Albion W. Tourgee: Propagandist
And Critic of Reconstruction
By TED N. WEISSBUCH*
LESS THAN FIFTEEN YEARS AGO Ohioan Albion W. Tour-
gee was referred to as "the most
neglected figure in American
literature." Increasing interest
in the writers of the Civil War
and Reconstruction era has caused a
swing in the pendulum,
and now his name crops up often in the
growing literature
dealing with this period in our
history. Tourgee's work has
always interested a small but devoted
group of literary critics,
who are aware of his strange mixture of
romance, realism,
and local color. And his Reconstruction
novels have always
held interest for an equally small, but
also equally devoted,
group of literary historians, who
recognize the importance
of his acute, though biased, account of
post-Civil War life
in the South. It is worth noting that
the bibliographical sup-
plement to the Literary History of
the United States, pub-
lished in 1959, lists in detail for the
first time Tourgee's works
and the still meager list of articles
discussing the man and
his writings. The two Tourgee novels to
be examined here,
perhaps his best known, A Fool's
Errand and Bricks Without
Straw, will be used to illustrate his shrewdness as a social
critic and his bias as a radical
Republican propagandist and
critic of southern traits. Before
discussing the novels, how-
ever, it is first necessary to
understand Tourgee's life. Only
in this way can his social criticism
and historical analysis of
Reconstruction be fairly evaluated. It
is important to note
* Ted N. Weissbuch is an instructor at
the University of Iowa. His doctoral
dissertation on Reconstruction
literature in the North and South is nearing com-
pletion.
28
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
that his ultimate judgment concerning
the failure of Recon-
struction is not expressed within his
works, but is a pro-
nouncement made in the last years of
his life.1
Born in 1838, Tourgee had a
many-faceted career, serving
as schoolteacher, Union soldier,
lawyer, carpetbagger, novel-
ist, editor and publisher, politician,
lecturer, judge, and United
States consul at Bordeaux, France, an
appointment he held
until his death in 1905.2
Although Tourgee said he was reticent
about supplying
information about himself, his novels
contain much auto-
biographical material. In reply to a
college president who had
requested biographical information,
Tourgee wrote in 1894:
"I have avoided with some
persistence both biography and
autobiography. None except of my own
household has ever
come near enough to me for the former
and I have small
inclination for the latter." Roy
F. Dibble, Tourgee's biog-
rapher, points out that this statement
must be taken with the
classic grain of salt, as evidence
exists which suggests that
Tourgee did begin a manuscript which
was to serve as the
basis for a biography to be written by
one of his friends.3
The contemplated work was never
completed, and Dibble
made use of this incomplete manuscript
and other autobiog-
raphical accounts found among Tourgee's
unpublished papers.
A courageous but tactless politician,
Tourgee was involved
1 For a discussion of Tourgee's neglect
and his role as social critic, see George
J. Becker, "Albion W. Tourgee:
Pioneer in Social Criticism," American Litera-
ture, XIX (1947),
59-72. Note that this is one of the few critical studies
of Tourgee and erroneously states that
he "never deviated from his conviction
that this [education] was the only
solution to the problem [of Reconstruction]"
(p. 68).
Tourgee's literary craftsmanship is
discussed by Alexander Cowie in The Rise
of the American Novel (New York, 1948), pp. 521-535; also see Chapter II,
"Tourgee as Craftsman," in
"A Critical Study of Albion W. Tourgee," by Anne
Strickland (unpublished master's thesis,
State University of Iowa, 1953). Tourgee's
novels are structurally weak because of
his desire to preach rather than tell a
story; this may account for the decline
in the popularity of his work over the
years. Ernest E. Leisy, in The
American Historical Novel (Norman, Okla.,
1950), p. 180, describes Tourgee's style
(in A Fool's Errand) as turgid, and the
plot as negligible.
2 For
a biographical account of Tourgee's life, see Roy F. Dibble, Albion W.
Tourgee (New York, 1921).
3 Ibid., 11.
TOURGEE AND RECONSTRUCTION 29
in some rather scandalous carpetbagging
deals after the Civil
War. These incidents are not recorded
in the biography;
consequently, there is still a need for
biographical scholar-
ship which might help to place Tourgee
the man in proper
perspective to Tourgee the propagandist
of Reconstruction.
