A Response to ‘Hillary Clinton Goes Back to the Dunning School’

I had not heard of The Dunning School of thought — essentially a group of people who believed that it was radical Republicans* and ignorant blacks who caused all of the problems after the civil war and that it was up to noble white southerners to bring back order — before I read this article by Ta-Nehisi Coats. An interesting bit of new information indeed and I thank Coats for bringing it to my attention.

Why he brought it to my attention however is the reason for my needing to write this response. He claims that it was a body of thought put forth by presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton in the recent debates in a statement she made about why she is inspired by Abraham Lincoln:

“You know, he was willing to reconcile and forgive. And I don’t know what our country might have been like had he not been murdered, but I bet that it might have been a little less rancorous, a little more forgiving and tolerant, that might possibly have brought people back together more quickly.

But instead, you know, we had Reconstruction, we had the re-instigation of segregation and Jim Crow. We had people in the South feeling totally discouraged and defiant. So, I really do believe he could have very well put us on a different path.”

It is possible that Hillary was echoing the white supremacist views of the Dunning School. No one has asked her to elaborate and I do not have the journalistic clout to do it myself, Coats however extrapolates a very specific intent from her rather bland and broad statement. He says;

“Clinton, whether she knows it or not, is retelling a racist — though popular — version of American history which held sway in this country until relatively recently. Sometimes going under the handle of “The Dunning School,” and other times going under the “Lost Cause” label, the basic idea is that Reconstruction was a mistake brought about by vengeful Northern radicals. The result was a savage and corrupt government which in turn left former Confederates, as Clinton puts, it “discouraged and defiant.””

Hold up. I too have long held the belief that the murder of Abraham Lincoln was a tragic and definitive moment in our nation’s history. One that contributed to the decades and decades and decades of racist policy that followed in the wake of the civil war. I do not however, believe that segregation, Jim Crow laws and racially motivated assassinations were precipitated by the actions of “vengeful Northern radicals”. I believe it was caused by institutionalized racism, rancorous instability and the presidency of Andrew Johnson. Coats and I likely agree on that, where we differ is on the interpretation of Hillary’s words. Coats says:

“the fact that a presidential candidate would imply that Jim Crow and Reconstruction were equal, that the era of lynching and white supremacist violence would have been prevented had that same violence not killed Lincoln, and that the violence was simply the result of rancor, the absence of a forgiving spirit, and an understandably “discouraged” South is chilling.”

Little of that is actually implied by Hillary’s statement. She did not imply that reconstruction and Jim Crow were equal, she said we had them. She did not imply that no violence would have happened if Lincoln hadn’t been murdered, she said that there might have been less of it. She did not imply that violence against blacks was ‘simply’ a result of rancor. Instead, she said that more tolerance might have helped the country come back together more peacefully. And finally, she did not imply that the South was ‘understandably’ discouraged. She said that they were discouraged. And they were discouraged, a very snarled, disgruntled, disheartened, pissed off bunch if there ever was one.

And now for a little history according to moi….

Lincoln was well aware that suffering and devastation affected everyone involved in the war and crossed all political lines. He was also very aware that the newly freed slaves and those close to them would face all manner of difficulties in the South. The Confederacy had lost and most importantly, slave owners had been defeated. He knew they were not going to recover from that loss gracefully and that they would be defiant, awfully and destructively so. He also understood that though the emancipation proclamation was a political, national and moral imperative — “I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper.”, it would mean a difficult economic shift for the southern states already economically crippled by the war and their long dependency on a tenuous agrarian society. He did advocate for reconciliation and forgiveness and to “Let ’em up easy”,

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”.

Because, despite his primary intent of ensuring reunification through a more measured and ‘forgiving’ policy, his idea for reconstruction included forceable tactics to ensure that the newly freed slaves would be protected. He foresaw that much punishment would be wrecked out and crafted a plan* that included the passing of the Freedman’s Bill to help at least, minimize the ensuing chaos. Chaotic damage to civil rights and violence and tragedy which are all quite well known to us now as Lincoln was was murdered before he could implement his strategy. As a result, all hell broke loose.

