During 1865 to 1877, the Reconstruction mainly focused on integrating the seceded Southern States back into the Union, emancipating and granting civil rights to the Freedmen, and establishing new social balances between the African Americans and the Whites. However, challenges arose from political disagreements, racial segregation ingrained in the society, hatred-based violence and so forth. Providing respective insights to the Reconstruction, four historians–Foner, Dunning, DuBois, and Wilson–from different time periods analyzed whether it was a success or failure, and their views varied based on the moral standards and opinions each held. They all agreed that Reconstruction was a failure, while focusing on different events and the extent to which each social group and political party ought to be held accountable for. 

Dunning and Wilson both argued that Reconstruction was a failure because the emancipation of the slaves disrupted social harmony as the North and Federal government imposed overwhelming power upon the South: Southerners retaliated through extreme measures that proved former slaves incompatible with them. In Dunning’s perspective, a “very important, if not the most important part” of the Reconstruction “had been played by the desire … to secure to the Republican party the permanent control of several Southern states” (1). Therefore, they undertook extreme measures to ensure electoral franchise and eligibility to office, and protection of civil rights allowing Republican force to permeate into the Southern States. However, those “negroes who rose to prominence and leadership” and “practiced the tricks and knavery rather than useful arts of politics”(Dunning, 2) only incited more anger among the Southerners. In order to regain dominance, violence and intimidation was applied. For instance, the KuKluxKlan. The national government kept implementing laws, enforcements and acts that encroaches upon the freedom of government Southerners previously had: by implementing the Force Act, Ku Klux Act, Supplementary Civil Rights Bill. The white insurgency thus retaliated with more approaches. They came up with ways to prevent the black people from participating in the poll: arguing for the constitutionality of civil right versus social right, putting multiple ballot boxes, setting the voting station in remote areas, setting literacy and tax requirements…. Eventually, it became evident the issue behind generations of debate and bloodshed. The crux of the failure was more of the confrontation between the incompatible white and black people to begin with. Neither the white supremacist in the south nor the black were to take the full blame, but rather the nature of the society–in which black people ought to remain enslaved–and the overpowering North. Similarly, Wilson pointed out how the reconstruction “pulled about and rearranged what local institutions saw fit, and then had obliged the communities affected to aceept its alterations as the price of their reinstatement as self-government bodies politic within the Union”(12). He argued for the same notion as Dunning: black people were exploited by the Northern politicians to fulfill their own desires. The government imposed what they deemed to be necessary to reconstruct the society, but turned out to be a failure. “The vast laboring, landless, homeless class, once slaves, now free; unpracticed in liberty, unschooled in self-control… excited by a freedom they did not understand, exalted by false hopes” only brought more turmoil. In addition, Wilson mentioned the congress and presidential power had been in constant disarray. President Lincoln offered “pardon and restoration to civil rights to all who would abandon resistance to the authority of the Union”(Wilson, 3), whereas his successor Johnson “would yield nothing; vetoed the measures upon which Congress was most steadfastly minded to insist”(9); 

In other words, Dunning’s significant discordance with the the Reconstruction reveals his continuous pessimism towards Reconstruction. Similarly to Dunning, President Woodrow Wilson also sympathized with the South by analyzing the era when extreme measures had to be practiced at extreme times: through federal authority and the amendments. They both sympathize with Southern whites, portraying them as victims of Northern aggression during Reconstruction, and downplaying the achievements of Reconstruction.

Conversely, Foner and DuBois took a different approach to addressing the failure of the Reconstruction: they perceived the era with optimism and hope along with the unjust and harshness. Foner presents a positive view of Reconstruction, emphasizing its positive change, especially in civil rights; Du Bois provides a nuanced perspective, acknowledging the potential benefits of Reconstruction but criticizing its shortcomings. Despite deeply-rooted, prejudiced sentiments claim “no political order could survive in the South unless founded on the principle of racial inequality” (Foner, 368), Foner emphasizes that it was “a time of hope, possibility, and accomplishment” and “the era of emancipation and Republican rule did not lack enduring accomplishments”(Foner, 363). Foner acknowledged the importance of the Reconstruction in keeping South’s racial system “regional rather than national”(Foner, 363), as well as the establishment of a framework of legal rights which allowed for emergence of black landowners, businessmen and professionals. Nevertheless, like Dunning and Wilson, he still judged Reconstruction as a failure. Most importantly, he criticized the nation for being ill-prepared against such conflicts, the “modern bureaucratic machinery” unable to “oversee Southern affairs in any permanent way”(364). DuBois, similarly, began his argument acknowledging the efforts made during the Reconstruction. The negro church, the negro school, and the Freedman’s Bureau were all endeavors to help formerly enslaved ones ‘catch up’ to the better-offs. Combating the Black Code and injustice in the South, the Freedmen’s Bureau allowed for “careful distribution of land and capital and a system of education for the children”(DuBois, 785). But he soon transitioned ot the downside of those actions. With a large proportion of black population becomming free men and citizens–instead of chattels–the South became “terribly impoverished and saddled with new social burdens”(789). The economy has fallen apart and taxation was insufficient to compensate for the loss. In the day of inflated currency and speculation, the Whites were somewhat justified to undertake extreme measures. Interestingly, DuBois, unlike Dunning, Wilson, and Foner, included Schurz’s proposal to make black suffrage a condition precedent to readmission to the states, a solution to the ongoing denial of enfranchisement regarding heritage. DuBois believed that government has done adequate work in emancipation, but the freedmen, who “is no longer considered the property of the individual master” is still “considered the slave of society”(787) because federal government failed to enforce powers in state legislations. 

In conclusion, not only do historians of different time periods interpret history through respective lenses, but ones of their own backgrounds, understandings, prejudice may also form contrasting interpretations of history. It must be taken into account that it is reasonable for Foner to have held a positive view when analyzing the Reconstruction era as he looked through the lenses from over a century later. It is true, therefore, that Reconstruction can be considered both as a failure and as a success, depending on the events and evidence one pay attention to.