Enlisting soon after President
Lincoln's call for volunteers,
Tourgee received a serious spinal wound
at the first battle of
Bull Run in July 1861. The wound was to
bother him for the
rest of his life. He later wrote that
he lost the sight of his
left eye in this battle, but some of
his intimate friends assured
his biographer that in reality Tourgee
lost the sight of the
eye in a boyhood accident. Dibble
comments that "in this case,
as in several others, Tourgee was so
enthralled by his ultra-
romantic theory of life, which colored
all he did and wrote,
that he applied it to one of the rather
drab facts of his actual
career."4
While recuperating at his home in
Ashtabula, Ohio, Tour-
gee studied law for a year; he was able
to return to active
military duty in July 1862, securing a
commission as first
lieutenant. In The Story of a
Thousand, published in 1896,
he gives a concise history of his unit,
Company G of the 105th
Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He served with
this organization
until he was captured at Murfreesboro
in 1863. After four
months in southern prisons he was
exchanged and again
joined his company, stopping first in
Columbus, Ohio, long
enough to marry the girl he had been
engaged to for five
years.
Two incidents, neither of which has
been fully investigated,
give some insight into Tourgee's
character. He was arrested
in 1862, as he put it later, "for
refusing to surrender a colored
man who had saved my company."
"This brief utterance,
concerning a fact of which nothing else
is known," Dibble
remarks, "is the first evidence of
that consuming passion
which later influenced nearly
everything Tourgee did and
wrote-an untiring sympathy, admiration,
even love, for
the negro in his servile state, and a
zeal which was never
4 Ibid., 21n.
30
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
quenched for obtaining justice (at
least Tourgee's conception
of justice) for the black man."5
It is not known how long he
was under arrest or what the outcome of
this incident was.
The second incident occurred in June
1863, when he was
again arrested, this time for wounding
a Union soldier with
his sword. He was released from his
imprisonment after two
weeks and received a light reprimand
from his commanding
officer. "To take commands from
another was the one thing
that galled Tourgee perhaps more than
anything else," Dibble
says. He goes on to say:
He tendered his resignation as first
lieutenant because his "rights
were not respected and his reputation
threatened," but it was not
accepted.... In December he again
tendered his resignation because of
insolence (at least he called it such)
on the part of his superiors, which
was once more not accepted. Whether it
was finally accepted because of
this friction or because of his state of
health is not definitely known; at
any rate, on about January 1, 1864, he
withdrew from the army.
The fact probably is that what Tourgee
deemed to be independence was
regarded as pig-headedness by his
superior officers, and probability
strongly favors their opinion.6
After returning to Ohio and taking up
the practice of law,
Tourgee made one additional attempt at
making a career of
the military. He obtained a majority in
a newly formed col-
ored regiment; but the end of hostilities
kept him from resum-
ing his military life. Sensing the
possibilities which existed
for ambitious northerners, and perhaps
seeking a better cli-
mate for his war-weakened physical
condition, Tourgee
moved himself and his wife to
Greensboro, North Carolina,
in late 1865. "The fourteen years
spent in the South, during
the period of Reconstruction,"
says one writer, "were the
most important in his life, for his
experiences formed the
foundation for his literary and
political work of those and
later years."7
5 Ibid., 26.
6 Ibid., 29-30.
7 Russel B. Nye, "Judge Tourgee and
Reconstruction," Ohio State Archaeolog-
ical and Historical Quarterly, L (1941), 102.
TOURGEE AND RECONSTRUCTION 31
Tourgee was only one of the vast number
of northerners
who quickly moved into the South
immediately after the fall
of the Confederacy. Composed mostly of
discharged Union
soldiers, with a few missionaries to
the Negroes in their midst,
the new citizens of the South were
labeled by southerners as
carpetbaggers. The majority of these
carpetbaggers, includ-
ing Tourgee, were, or soon became,
affiliated with the radical
wing of the Republican party. Some were
officeholders, others
were merely penniless financial
adventurers; while others
brought along sizeable amounts of
money, which they used to
buy up ruined plantations and farm
lands at a fraction of
their true value. Others, like Tourgee,
also invested in war-
weakened businesses. His first
unsuccessful business venture,
in which he lost more than five
thousand dollars, was a part-
nership in a tree nursery. After his
business failure he was
drawn into politics and became an
outspoken radical Repub-
lican critic of the South.
