Remembering Racist Historian of Reconstruction William Dunning at His Columbia University Alma Mater

William Dunning was a Columbia Man. He was an undergrad, a graduate student, and a professor there, after having been expelled from Dartmouth as a 20 year old for participating in a brutal riot. For decades after his death, Dunning was a respected figure in the Columbia pantheon. No more.

The university recently began examining its role in slavery and Jim Crow and as part of this project, it has posted a more realistic assessment of William Dunning for its Columbia and Slavery Project. Here are some excerpts from the student authored essay by Tommy Song related to Dunning and the historiography of Reconstruction:

After meeting the political science professor John W. Burgess, who founded the late Columbia School of Political Science (CSPS) in 1880, Dunning branched out to courses in political science, physics, logic, philosophy, while continuing his studies in classical languages.^[41] …During his undergraduate days, Dunning fueled his passion for learning, strengthened his intellectual capacity with Columbia’s emphasis on the liberal arts and classical texts, and confirmed his unique sociability. Instructors praised Dunning’s intelligence, while peers commended Dunning’s character and charisma.^[45]

Immediately after earning his bachelor’s degree, Dunning stayed on campus to enroll in the master’s program… Under the guidance of Burgess, founder of the School and mentor of Dunning, the passionate graduate student took classes in various topics relating to political science^[49]…Furthermore, Dunning, as he indicated in his lecture notes, learned to differentiate the spheres of political science and political theory, as well as the crucial doctrine—emphasized by Burgess—that the study of political science is inseparably based in history.^[50] From his predecessor, Dunning learned the importance of objectivity and the impossibility of truth.

Two principles, imparted by Burgess during the course, seemed to frequently occupy Dunning’s thoughts and words. First, Dunning reiterated throughout his notes, “we must recollect that we are men in Society; we are surrounded by conditions, relations, customs, institutions, and laws.”^[51] Second, Dunning emphasized in the “Introduction” of his notebook that “Absolute truth is found nowhere, but the approach to it is the closer according as an author’s ideals come nearer to true ideal forms.”^[52] These two ideas, acquired from Burgess during the final year of Dunning’s path toward a master’s degree, remained with the historian throughout his life as a scholar of reconstruction and political theories. He later claimed—frequently yet incorrectly—that his white supremacist historiography was grounded on the ideals of impartiality and historical accuracy.^[53]

In 1884, after three years at CSPS, Dunning received his M.A. and began his final task of graduate school: writing his dissertation. With the historical and political knowledge he had accrued during six years at Columbia, Dunning decided on the topic of Reconstruction and the Civil War. Additionally, with his newfound proficiency and fluency in constitutional histories and theories, Dunning fused his persistent interest in the Reconstruction era with the history of U.S. constitution, completing “The Constitution of the United States in Civil War and Reconstruction 1869-1867” by the end of the year.^[54] Published in the Political Science Quarterly (PSQ) in 1886, Dunning’s dissertation was a promising first gesture. To other historians of Reconstruction history, “The Constitution” pointed to Dunning’s potential in incorporating ostensible impartiality with research and theorization that no others scholars of the time seemed to have mastered.^[55] Moreover, the dissertation also indicated Dunning’s nascent, pseudo-scientific racism, which he had ingrained in his mind over the years through his professor Burgess.^[56] Dunning argued in “The Constitution” that the enfranchisement of freedmen hindered the process of the nation’s recuperation, emphasizing that the sudden freedom of former slaves prevented southern whites—the victims—from fairly appraising the Radical Republican plans of reorganizing the ex-Confederate states.^[57] The Ph.D candidate asserted that Radicals would have had a better chance of accomplishing their objectives had they completely removed the “negro question” from the equation. He argued that from the moment President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation into law, the South began “her struggle…a desperate battle for existence.”^[58]

After the publication of his dissertation, Dunning began to build his academic reputation. With the essay appearing in the PSQ the same year Burgess founded the publication, Dunning officially entered the stage of Reconstruction historiography.^[59] Slowly yet steadily, he inched his way up the food chain; from undergraduate to Doctor of Philosophy, to eventually a full-time professor and more. This upward process—facilitated by Dunning’s geniality, intellect, and Protestant status—hinted at the looming stardom of the young Columbia graduate, as well as the kind of scholarship he would produce—ostensibly logical and academic historical analyses that embraced the Southern apologist perspective.^[60]

After receiving his Ph.D from the CSPS, Dunning was hired by the University to be an associate professor of political science. The quality of his dissertation, general academic accomplishments, and relationship with Burgess all contributed to the University’s decision that Dunning was competent for the job.^[61] With the security of professorship, Dunning chose to briefly exit U.S. academia to participate in a one-year program at the University of Berlin, a decision encouraged by Burgess who also studied in Germany during the 1870s.^[62]

…To Dunning’s delight, professors at the University of Berlin elucidated the ideologies and theories Burgess had spoken of in New York, like the inevitability of bias in historiography and the significance of geography in historical objectivity.^[66] Although Burgess had introduced to the Morningside alma mater the European principles of research that subsequently placed the University at the forefront of American research institutions, the direct absorption of Germanic approaches in historical writing—like Ranke’s model of rejecting speculation and embracing objective research—inspired Dunning to further emphasize and promote “scientific history.”^[67]This fusion of the scientific method and historiography, paralleled by the similar merging of evolutionary biology and race theories, was frequently used by Burgess and others to “scientifically” propagate and validate white supremacy.^[68]

In his lectures, Burgess often noted the forces of the Teutonic “germ theory,” stating that the exclusively white, Anglo-Saxon founding of the American constitutional republic can be attributed to the biological superiority of the founders.^[69] Although an associate professor with a comparatively milder racist rhetoric, Dunning, whose foundation in historical research was now reinforced by his brief German education, prepared to return home with a renewed sense of excitement, ready to share the knowledge he had gathered with his students.^[70] He was eager to launch his professional career and put his education to use, which would provide the tools for the next generation of historians—those of the Dunning School—to further his narratives of Southern victimization and Northern aggression….

