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Reconstruction (United States : 1865-1877)

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Letter from Thomas Goode Jones to Theodore Roosevelt

Letter from Thomas Goode Jones to Theodore Roosevelt

United States District Judge Jones expresses his interest in who will be appointed judge. He relays his knowledge and opinion of eleven aspirants. He details Hundley’s efforts to legislate discrimination against African Americans through a proposed amendment to bar African American schools from receiving equal funding to white schools. He explains the Democratic Party’s and Republican Party’s mistrust of Hundley due to his change in political parties.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-03-10

Creator(s)

Jones, Thomas Goode, 1844-1914

Letter from William Dudley Foulke to Theodore Roosevelt

Letter from William Dudley Foulke to Theodore Roosevelt

William Dudley Foulke approves of President Roosevelt’s handling of the Falconio matter. He was surprised that Roosevelt found the time to read his work “Life of Morton” and write him a letter about it. Foulke feels that even during Reconstruction, Morton was correct, and comments on the question of suffrage for African Americans, saying that even though the fifteenth amendment does not seem particularly effective at present, future generations may be able to figure out a solution. Foulke says that if he could choose one person of which to write a biography, he would choose Roosevelt, but he guesses that Roosevelt will outlive him.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-01-12

Creator(s)

Foulke, William Dudley, 1848-1935

Letter from Henry S. Pritchett and James Ford Rhodes to Theodore Roosevelt

Letter from Henry S. Pritchett and James Ford Rhodes to Theodore Roosevelt

Henry S. Pritchett, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, writes to President Roosevelt about “the Negro question.” Pritchett claims that Republican Reconstruction was a failure, and argues that the federal government should stop trying to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, since legislative threats are not making the Southern states comply. He recommends that the Southern states be allowed to control their own voting laws, subject only to outside criticism without force. Pritchett admits the Southern states will immediately disenfranchise most African Americans, but that this will be fair since they will also disenfranchise ignorant whites. He believes Roosevelt will still be allowed to make some African American appointments pending approval of local white leaders. Pritchett encloses an article he wrote on the subject and pages from James Ford Rhodes’s history. Rhodes, a historian specializing in Reconstruction, adds a postscript to Pritchett’s letter saying he agrees with Pritchett’s recommendations and will discuss with Pritchett conversations he had previously on the subject with Roosevelt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-06

Creator(s)

Pritchett, Henry S. (Henry Smith), 1857-1939; Rhodes, James Ford, 1848-1927

First gun of the “Constitution Club”

First gun of the “Constitution Club”

The Parker and Davis Constitution Club of New York is supporting a movement to defend the Constitution from Republican attacks. A recent speech by John R. Dos Passos laid out the Republicans’ “unconstitutional and unjust acts.” The unnamed author agrees that the interpretation of the Constitution has changed but finds fault with Dos Passos’s arguments as they are based on events that occurred several decades ago.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902

Creator(s)

Unknown

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Owen Wister

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Owen Wister

President Roosevelt had recently finished Owen Wister’s book Lady Baltimore, and sends Wister his thoughts and criticisms of the work. While he enjoyed the story, Roosevelt believes the book is unfairly critical of northerners and uncritical of southerners. Similarly, Roosevelt points out that while the book lauds the past at the expense of the present, there are many examples of violence, brutality, greed, and other vices in the past. Roosevelt also remarks on the status of African-Americans, and while he agrees with Wister in certain regards, believes the work has gone too far in the racist stereotypes. He hopes that Wister will be able to visit him soon. In a postscript, Roosevelt mentions a number of other books he has read or is reading that similarly make readers “feel that there is no use of trying to reform anything because everything is so rotten that the whole social structure should either be let alone or destroyed.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-04-27

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to James Ford Rhodes

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to James Ford Rhodes

President Roosevelt is glad James Ford Rhodes liked his speech, but while he agrees with Rhodes that the Reconstruction scheme based on “universal negro suffrage” was folly, he reminds Rhodes that the “initial folly was with the southern people themselves,” bringing Africans into the country and enslaving them. Roosevelt discusses the bitterness felt by southerners as well as northerners in the wake of the war and Reconstruction.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1905-02-20