These early southern experiences are
dramatized in the
first few chapters of A Fool's
Errand. His social criticism
in this novel, and in Bricks Without
Straw, may best be
judged by the fact that since he
"was a typical product of the
northern school of thought, and since,
as southern jurist and
business man he was familiar, as were
few others, with the
problems of the postwar South, his
answers to the questions
raised by Reconstruction take on
historical validity";8 how-
ever, the answers he offered, as
today's newspapers show us,
had little effect in helping to
overcome the social problems
which faced the South.
Structurally weak because of long,
propagandistic lectures,
digressions, and passionate attacks on
both northern politi-
cians and the southern aristocracy, A
Fool's Errand is set in
the South immediately following the end
of hostilities. The
main character, Colonel Comfort
Servosse, who strongly re-
sembles Tourgee, moves to the South to
aid in reconstructing
the shattered land. The weak plot
hinges around his growing
disillusionment as he watches the
failure of Reconstruction.
8 Ibid., 103.
32 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
A sentimental love story is woven into
the novel; his daughter
Lily falls in love with, and finally
marries, Melville Gurney,
son of a former Confederate general.
With the exception of
one extremely exciting and well-written
chapter, when Lily,
astride her thoroughbred horse, rushes
to save her father
from an attack by the Ku Klux Klan, the
novel reads very
much like a political tract. Northern
readers who sympathized
with Tourgee's viewpoint were, however,
willing to overlook
the book's literary faults and
weaknesses and accept the
biased message of Reconstruction
failure which the author
preached. It is interesting to note
that Tourgee makes use of
an old Negro, Uncle Jerry Hunt, who bears
a very striking
resemblance to Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom.
Bricks Without Straw deserves closer attention, as it is a
more successfully unified novel; with
more emphasis on the
story, sentimental as it is, the book
is structurally better than
A Fool's Errand. The setting of Bricks Without Straw also
is the South during the period
immediately following the end
of the war. Tourgee includes many
thinly disguised auto-
biographical facts in the novel. Four
principal characters are
used to carry the author's message to
the reader: Hesden
LeMoyne, a typical southern aristocrat,
who is converted to
the northern viewpoint before the novel
ends; Mollie Ainslie,
a carpetbag New England schoolmistress,
who converts and
later marries LeMoyne; Nimbus Desmit, a
former slave, who
had escaped to the North during the war
and served in the
Union army; and a crippled mulatto
preacher, Eliab Hill, close
friend of Nimbus, and assistant in
Mollie Ainslie's school for
Negroes.
The plot deals with Nimbus' attempt to
establish Red Wing,
a Negro community, on land he has
bought from his former
master with the mustering-out pay he
received from the
Union army. The white members of the
community are dis-
turbed by Nimbus' success and consider
him a threat to their
security. He receives a warning from
the Ku Klux Klan to
leave, but ignores it. Tension builds
up in the vicinity, with
TOURGEE AND RECONSTRUCTION 33
Mollie Ainslie trapped between her
Negro friends and the
"respectable" white people in
the neighboring town.
Mollie is caught in a storm and takes
refuge at LeMoyne's
plantation. A widower, LeMoyne has a son who has
contracted
scarlet fever; Mollie nurses him until
his death. Before she
can leave, it is discovered that she
has caught the disease.
While LeMoyne nurses her back to
health, they fall in love.
During her illness and absence from Red
Wing, the Klan
attacks the Negro community and beats
Eliab Hill. Nimbus
arrives while the attack is in progress
and drives away the
masked attackers, seriously injuring
two of them. Fearful for
his own life, he goes into hiding, but
only after he brings
Eliab Hill to LeMoyne, who promises to
care for him.
When Mollie is able to return to Red
Wing, she discovers
that the community has all but
disintegrated. Her schoolhouse
is destroyed, and without Nimbus the
Negroes have returned
to a servile position. Her efforts to
rebuild the community are
futile, and she decides to move to
Kansas and help freedmen
who wish to settle there. She loves
Hesden LeMoyne, but his
mother rejects her as a low-born
"nigger-lover."
LeMoyne, who has hidden Eliab in a
secret room, discovers
some documents which prove that the
plantation belongs to
another of his grandfather's
descendants. Miraculously, Mol-
lie Ainslie turns out to be the true
owner; she refuses to accept
the plantation however, and writes from
Kansas that she is
returning the title to Hesden and his
mother. This noble
gesture wins over Hesden's mother, and
Hesden rushes to
Kansas, marries Mollie, and brings her
home.
