Freedom and Progress: The Dilemma of Southern Republican Thought during Radical Reconstruction

The failure of the Republican Party in the South to appeal to the white yeomanry has been a recurring puzzle in the historiography of Reconstruction. Acknowledging the important role of white resistance, racism, and economic depression, this essay instead locates the roots of its failure in its ideology. It argues that the southern Republican appeal to the yeomanry was inherently weakened by yoking together Whiggish appeals of economic development with the class appeals of Jacksonian Democracy. The coupling of these clashing tendencies brought to the surface the latent conflicts of Jacksonian politics in the South, driving still another wedge into the southern Republican coalition.