A Short History of Reconstruction [Updated Edition]

by Eric Foner

Bryce’s book “proved” that blacks, coolies, aborigines, etc., were unfit to be citizens. It was frequently invoked by the founders of Australia’s federal nation in support of their vision of a White Australia, and by white South Africans. Around the world, the “key history lesson” (as Lake and Reynolds put it) of Reconstruction was taken to be the impossibility of multiracial democracy. Thus, as Du Bois pointed out long ago, consequences of the overthrow of Reconstruction in the United States reverberated across the globe.

Once again, an example of how treatment of one group can be justification for the treatment of another group.