Eliab, who has been sent to school in
the North, returns
to Red Wing and reopens the Negro
school. Nimbus also
returns, broken and weak in both spirit
and body. He gathers
his family and goes off to Kansas.
Hesden, greatly changed
by all of these events, ignores the
censures of his former
friends and runs for the legislature on
the radical Republican
ticket. Both he and Mollie are
dedicated to remain in the South
and fight for his newly found
equalitarian principles.
34
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Although both of these propagandistic
novels express his
genuine desire to help reconstruct the South, there is
evidence
that Tourgee was guilty of that type of
exploitation which
existed in the southern states as late
as 1876, when the corrupt
machinery of radical Reconstruction disintegrated.9
Speaking
of the responsibility for
Reconstruction in A Fool's Errand,
Tourgee writes:
The South-that pseudo South which
has the power--does not wish
this thing to be done to her people, and
will oppose it with might
and main. If done at all, it must be
done by the North--by the Nation
moved, instigated, and controlled by the
North, I mean--in its own
self-defense. It must be an act of
sovereignty, an exercise of power. The
Nation expected the liberated slave to
be an ally of freedom. It was al-
together right and proper that it should
desire and expect this. But
it made the fatal mistake of expecting
the freedman to do successful
battle on his part of the line, without
training or knowledge.10
The emphasis which Tourgee placed on
the importance of
educating the South is perhaps the key
to understanding his
mistaken belief that the problems of
Reconstruction could be
overcome.
Tourgee's role as a delegate to the
Loyal Unionists of the
South convention in Philadelphia in
1866 gave rise to Tour-
gee's political ambitions, and within
two years he became a
judge of the superior court, seventh
district of North Caro-
lina, a position which gave him power
as a dispenser of
federal patronage. A speech he made at
that convention began
a political feud between Tourgee and
Governor Jonathan
Worth of North Carolina. The governor
attempted to block
Tourgee's appointment, but without
success. Tourgee's speech,
quoted in part below, exaggerated the
barbarities which had
9 Tourgee accepted more than $3,700 from
the "Littlefield-Swepson Ring," an
organized lobby which was involved in
North Carolina railroad and state bond
scandals. See J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton,
Reconstruction in North Carolina
(Raleigh, N. C., 1906), p. 366 and pp.
427-451. Governor Worth claimed that
Tourgee did not pay county or state
taxes. Hamilton also quotes a contemporary
newspaper, The Sentinel, which on
September 2, 1868, described Tourgee as "an
exceedingly strong judge who [was]
entirely shameless and without any sense of
propriety."
10 Albion W. Tourgee, A Fool's Errand
(New York, 1880), 347-348.
TOURGEE AND RECONSTRUCTION 35
been perpetrated against Negroes,
carpetbaggers, and "scala-
wags," those southern white people
who sided with the
Negroes and carpetbaggers against the
"Old South." In his
speech Tourgee spoke of the many
Unionists who had come
down to the South and had been driven
out:
I come here to say that selling
everything they had at a nominal value,
twelve hundred of these loyal men have
been driven from the State. I
know hundred [sic] of these loyal
men who were threatened with death
if they wore the blue, and they are now
wearing the gray. ... I was
told by a Quaker in North Carolina as I
was coming here that he had
seen the bodies of fifteen murdered
negroes taken from a pond. Seven
hundred loyal men had petitioned
President Johnson for redress from
the rebel depredations, and the petition
was referred back to the disloyal
Governor of that State and came back to
the authorities of their own
town.11
The North Carolina governor wrote that
he "and the
respectable people of the State believe
every statement in
the foregoing quotation, was a
malicious falsehood, made to
engender and inflame the animosity of
the Northern people."12
Governor Worth admitted that President
Johnson had re-
ferred a petition to him, from forty former Union soldiers,
claiming they had been persecuted by
indictments in their
county courts for acts done while they
were soldiers. An in-
vestigation showed that there were only
two indictments
against any of them, "the one for retailing
liquor without a
license; the other for Fornication
and Adultery."13
In his attempt to keep Tourgee from the
bench, Governor
Worth wrote many letters to influential
persons in both the
North and South. He referred to Tourgee
as "of most de-
testable character," "a lying
villain," "a mean Northern
adventurer," and "the meanest
Yankee who has ever settled
among us."14 When asked
to supply evidence in support of
11 Quoted from the New York Herald in
a letter from Governor Worth to
General E. R. S. Canby, January 9, 1868,
in J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, The
Correspondence of Jonathan Worth (Raleigh, N. C., 1909), 1126-1127.
