It has long been common knowledge among modern U.S. historians that the American memory and understanding of the Civil War and Reconstruction was basically taken over and distorted for many years by Southern and white-supremacist sympathizers. See, eg, David Blight's recent books on Race, Memory, and the Civil War. In historiography, the so-called "Dunning School" named for William Dunning held sway for many years, maintaining that Republican Reconstruction was a vindictive victimization of the South, which had to be "redeemed" from "Negro/carpetbag rule." Even a liberal Massachusetts politician and eventual civil rights champion like John F. Kennedy (and the Northern elite scholars who ghost-wrote for him) was totally in the sway of this school as late as the 1950s, as is revealed by re-examining the Reconstruction-related chapters of "Profiles in Courage." We remember Woodrow Wilson as a reformist liberal, and yet he was a white supremacist who purged blacks from the federal civil service and showed "Birth of a Nation" at the White House (and then publicly praised and endorsed its version of Reconstruction).
It is rather remarkable that -- despite the avalanche of superb historiography (the second "revisionist" wave, the Dunning school being the first "revisionist" wave) demolishing the Dunning School, starting in the 1930s, from scholars such as WEB DuBois, C. Vann Woodward, John Hope Franklin, John and LaWanda Cox, Hans Trefousse, David Donald, Eric Foner, Michael Les Benedict, Kenneth Stampp, Richard Current, and many others I am missing -- the pro-Southern view of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and veneration of Confederate icons and symbols from Robert E. Lee to the battleflag, remain so strong in the popular American culture and mind. This was recently reflected, for example, in the film "Gods and Generals." Too many people venerate blatantly racist Southern leaders while true progressive heroes like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens are viewed as slightly demented extremists -- if they are not forgotten altogether (which has been Bingham's sad fate). Just to ward off any admonitions from our listmaster Eugene, this has extremely important relevance to understanding constitutional law, which cannot be divorced from the shifting tides of historical memory and understanding. This has become ever more strongly impressed on me as I work on my book-length study of the history of the idea of incorporating the Bill of Rights in the 14th amendment from the 1860s to the present (forthcoming next year from NYU Press). For example, Michael Kent Curtis (in an earlier article in Akron Law Review) noted the astonishing but mostly overlooked fact that the Supreme Court in 1964 could uphold a 1st & 14th amendment free speech claim against Southern repression, in a heavily race-loaded context (NYT v Sullivan) without even mentioning the legacy of antebellum repression of anti-slavery speech and the overwhelming Republican desire in the 1860s and 70s to secure free speech rights via the 14th amendment against racially oppressive restrictions. See also Michael's book, "Free Speech, the People's Darling Privilege." The Court, along with almost the entire intelligentsia of the Nation (even Northern liberals!), was still laboring under the massive historical amnesia inflicted by the Dunning School. It literally amounted to the brainwashing of an entire nation (both the intellectual elite, North and South, and the populace at large) for many decades -- and the effects still linger in troubling ways. It is quite frightening to contemplate how even a liberty-loving nation like America could so thoroughly distort and lose its own history for such a long time. Michael Kent Curtis's latest article that has been referred to (36 Akron LR 617) does an excellent job of surveying much of this. As Holmes said, "a page of history is worth a volume of logic." Bryan Wildenthal Thomas Jefferson School of Law -----Original Message----- From: earl maltz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 1:17 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: John Bingham & the Story of American Liberty Just for the record, neither Bingham nor Howard was responsible for the language of Section 2, which makes the refrence to gender to which Randy refers. George Williams of Oregon was reponsible for that language. Indeed, Howard opposed the adoption of the language; he was in favor of retaining language roughly equivalent to the current 15th Amendment. At 02:26 PM 9/23/2003 -0400, Randy Barnett wrote: >Michael's new article is of great interest, and I highly recommend >it--even without any disparagement of Washington, Madison & Hamilton as >producing a Constitution that did not abolish slavery. (For all their >accomplishments, Bingham and Howard did not abolish legal discrimination >against women, and even inserted am explicit sexual distinction that did >not previously appear in the text of the founders' Constitution.) > >I played the tape of his AALS talk, which was based on this paper, to my >seminar on Liberty and the Constitution last semester and my students >really enjoyed it. (We read Michael's book, No State Shall Abridge.) > >I too find it mystifying that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment >are not treated with reverence on a par with the founders. Michael's >thesis is that this is due to the triumph of the post-bellum Southern >historians. Though I do not know enough to know if he is right, I think >this is a thesis worth considering. > >Randy > >_____________________________________________ >Randy E. Barnett >Austin B. Fletcher Professor >Boston University School of Law >765 Commonwealth Ave. >Boston, MA 02215 >617-353-3099 (phone) >617-353-3077 (fax) >http://www.RandyBarnett.com >http://www.LysanderSpooner.org (Lysander Spooner page) >http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/7648.html (Restoring the Lost >Constitution) >http://www.RandyBarnett.com/SOL.htm (Structure of Liberty) >
