The Reconstruction of Georgia / Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1901

by Edwin C. Woolley

From the point of view of the Republican Politicians, reconstruction at first succeeded, but later proved a mistaken policy. By it they lost the support of the southern white men who had been opposed to secession. These formed a large party in Georgia. The victory of the federal arms had the nature of a party victory for them. They would have added their strength to the Republican party. Reconstruction, with its threat of negro domination, drove them into the Democratic party, where they still remain. For a time this loss was made good by negro votes, but not long.

Without reconstruction there would have been no Fifteenth Amendment. But the good will and philanthropy of the people among whom the negro lives, which reconstruction took away, would have brought him more benefit than the Fifteenth Amendment. Without reconstruction there would have been no Fourteenth Amendment. But a long line of decisions of the Supreme Court has determined that the Fourteenth Amendment did not achieve the nationalization of civil rights—an end which might justify reconstruction as a means. In short, reconstruction seems to have produced bad government, political rancor, and social violence and disorder, without compensating good.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

PUBLIC RECORDS AND DOCUMENTS.

Of the United States Government.

Congressional Globe.
Public Documents.
Statutes at Large.
Supreme Court Reports.
Military orders in the archives of the Department of War.
Correspondence in the same archives.
Correspondence in the archives of the Department of State.
Unpublished records in the same archives.

Of the Government of Georgia.

Journal of the constitutional convention of 1865.
Journal of the constitutional convention of 1867-8.
Journals of the legislature.
Reports of the four committees appointed by the legislature in December, 1871 to investigate respectively—
The management of the state railroad.
The lease of the same road.
The official conduct of Governor Bullock.
The transactions of Governor Bullock’s administration relating to the issue of state bonds and the indorsement of railroad bonds.
These reports were published in Atlanta in 1872.
Session Laws.
Supreme Court Reports.
Reports of the State Comptroller.
Executive minutes in the archives of the state in Atlanta.
Minutes of the Fulton County Superior Court in the office of that court in Atlanta.

NEWSPAPERS.