12 Ibid., 1127.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., 1113-1120.
36
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
his charges against Tourgee's moral
character, the governor
supplied a list of thirty names,
including many persons holding
positions with the federal government.
(It is interesting to
note that among the names is that of
Hinton R. Helper,
author of The Impending Crisis of
the South. Helper was a
middle-class non-slaveholder, who
published his book in 1857.
In the book, he denounced the South for
its slave policies, and
many reprints appeared in the North
just prior to the out-
break of war.) Writing to Senator
William P. Fessenden,
chairman of the joint committee on
reconstruction, Governor
Worth stated: "Albion W. Tourgee,
of the U. S. Army, who
settled or rather stopped in the State,
after the war, is elected
a Judge of the Superior Court of law. He
has never practiced
law in this State nor had a license
to practice."l5 This
last
statement, however, is incorrect, as
Dibble points out that
Tourgee wrote a letter to the paymaster
general in 1868 pro-
testing against being taxed for a new
license; he claimed to
have held a license to practice since
1867.16 In any event, the
governor's protests were to no avail,
and Tourgee received the
appointment.
It would be an understatement to
suggest that Tourgee
was not a popular figure in North
Carolina. He was attacked
from many directions. At one time he
was forced to offer a
one thousand dollar reward to anyone
who could prove the
slanderous charge, printed in several
newspapers, that he had
served a four-and-a-half year term in
an Ohio prison for
burglary. His life was threatened on
several occasions by
members of the Ku Klux Klan. These
threats, in the form of
letters pinned to his door with a knife
and a coffin left at his
gate, are dramatized in both A
Fool's Errand and Bricks
Without Straw. An assassination plot, similar to the one de-
scribed in A Fool's Errand, was
revealed to him in time for
him to save his life. "Attempts
were also made to ambush
him, but he fortunately escaped and
kept doggedly to his task
l5 Ibid., 1213.
16
Dibble, Albion W. Tourgee, 39.
TOURGEE AND RECONSTRUCTION 37
of journeying on horseback to hold
court in different parts of
his jurisdiction."17
During the period from 1866 to 1872,
Tourgee wrote many
newspaper articles, mostly political in
nature. These articles
attacked the egotism of the South and
the pride which made so
many southerners hate the carpetbaggers
and freedmen. To
protect himself from personal attack,
the articles and his first
novel, Toinette, published in
1874, were published under vari-
ous names. The novel attacked the
entire southern aristocratic
caste system rather than the evils of
slavery. By 1879 Tourgee
felt that he could do no more for the
reconstruction of the
South and moved to New York with his
family. In November
of that year appeared what is probably
his best known novel,
or at least the one which attracted the
most attention, A Fool's
Errand. Colonel Comfort Servosse, as one writer says,
"was
the 'fool' in question, and his name
was but thinly concealed
allegory for the spirit with which
Tourgee insisted many of
the maligned Reconstructionists went
South."18 Servosse
fights not only the aristocratic
remnants of the old South
but also the attempts of the political
reconstructionists to
impose northern ideas on both Negroes
and Caucasians of
the South. As mentioned above, details
of the novel closely
follow Tourgee's own experience. Dibble
says that "Tourgee
often angrily denied that any of the
characters in his stories
had flesh-and-blood
prototypes,"--but he adds that "this
denial is of as little value as his
constant reiteration that
the chief merit of his stories is their
'honest, uncompromising
truthfulness of portraiture,' as the
preface to 'A Fool's
Errand' puts it."19 It
is obvious that the novel emphasizes and
expands the more sensational aspects of
the rebuilding of the
South. In addition to his shrewdness as
a social critic in spot-
ting the problems of Reconstruction, he
magnified, as the
northern press had done, the violence
and hate of the souther-
17 Ibid., 44.
18 Everett Carter, Howells and the
Age of Realism (Philadelphia, 1954), 81.
19 Dibble, Albion W. Tourgee, 63.
For a discussion of two southern answers
to the book, see pp. 79-81.
