Review of Foner, Eric. Reconstruction Updated Edition: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-18. Harper Perennial Modern Classics

 In Reconstruction Updated Edition: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-18, Eric Foner revisits his foundational work on the Reconstruction Era by analyzing and incorporation more contemporary discourse on this transformational period in American history. The book is separated into distinct themes that discuss different views and implications of Reconstruction era attitudes, the political climate, and aspects of American society which were foundationalized upon Civil War adaptations. Foner examines patterns of race relations in the postwar South, in addition to the challenges brought upon society in the North. (Page 21) He describes Reconstruction as, “The transformation of slaves into free laborers and equal citizens was the most dramatic example of the social and political changes unleashed by the Civil War and emancipation.”(Page 21) Foner also detail the division created by the war in planter communities that were not dependent on chattel slavery, and their reactions the unfolding of battle during the Civil War and cession by 11 states from the Union. According to Foner, cohesive social or political attitudes among the planter class did not exist, with each territory containing residents with heavily contrasting views and economies. (Page 54)

This scholarship also explores changes in the Northern states associated with Reconstruction. Foner highlighted industrialization and it’s independency from chattel slavery as a contribution to more abolitionist views in Northern states. He also discusses the implications of Reconstruction on the working class in the North. “For large numbers of Northern workers, the war was an economic disaster, as a flood of paper money and the regressive tax system combined to produce a massive decline in real income. (Page 79) Foner suggests this development catalyzed the labor movement and creation of labor unions as protection for factory workers who felt threatened by the possibility of competition for jobs from newly freed Blacks. However, capital investment and barons experienced tremendous increase as “Congress adopted economic policies that promoted further industrial expansion and permanently altered the conditions of capital accumulation.” (Page 67)

Original Narratives of the Reconstruction Era detailed it as a separate revolutionary transition from the Civil War. Historians who participated in scholarship on the topic often displayed the research from the viewpoint of a major loss that was vindicated. According to Foner, “Over a half-century ago, Charles and Mary Beard coined the term ‘The Second American Revolution’ to describe a transfer in power, wrought by the Civil War, from the South’s ‘planting aristocracy’ to ‘Northern capitalists and free farmers.’” (Page 19) Contrastingly, other scholarship by intellectuals such as W.E.B Dubois exposed the reasons why Reconstruction would be a difficult challenge for the Union. Foner quotes DuBois’ assertion,  “’One fact and one alone, […] explains the attitude of most recent writers toward Reconstruction; they cannot conceive of Negroes as men.’” (Page 15)

Foner’s methodology includes sources that explore a variety of themes within the scope of Reconstruction. He includes scholarship on the implications of women during this era, as well as border state policy, and the plight of Yeomen that were settled in secluded villages within or bordering plantation states. Foner surmises, “So ingrained was the old racist version of Reconstruction that it took an entire decade of scholarship to prove the essentially negative contentions that ‘Negro rule’ was a myth and that Reconstruction represented more than ‘the blackout of honest government.’” (Page 17) He highlights the work of Dunning and Burgess, who presented research on the Reconstruction from a national lens and regarded the transitions a part of a process of nation building. (Page 29)

The scholar also suggested that prior contributions on the topic did not extensively report the agency of Blacks to gain aspects of citizenship after emancipation. Though some gained suffrage and even a glimpse of political power, it was short lived and followed by a period of extended social challenges for African Americans. “Generations of historians had ignored or denigrated these black officeholders, citing their alleged incompetence to justify the violent overthrow of Reconstruction and the South’s long history of disenfranchising black voters.” (Page 30) Additionally, he contends that traditional interpretations of the Reconstruction era focus on the dismantling and regeneration of Southern attitudes toward free labor, rather than exploring the implications of this transition on Northern residents and attitudes. Foner believes “the absence of a detailed historical literature on either the region’s social and political structure in these years, or the relationship between changes there and events in the South.” (Page 23)

Contemporary narratives, in Foner’s opinion, reflect the challenges that persisted for African Americans even after the Reconstruction era which continued on through the Civil Rights era. He links these two monumental periods of history with the remnants of Reconstruction and asserts that disenfranchisement and marginalization of African Americans was fluid, despite the few gains that accompanied emancipation. The text states, “Reconstruction revisionism bore the mark of the modern civil rights movement.” (Page 16) According to Foner, revisionist historiography of Reconstruction dispels prior discourse by making the experience of Blacks during this era central to their research and highlighting the agency of those who navigated these challenges. Foner advises that “Free blacks were advised to forsake menial occupations, educate themselves and their children, and live unimpeachably moral lives, thus ‘elevating’ the race, disproving the idea of black inferiority, and demonstrating themselves worthy of citizenship.” (Page 74) He also discusses the discontent of those on the fray of the  Civil War and Reconstruction sentiment, such as landowners in the Upcountry, who did not partake in chattel slavery. “The upcountry became convinced that it bore an unfair share of taxation; it particularly resented the tax-in-kind and the policy of impressment that authorized military officers to appropriate farm goods to feed the army.” (Page 59)

Foner believes that Reconstruction remains a relevant period to today’s social underpinnings, because it was not limited to an era but instead, an ongoing process. “From the enforcement of the rights of citizens to the stubborn problems of economic and racial justice, the issues central to Reconstruction are as old as the American republic, and as contemporary as the inequalities that still afflict our society.” (Page 24) This study has a broad focus which gives attention to not only the various aspects of Reconstruction’s effects on the United States, but on the lives of African Americans, women, and other communities in the Civil War discourse were affected by  implications of the Battles and subsequent policies. “In their unprecedented expansion of federal power and their effort to impose organization upon a decentralized economy and fragmented polity, these measures reflected what might be called the birth of the modern American state.” (Page 70)