mistake was perpetrated by the Radical Republicans in Congress who were increasingly seen as what a later generation would call "extremists." Since the freed slaves had no education and no political experience, granting them voting rights was so disastrous that the South had to be "redeemed." This interpretation was the hallmark of the Dunning School at Columbia University during the first three decades of the Twentieth Century. Beginning in the 1950s, historians attacked the "redemptionist" interpretation of Reconstruction; the new historians called themselves "revisionists" and claimed that the Dunning School had made any number of errors. Since then, the neoabolitionist historians led by Eric Foner have become the new mainstream. They argue that financial corruption and mismanagement were not so bad, and that the terrible violation of the principles of republicanism was the white racism of the Redeemers. From:http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_074300_redeemers.htm

Redeemer - Scholarly Secondary Sources

• Ayers, Edward L. The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction (1993)
• Baggett, James Alex. The Scalawags: Southern Dissenters in the Civil War and Reconstruction (2003). statistical study of 732 Scalawags and 666 Redeemers

• Castel, Albert E. The Presidency of Andrew Johnson (1979), balanced.
• Donald, David. Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (1970) Major critical analysis. balanced perspective
• Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt. Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880 (1935), Marxist interepretation by leading Black scholar.
• Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (2002), major synthesis; takes neoabolitionist viewpoint of Freedmen.
• Garner, James Wilford. Reconstruction in Mississippi (1901) classic from Dunning School
• Harris, William C. With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union (1997) Lincoln as moderate and opponent of Radicals.
• Perman, Michael. The Road to Redemption: Southern Politics, 1869-1879 (1984)
• Stampp, Kenneth M. The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1967); pro-Radical overview.
• Simpson. Brooks D. Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991), balanced.
• Trefousse, Hans L. Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth-Century Egalitarian (2001) Standard biography; pro-Radical.
• Wallenstein, Peter. From Slave South to New South: Public Policy in Nineteenth-Century Georgia (1987)
• Williamson, Edward C. Florida Politics in the Gilded Age, 1877-1893 (1976)
• Woodward, C. Vann. Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (1951). a famous study

Redeemer - Primary Sources

• Fleming, Walter L. Documentary History of Reconstruction: Political, Military, Social, Religious, Educational, and Industrial (1906) anti-radical.
• Hyman, Harold M., ed. The Radical Republicans and Reconstruction, 1861-1870. (1967), pro-radical.

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