38
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
ners who attempted to subvert the
efforts of Reconstruction.20
Tourgee was not above "stretching
the truth" for propagan-
distic as well as dramatic effect, both
in his novels and in his
own political life. In 1870, before an
election, Tourgee had
published a letter which accused the Klan of breaking
into
four or five thousand houses, of
burning fourteen houses in
his immediate district, and of
committing thirteen murders
that he knew of in the district. After
the election he said
he had been misquoted and the figures
magnified.21
An undated review from the Chicago
Tribune quoted on
page five of the 1880 edition of A
Fool's Errand compares
the propagandistic quality of the
anonymously published novel
with Uncle Tom's Cabin and even
asks why it might not be
attributed to the same author.
Tourgee's attacks on the Klan in both
novels, although they
appeared after the major portion of
violence had disappeared
from the southern scene, were intended
to rouse the emotions
of his readers. In one of his many
didactic digressions from
the plot, Tourgee, in Chapter XXVIII of
A Fool's Errand,
uses the obvious device of reporting
extracts from Colonel
Servosse's diary and from
"letters." The extracts list whip-
pings, hangings, beatings, shootings,
and other atrocities and
threats committed against the Negroes,
and also against the
white people who were sympathetic to
the freedmen.22 These
recorded incidents, true or not, bear
enough resemblance to
specific, violent happenings of the era to serve as
social history.
One incident in particular described by
Tourgee in A Fool's
Errand appears to have its foundation in an actual case. In
the novel, John Walters, "an
infamous scalawag leader of the
nigger radicals," mysteriously
disappears after supposedly
attending a meeting to "spy upon
its action." His strangled
and stabbed body is discovered, and
newspapers in both the
North and South headline the story.
Southern papers of
course accuse the radicals of
committing the crime in order
20 Stanley
F. Horn, Invisible Empire:The Story of the Ku Klux Klan, 1866-
1871 (Boston,
1939), 70.
21 Ibid., 201.
22 See pp. 172-176.
TOURGEE AND RECONSTRUCTION 39
to sway northern sentiment. Tourgee
gives a very minute
description, supposedly narrated by an
eye-and-ear witness,
of Walters' actions at the meeting,
where he sat and took
notes as he listened to the speakers.
The author gives a highly
realistic and detailed account of the
murder, describing the
men who committed the crime, the manner
in which the body
was disposed of, and other specific
information, all of which
comes from Uncle Jerry. The old Negro
has, undetected,
overheard the confession of one of the
killers.23 A murder
which closely resembles the one
described in the novel actually
took place in 1870. State Senator John
W. Stephens, a North
Carolina scalawag politician, was found
murdered, after at-
tending a mass political meeting, under
circumstances sur-
prisingly similar to those described by
Tourgee. Many years
later it was revealed that the man had
been "tried" and "exe-
cuted" by the Ku Klux Klan.24
The details concerning Stephens' murder
so closely resemble
those in Tourgde's book that it seems
almost impossible not to
believe that Tourgee is describing that
crime. In the novel,
Colonel Servosse investigates Uncle
Jerry's story and dis-
covers additional information
confirming the details supplied
by the old Negro; however, Servosse
does nothing, and the
former slave is lynched when it is
discovered that he knows
the identity of the murderers.
There appear many other incidents in A
Fool's Errand
which illustrate the feeling of
Servosse (and Tourgee) to-
ward this inability to act against the
shocking atrocities so
vividly described. In incident
after incident the author steps
into the narrative and bitterly
complains about the injustice
which existed in the South during
Reconstruction. Colonel
Servosse supports the Union League, a
semi-secret organiza-
tion formed among the Negroes. It was
this organization
which was one of the main reasons for
the formation of the
Ku Klux Klan. Southerners feared that
the Negro organiza-
tion, which included in its membership
white carpetbaggers
23 See
pp. 184-201.
24 Horn,
Invisible Empire, 198-199.
40
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
and scalawags, would become a dangerous
threat to the safety
of the "peaceable, law-abiding
citizens of the state."25
Tourgee, on the other hand, through
Colonel Servosse,
describes the Union League as a useful
tool in the education
of the Negro:
Indeed, I do not see why it should not
be a good thing for the colored
people to do. It would teach them to
organize and work together, and
they would learn in it something about those
public duties which are
sure very soon to be cast upon them.