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Henry S. Pritchett

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Henry S. Pritchett

President Roosevelt fundamentally agrees with Henry S. Pritchett and James Ford Rhodes about the Southern question. Although Roosevelt believes it is unwise and impractical to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment now, he does agree it should not have been passed in the first place. The president can also agree with Pritchett and Rhodes that Congress should not press for active enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment; however, it cannot go too far with Mississippi Senator John Sharp Williams having more power than Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon. Roosevelt believes Southern states cannot enforce the laws themselves because they are trying to readopt slavery through peonage. Additionally, Southerners demand the exclusion of African Americans from offices, although Southerners have approved of Roosevelt’s choices for offices in the South on the whole even though the president has appointed some African Americans. Roosevelt insists he has tried Pritchett’s course of action, but it has not worked because the South has not met him even halfway. The president believes cooperation depends on Southerners, and the difficulty will vanish when they “quit lying.” Finally, Roosevelt says he has not observed outside criticism of the South and asks Pritchett how Congress needs to respond since it has not controlled the South. Roosevelt concludes by asking for one specific thing he is doing wrong, as he wants to learn.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-14

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to James Ford Rhodes

Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to James Ford Rhodes

President Roosevelt tells James Ford Rhodes he has just finished reading his fifth volume, which has tied in well with Roosevelt’s other readings of Thomas Babington Macaulay’s History and Abraham Lincoln’s letters and speeches. Although the president agrees with Rhodes that the right is not all on one side and the wrong is not all on the other in quarrels, Roosevelt thinks the American Civil War is the exception, as he believes “the right was exclusively with the Union people.” Roosevelt talks about his plans to build up the Navy to avoid war, believing the Panama Canal will help. Finally, he discusses problems he has been having with the tariff and Southern states. He disagrees with Rhodes that the South is not trying to reinstate slavery, as there is peonage in three states right now. Roosevelt closes by mentioning how his opponents helped him during the election campaign.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-11-29

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919

Letter from William H. Fleming to Theodore Roosevelt

Letter from William H. Fleming to Theodore Roosevelt

William H. Fleming writes to President Roosevelt about the possible disfranchisement of African American voters in Georgia. Fleming believes it would be a disaster if Hoke Smith, who advocates such disfranchisement, was nominated at the Democratic Convention. He is even more concerned about the conduct of Representative Thomas W. Hardwick, who has been decrying the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution and publicly renouncing his allegiance to those parts of the Constitution. Fleming thinks that the question should be raised in the House of Representatives, whether a member is violating their oath of office by refusing to uphold these amendments. Such an inquiry would force Hardwick to either retract his statements or be removed from office.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-08-17

Creator(s)

Fleming, William H. (William Henry), 1856-1944

Shall the solid south be shattered?

Shall the solid south be shattered?

Advance proof of an editorial by Julian LaRose Harris on the South’s political future, intended for publication in the March issue of Uncle Remus’s Home Magazine. Harris discusses the reasons why white southerners currently vote only for the Democratic Party, and why this has caused a stagnant political landscape that the Republican Party might exploit. Harris supports the disenfranchisement of African American citizens. However, he asserts that the focus on this disenfranchisement in the South has resulted in the diminishing influence of Southern Democrats over national Democratic Party policies and presidential nominations. He suggests that president-elect William H. Taft could encourage more bipartisan voting by white southerners if he heeds their political appointment suggestions and refuses to give federal appointments to African American candidates.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1909-02

Creator(s)

Harris, Julian LaRose, 1874-1963

Address of Hugh Gordon Miller at the Annual Lincoln Dinner of the Republican Club of the City of New York

Address of Hugh Gordon Miller at the Annual Lincoln Dinner of the Republican Club of the City of New York

Hugh Gordon Miller addresses the Annual Lincoln Dinner of the Republican Club of the City of New York. He jokes about his previous speaking engagement in New York. He describes the historical and contemporary relationship between Virginians and New York. He celebrates the rebuilt union of states. Miller reviews the accomplishments of the United States and New South since the American Civil War. He teases about Kentucky’s politics. He pays tribute to Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, William McKinley, and Rough Riders. Miller regrets that the South is aligned with the Democratic Party and calls on Republicans in the North to help settle “the problem of the suffrage and of the races.” Miller concludes with a vision of the ideal United States. Club President Henry Edwin Tremain introduces Senator John M. Thurston.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1901-02-12

Creator(s)

Miller, Hugh Gordon, 1875-

Letter from R. Goodwyn Rhett to George B. Cortelyou

Letter from R. Goodwyn Rhett to George B. Cortelyou

R. Goodwyn Rhett disapproves of the appointment of William Demos Crum as collector of the Port of Charleston. He claims that since Reconstruction, white people have been in “political bondage” and that appointing an African American to a position of office would be disastrous not only to Charleston, South Carolina, but also “to the South, and, possibly, the whole Nation.” Furthermore, such an appointment would be a “stigma” upon the white population. As such, he hopes his admiration and the admiration of the other white individuals in the area for President Roosevelt will succeed in preventing the appointment.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-11-07

Creator(s)

Rhett, R. Goodwyn (Robert Goodwyn), 1862-1939