Or rather, Andrew Johnson, unrepentant asshole of notorious proportions, became president. He rejected Lincoln’s plans for reconstruction, opposed black suffrage and civil rights protections, battled with radical Republicans, re-instated many confederate led state governments while calling for the rolling of heads of others and vetoed the renewal of the Freedman’s bill. In doing so, he not only directly contributed to the rise of the KKK he also ushered in a period of racist division that we can still feel the effects of today. He is now known in history as the worst president ever.

So why did Lincoln appoint him as his Vice President? Well, all because of a desire for a little reconciliation. As a governor of Tennessee and a devout Southerner who yet stayed loyal to the Union, Johnson was a seemingly politically savvy choice for a 2nd term presidency. One that was tasked with the heavy burden of healing a nation split apart and ravaged by monumental destruction. Death was not part of that politically savvy plan. Had Lincoln not been shot and had been able to go on, our country might have had a very different history. Or perhaps, a more tolerant evolution.

This is a very long winded way to say that what Hillary said, if in fact, she said much of anything at all, made sense to me. But perhaps I am extrapolating my own meaning from her words much in the same way that Coats has done. Coats gleaned from her vague statement that she is mindlessly expressing the views of The Dunning School — a hotly contested theory since it’s inception and not, as he claims, a widely held view for anyone who is not a descendent of the Confederacy. Hillary is a very problematic candidate and I am not attempting to sway votes her way. What got my goat and provoked this response was the hard line tone of Coat’s interpretation and criticism. Freedom and equality as it might truly exist is still quite far from our grasp and it is not a cause served by the erroneous parsing of innocuous paragraphs, whether by the far right or the far left, in an attempt to promote a particular agenda.

An agenda that I, to a certain extent, agree with. As far as I can tell he was wanting to make a point about how a political statement along the lines of, “can’t we all just get along”, is naive and potentially contributes to the very profound inequalities experienced all over the world on a daily basis. I am totally with him on that point. Hillary may have. She may have not. This is not about Hillary. Not really.

It is about a difference of approach.

Many are sincerely angry or more truthfully, they feel rage about the injustices that have been done and are being done still. I shouldn’t say ‘they’ as I have my own rage. That abortion rights are being so challenged and that women still are raped on a daily basis makes so fucking angry sometimes I almost can’t deal. Rage I do understand. And I feel it for a lot of other things that are not gender specific; homelessness, economic inequality, homophobia, environmental destruction and Racism and on and on and more.

But I also understand forgiveness or rather, an attempt to at least try to get to an understanding with the other side. If I want real change to happen I know it’s only going to come about with courage, vision and some heavy slogging through other people’s rage and discouragement and alienation however delusional it might occasionally be. Do I think that MRA’s are full of shit and scourge upon the earth? Yes I do. Do I love that Australia kicked out the Pick Up Artists?

Oh Lord and Oh yes. Do I know that they reflect in the most extreme ways some of the thoughts in the minds of men I meet and have affection for every day? Yes I do. And so, I don’t subscribe to a policy of rigorous rejection even when there are times when the rage gets too tight, too close and strangling. I call it out it then, shout it loud in trumpeting blasts that echo off skyscrapers and mountain faces.

But you see, the thing about echoes is that they bounce — and come back.

Because we are facing catastrophe confronting us from every corner of the globe. Israel vs Palestine, the West vs the Middle East, the rise of racist attacks against refugees and border restrictions since the terrorist attack on Paris, a very divided nation still……..and all those small little confrontations of spirit and need and wacky ways that arise even in our most intimate spaces.

I want us to find a little goddamn reconciliation so that we can work towards a solution that lessens the violence and allows for some real change. Some recognition. Some possible hope.

In that sense, I believe that what Lincoln strove for was and is still — inspiring.

“It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that, from these honored dead* we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” — Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address.

Thank you for reading and by all means, let me know if you disagree. Best, Ginger.

• Just for those who don’t know, republicans at that time were what Democrats are, mostly, today. Radical Republicans at that time were abolitionists and invested in civil rights.
• What exactly Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction was went through many drafts and wasn’t fully clear when he died. He went back and forth but near the end he was siding more with the civil rights folks. However, the Freedman’s bill was part of it.
• And in the honored dead, I think of all those who have lost their lives fighting for justice from the soldiers in the civil war to Emmett Till to Martin Luther King Jr. to Gabriel Garcia Lorca to that nun in white tennis shoes, the women of Jaurez and far too many more. To them.