Besides, it is by no means sure
that they may not need it as a means of
self-protection. I had not
thought of it before; but I believe it
might be a good thing.26
Tourgee was aware of the effect the
Union League had
upon his southern neighbors, but seemed
not to be troubled
by it. As Colonel Servosse leaves a
Union League meeting to
which he had been invited to speak,
"he could not conceive
that any organization which cultivated
only an unbounded
devotion for the flag in the breasts of
the embryonic citizens,
and kept alive the fire of patriotism
in the hearts of the old
Union element, should be a source of
evil to anyone."27
A scene in Bricks Without Straw depicts
a parade to the polls
on their first election day by the
organized freedmen of Red
Wing. Their marching in formation, with
martial music
and flag waving, is misunderstood by
the townspeople; only
through the bravery of the novel's heroine,
Mollie Ainslie,
is bloodshed averted.
Tourgee very clearly shows his
awareness of the ineffective-
ness of Reconstruction in both novels.
His understanding of
the failure shows his great insight and
shrewdness as social
critic. He agreed with the theories of
the radical Republicans,
but disagreed with their methods of
reconstruction. The poli-
ticians of the North had overlooked the
importance of win-
ning the cooperation and support of the
intelligent, aristocratic
white southerners in their rush to
elevate the freedman.
25 Ibid., 171-172.
26 A Fool's
Errand 101.
27 Ibid., 111
TOURGEE AND RECONSTRUCTION 41
Tourgee attacked those northern
political leaders who "called
themselves honest and wise
statesmen":
Having forced a proud people to yield
what they had for more than
two centuries considered a right,--the
right to hold the African race in
bondage,--they proceeded to outrage a
feeling as deep and fervent as the
zeal of Islam ... by giving to the
ignorant, unskilled, and dependent
race--a race who could not have lived a week
without the support
or charity of the dominant one--equality
of political right !28
After setting up this ungainly
situation, the politicians re-
turned authority to the individual
states and withdrew, aban-
doning the Negro, and telling him, in
Tourgee's words, to
"Root, hog, or die!" Colonel
Servosse, in a letter to a senator
in Washington, describes the southern
feeling toward the
Negro in the following terms:
"Hate is a sentiment mild and
trivial in comparison with it. This
embraces no element of
individual or personal dislike, but is
simply utter and thorough
disgust and scorn for the race,--except
in what they consider
its proper place."29 The
failure of Reconstruction, Tourgee
stresses again and again, is greatly
due to the mistake of the
politicians in the North who failed to
recognize the differences
in the people of the South:
We presumed, that, by the suppression of
rebellion, the Southern
white man had become identical with the
Caucasian of the North in
thought and sentiment; and that the slave,
by emancipation, had become
a saint and a Solomon at once. So we
tried to build up communities
there which should be identical in
thought, sentiment, growth, and
development, with those of the North. It
was A FOOL's ERRAND.30
Tourgee blamed the black codes as
another major cause for
the failure of Reconstruction. Laws
passed by the individual
states, they attempted to give the
Negro some rights, yet to
keep him "in his place." The
most evil of these laws, Tourgee
believed, was one which provided:
28 Ibid., 120.
29 Ibid., 148.
30 Ibid., 341.
42
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
1. That the ignorant or inept citizen
neglecting to list his poll for taxa-
tion should be liable to indictment and
fine for such refusal and neglect.
2. That if unable to pay such tax and
fine and the costs of prosecution,
he should be imprisoned and his labor
sold to the highest bidder until
this claim of the State upon his poverty
should be fully redeemed.
3. That the employer should be liable to
pay the personal taxes of his
employees, and might recoup himself from
any wages due to said
hireling or to become due.
4. To add a further safeguard, in many
instances they made the
exercise of the elective franchise
dependent upon the payment of such
tax.31
After the withdrawal of federal troops,
the South was
able to handle the Negro problem in its
own way. In an ironic
account of the "healing of the
wound," Hesden LeMoyne
explains:
Since the country had been
"redeemed" it had been at peace. The
vast colored majority, once overcome,
had been easily held in subjection.
