Reconstruction in Texas . By Charles William Ramsdell . Pp. 324. New York: Columbia University. Longmans, Green &Co., Agents. 1910.
Mr. Ramsdell's work on Reconstruction in Texas is number 95 of the well known series—“Studies in History, Economics and Public Law”—made by students of the Columbia University School of Political Science. For years the Department of History at Columbia has been working, through its graduate students, in the Reconstruction field and as a result several monographs on Reconstruction have been published. This one on Texas is among the best.
It is somewhat difficult to do anything really original or unexpected in the writing of the history of Reconstruction. The issues and problems though immensely important were few and distinct. Every actor moved in the lime-light of publicity. Consequently, while the main outlines of Reconstruction have long been familiar, the task of the investigator in this period is to make an accurate statement of the facts, an account of local conditions, an estimate of personalities. In doing so each researcher must to a certain extent cover the same ground. So Mr. Ramsdell takes up first a brief discussion of the events leading to secession and of the contions that existed in Texas during the Civil War. Then follows an account of the two attempts at Reconstruction—by the President and by Congress—which cover the period from 1865 to 1870. A short final chapter of twenty-five pages describes the Radical administration from 1870 to 1874 when the Reconstruction experiment ended in Texas. Within the period covered, 1865 to 1874, the author deals minutely with political questions—the development of the Conservative, Radical and Extreme Radical parties, with problems of public order, race and labor, and the administration of justice, with the relations between Texas and the Washington government, and between the military and the civil authorities within the state.
The work is well done. The author's style is clear, his statements temperate in tone. He has examined all accessible authorities in print and in manuscript, and he has his information well assimulated, his narrative well organized. The estimates of the leading men of the time are especially good. Those whose chief interest lies in this field of history would be glad to find more than is given about the non-political side of Texas history—a study of social, industrial, religious and educational conditions following the war. These are just as important as politics and constitutions. Some maps in black and white, to illustrate political, social and economic matters, would be useful. And more space might be given to a description of the actual administration of the Texas government by officials representing only a small minority of the population.
Distinguishing the reconstruction of Texas from the reconstruction of any other Southern State, Mr. Ramsdell brings into his narrative accounts of certain conditions peculiar to Texas. Thus, among other things, he calls attention to the fact that Texas was before and during Reconstruction a frontier state, half-covered with hostile Indians, practically without railroads, with a population of whites scarcely welded into a homogeneous society. Further, the author makes it clear that the Civil War bore less heavily upon Texas than upon the other Southern communities and that at the close of hostilities the state was still in fair condition, economical and social. But this seems only to have intensified the disorder which came in 1865 with the break up of the Confederacy. The Washington authorities consistently refused to recognize the de facto government of Texas just as they refused to recognize the rest of the Southern State governments. But since the Federals never occupied Texas in force they made little effort to suppress the disorder that followed the destruction of the state and local governments. Consequently, the period of lawlessness and disorder was longer continued in Texas than in any other Southern State and the course of Reconstruction was thereby seriously influenced. In Texas, too, the work of the Freedman's Bureau was relatively unimportant; elsewhere this institution was one of the most efficient instruments of the Reconstructionists. Reconstruction conditions in Texas were otherwise exceptional in that the race problem was not so serious and the carpet baggers were few in numbers and of slight influence, though the native radicals, or scalawags, were on the whole abler and more influential than elsewhere except in Tennessee. In no other account of Reconstruction are the military features of the process more clearly shown. The policies of the military commanders, whether wise or not, are explained in detail. Especially interesting is the account of the maneuvers of General Reynolds trying to become carpet bag senator from Texas. And the incompetence of Sheridan in the face of a non-military situation is even more glaringly evident in Texas than in Louisiana.
Walter L. Fleming . Louisiana State University.
How to cite:
Fleming, Walter L., "Reconstruction in Texas", Volume 014, Number 1, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 74 - 76. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v014/n1/review_18.html
[Accessed Sun Nov 23 13:20:07 CST 2008]
