The study challenges many traditional stereotypes of Texas during Reconstruction. Contrary to what Democrats charged, the Davis government did not levy exorbitant taxes. Radical taxes seemed high in comparison to antebellum taxes, because antebellum governments had financed operations with indemnity bonds, but they were not high in comparison to taxes in other states. Radical taxes constituted only 1.77 percent of the assessed value of property in Texas, which was lower than the average for the United States and about the same for other states undergoing Reconstruction. In Texas most of the tax increases during Reconstruction were made necessary by the Civil War and the increase in population. The tax increases paid for state and local governments, frontier and local protection, public buildings, internal improvements, and public schools. Edmund J. Davis, Radical governor, contributed significantly to Texas government when he attempted to focus attention on reforming the tax system,limiting state expenses to state income, limiting state aid for railroad companies, and protecting the public from railroad company abuses.

This is a work of local history examining the course of Reconstruction in Collin County, Texas. National and state level surveys of Reconstruction often overlook the experiences of communities in favor of simpler, broader narratives. The work proceeds chronologically, beginning with the close of the Civil War, and tells the story of Collin County as national Reconstruction progressed and relies on works of professional and non-academic historians, oral histories, census data, and newspapers to present a coherent picture of local life, work, and politics. The results exemplify the value of local history, as local conditions influenced the course of events in Collin County as much as those in Austin and Washington D.C. The story of Reconstruction in Collin County is one of anomalous political views resulting from geographical exclusion from the cotton culture of Texas followed by a steady convergence. As Reconstruction progressed, Collin County began to show solidarity with more solidly conservative Texas Counties. The arrival of railroads allowed farmers to move from subsistence agriculture to cash crop production. This further altered local attitudes toward government, labor, voting rights, and education for Freedmen. By the end of Reconstruction, Collin County had all but abandoned their contrarian social and political views of the 1850s and 1860s in favor of limited rights for blacks and Redemption. The results show the importance of local history and how Collin County’s Reconstruction experience enriches and deepens how historians view the years after the Civil War. The author recommends further research of this kind to supplement broader syntheses.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the relationship of Andrew Johnson to the South and the effect of that relationship on presidential reconstruction. It is not meant to be a complete retelling of the story of reconstruction, rather it is an attempt to determine how Johnson affected southern ideas of reconstruction and, equally important, how southerners influenced Johnson.

The key to Reconstruction for both blacks and whites was black suffrage. On one hand this vote made possible the elevation of black political leaders to positions of prominence in the reorganization of the South after the Civil War. For southern whites, on the other hand, black participation in the Reconstruction governments discredited the positive accomplishments of those regimes and led to the evolution of a systematized white rejection of the black as a positive force in southern politics. For white contemporaries and subsequent historians, the black political leader became the exemplar of all that was reprehensible about the period. Stereotyped patterns, developed to eliminate black influence, prevented any examination of the actual role played by these men in the reconstruction process. This study is partially a synthesis of recent scholarly research on specific aspects of the black political role and the careers of individual political leaders. Additional research included examination of a number of manuscript collections in the Library of Congress and the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina, state and federal government documents, and contemporary newspapers. On the basis of all these sources, this study evaluates the nature of black political leadership and its impact on the reconstruction process in all the ten states which were subject to the provisions of congressional reconstruction legislation. The topic is developed chronologically, beginning with the status of blacks at the end of the Civil War and their search for identity as citizens. Black leadership emerged early in the various rallies and black conventions of 1865 and early 1866. With the passage in March 1867 of reconstruction legislation establishing black suffrage as the basis for restoration of the former Confederate states, black leaders played a crucial role in the development of the southern Republican party and the registration of black voters. Black influence reached its apex in the constitutional conventions and the subsequent ratification elections of 1868-1869. Blacks were elected to posts in the new state governments in varying numbers, but with increasing political sophistication began to demand a larger voice in Republican party councils and a larger share of public offices. Their resulting prominence fueled a white determination to eliminate the Republican governments which had allowed elevation of black politicians. This study of state political leadership is not a history of the black in the Republican party, nor is it a history of the black masses in Reconstruction. It does examine the role of black leaders and seeks to determine the nature and degree of their influence. The development of black leadership was one facet of building a southern Republican party, and in the tenuous coalition which made up that party the black inevitably became the weakest link because he was the most vulnerable. This study challenges a number of stereotypes. Southern Reconstruction was not a period of "black rule," as both historians hostile to the black leaders and those sympathetic to them have intimated. Nor was the black politician a passive tool to be manipulated at the will of whites. Strong disagreements among black leaders show the weakness of the traditional monolithic picture of black political action. Black leaders had considerable influence in some states and practically none in others. Total failure of black political leadership would have been welcomed by southern whites, but its successes were intolerable. This study traces the development of a leadership whose successes led to its destruction.

In the decade following the Civil War the Texas political scene was dominated by revisionist activity with regard to the state's constitution. In that period the organic law of the state was altered three times, twice because of the exigencies of National Reconstruction and a third time to satisfy the retrenchment impulses partially stimulated by the Reconstruction experiment. None of the three constitutions written during this ten year period can be properly understood in isolation from the other two, nor can any of them be correctly interpreted separate from the serious post-war political, social, and economic issues faced by the entire nation. Hence, a uniform study of the three constitutions in their local context and their relations to national problems of the period provides a field of significant research and evaluation. It is the purpose of this study to analyze the constitutional changes of the Reconstruction era in Texas in their historical perspective, giving special attention to both the internal political structures and the socio-economic considerations dominant during that period.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 210-230).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 367-392). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 2000. / Title from title page screen, viewed July 31, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Louis G. Perez (chair), Lawrence W. McBride, Sharon S. MacDonald. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 340-370) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2004. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 367-392). Also available on the Internet.