There was no longer any violence, and
little show of coercion, so far
as their political rights were concerned
.... The laws of the State,
carefully revised by legislators wisely
chosen for that purpose, had
taken the power from the irresponsible
hands of the masses, and placed
it in the hands of the few, who had been
wont to exercise it in the olden
time.32
Tourgee's solution to the problem, a
solution which he did
not reject until many years later, was
education of both freed-
men and whites. In a dialogue between
the Fool and his old
college professor, Servosse explains,
in general terms, his
answer:
The remedy for darkness is light; for
ignorance, knowledge; for
wrong, righteousness.... Let the Nation undo the evil it has permitted
and encouraged. Let it educate those
whom it made ignorant, and protect
those whom it made weak. It is not a
matter of favor to the black, but
of safety to the Nation. Make the
spelling-book the scepter of national
power. Let the Nation educate the
colored man and the poor-white
man because the Nation held them
in bondage, and is responsible for
their education; educate the voter because
the Nation can not afford
31 Bricks
Without Straw (New York, 1880), 211.
32 Ibid., 460-461.
TOURGEE AND RECONSTRUCTION 43
that he should be ignorant. Do not try
to shuffle off the responsibility,
nor cloak the danger. Honest ignorance
in the masses is more to be
dreaded than malevolent intelligence in
the few. . . . Poor-Whites,
Freedmen, Ku-Klux, and Bulldozers are
all alike the harvest of ignor-
ance. The Nation can not afford to grow
such a crop.33
The colonel stresses the idea that, to
help overcome the
failure of Reconstruction, this
education must be done by the
North, since the South "will
oppose it with might and main."
Here Tourgee put his finger on the
trouble spot. Recent
events in the South illustrate the
validity of his observation.
Tourgee insists that the rights of the
states must not stand
in the way of governmental intervention
where education is
concerned. Educational funds, Hesden
LeMoyne suggests in
Bricks Without Straw, are to be under control of the federal
government, and are to be distributed
on the basis of illiter-
acy, to areas in which free primary
schools actively operate.34
This plan "would be a vindication
of the manhood of the
North; an assertion of its sense of
right as well as its deter-
mination to develop at the South the
same intelligence, the
same freedom of thought and action, the
same equality of
individual right, that have made the
North prosperous and
free and strong, while the lack of them
has made the South
poor and ignorant and weak."35
It was not until twenty years later, in
1901, four years
before his death, that Tourgee rejected
his vision of a South
integrated by means of education.
Writing to President Theo-
dore Roosevelt to congratulate him for
his moral courage in
inviting Booker T. Washington to a
dinner, Tourgee ex-
pressed his rejection of education as
the solution in the follow-
ing terms:
It was a genuine fool's notion. I
sincerely believed at that time (1880)
that education and Christianity were
infallible solvents of all the evils
which have resulted from the white man's
claim of individual superiority.
Today I am ashamed to have been that
sort of fool. I realize now that
33 A Fool's Errand, 347-348.
34 Bricks Without Straw. See
Chapters LXI, LXII.
35 Ibid., 520.
44
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
. . . education does not eradicate
prejudice, but intensifies it--Christi-
anity does not condemn or prevent
injustice done to the weak by the
strong, but encourages and excuses it.36
The bitter tone of his letter suggests
that Tourgee recognized
the immensity of the problem.
There are paradoxes in Tourgee's works.
His novels, al-
though structurally weak, contain
accurate descriptions of
Reconstruction. Valid in so far as they
point to the problems
which existed in the South after the
war, they nonetheless
show propagandizing tendencies.
Although it is true that
Tourgee put his finger on the sore
spots--the violence, in-
equality, and lack of opportunity for
the freedman and poor-
white--it is also true that the
solution which he repeatedly
offered in A Fool's Errand and Bricks
Without Straw--
education--proved ineffectual. His
letter to President Roose-
velt offered no solution; he merely
admitted that he had been
wrong. But his accusations, directed
against the northern
politicians and the aristocracy of the
old South, were justi-
fiable, even in an age which has been
noted for its greed, graft,
and injustice. That his personal life
was soiled by the very
things which he criticized makes his
criticism more valid:
while his novels contain a strongly
humanitarian message
and a shrewd understanding of the
problems of his day, it
appears obvious that, as a
carpetbagger, in the worst sense,
he was equally responsible for the
spirit of graft and corrup-
tion which surrounded Reconstruction.
His social motives
were good, but there appears to be
enough information avail-
able to cause some questioning of his
financial motives and
actions. Perhaps he set his goals too
high in both his life and
literary works; he was not able
adequately and realistically to
deal with the problem of removing the
barriers which the
defunct slave system had erected, and
which almost one hun-
dred years later still plagues the
social and political unity of
our country.
36 Dibble, Albion W. Tourgee, 126-127.