In 1898, Dunning scored another victory when he published his first volume on the topic of reconstruction titled Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and Related Topics.^[88] The text, dedicated to his wife, was a step-up in the young professor’s career. Now well on the radar of other reputable scholars in his fields of study, Dunning’s Essays received praise from historians and political scientists alike, their responses generally twofold.^[89]

First, many noted that the analyses within Dunning’s Essays, equipped with lucid presentations of ideas, were buttressed by a bedrock of primary sources; second, the text, Dunning’s peer professors claimed, held high educational value with its topical focus on the changing dynamics of the U.S. Constitution.^[90] Vanderbilt history professor Frederick W. Moore, for example, noted in his review of the Columbia professor’s volume that “It is evident… Professor Dunning has thoroughly familiarized himself with the documentary evidence on the period.”^[91] Moore further praised Dunning, writing that “To the teacher and the student,” Dunning’s Essays will “afford valuable and timely help in the further study of the period.”^[92] Leo S. Rowe, professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and later President of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, echoed Moore’s sentiments in his review.^[93] “It would be difficult to find a more thorough corrective for many of the current misconceptions as to the place of our written constitution in the political life of the country than the series of essays contained in this volume,” the Pennsylvania graduate commended Dunning, declaring that “For this reason, if for no other, every student of political science will give it a warm welcome as an important contribution to American constitutional history.”^[94]

However, Dunning’s Essays, though informative in its discussions of constitutional changes during the era, was a despicably racist portrayal of the Reconstruction era and an equally detestable approval of the system of Jim Crow. When discussing black Americans, Dunning’s scientific method lost relevance, or rather, lost necessity; the professor, now in his forties, believed racial inequality as natural, unworthy of supporting evidence since it was—and should be accepted as—an innate truism.

Essays displayed the uncensored racism of the Columbia historian. …Dunning moved on to elaborate upon the inferiority of black Americans at greater lengths, the word “negro” appearing with a conspicuously increased frequency.^[95] The legal workings of the blooming Jim Crow, Dunning explained in Essays, were “too intricate for the average negro intelligence.”^[96] Moreover, “the abolitionist fever,” Dunning declared, “was the root of the trouble in the South.”^[97] The Columbia professor argued that the institution of “slavery had been a modus vivendi,” a societal arrangement necessary for the peaceful coexistence between two races of unequal standing.^[98] Thus, Dunning pronounced that with the abolition of slavery, the nation inevitably lingered in a state of confusion and could only return to peaceful coexistence with the creation of a new system that “must in essence express the same fact of racial inequality.”^[99] Dunning’s Essays, in short, was a clear rejection of color, humanity, and morality.

Perhaps the racism displayed in Essays should be understood as a characteristic sentiment of the time, considering Plessy v. Ferguson occurred two years prior to the publication of Essays; perhaps exclusively labeling Dunning as a racist is an incomplete, unfair analysis of the scholar, since Essaysencompassed illuminating interpretations of governmental transformations. But the fact remains that the professor’s first book on reconstruction, coupled with his second volume that would come in 1907, was a perilous validation of discrimination, eclipsed by the scholar’s examination of constitutional evolution. The fact remains that Essays set an example for Dunning’s students, inspiring them to follow his ostensibly scientific claims. The fact remains that Essays was another contribution to the young professor’s growing influence and authority; to the still existing belief that racial equality is a utopian trait—a historical unreality—whose pursuit would only be a delusional, impractical effort.

…in 1907, four years after the start of aching hands and Lieber professorship, Dunning published Reconstruction, Political and Economic, 1865-1877, the historian’s second and last volume of the reconstruction that is the culmination of his racism.^[112]

In Reconstruction, Dunning denounces Radical Reconstruction and paints the white Southerners as the primary recipients of injustice during the era of Reconstruction, which reflects the central sentiments of Essays and Dunning’s other works on the era.^[113]Reconstruction, however, diverges from the professor’s previous collection of essays in numerous ways. First, the later work combines and draws from the works of Dunning’s graduate students, the core residents of the infamous Dunning School.^[114] Among these students were renowned Alabama historian Walter L. Fleming, Mississippi historian James W. Garner, and leading archivist of the South J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton.^[115]Referencing the works of Fleming the most, Dunning used his students’ studies partly for the sake of a detached, holistic approach, since his students hailed from nearly all seceded states; and partly because Dunning was too lazy and lack of research forced upon him a hasty writing process.^[116] Regardless of Dunning’s reasons, however, the numerous works of former students included in Reconstruction demonstrated the influence and connections the Columbia professor had amassed since his first days as associate professor of political science in 1886.

Along with student works, Reconstruction distinguished itself from Essays with the increased instances of heightened racial rhetoric, which Dunning so carelessly compiled for the readers to take as fact.^[117] Unlike Dunning’s forbear Burgess, who at the very least exhibited consistency in his works by using Teutonic theories to support his claims of white superiority, Dunning in Reconstruction interjected his racist assertions without any hint of applying the scientific method that he cherished.^[118] When discussing the Southern states’ implementation of Black Codes immediately after the war, Dunning wrote: “The freedmen were not, and in the nature of the case could not for generations be, on the same social, moral, and intellectual plane with the whites.”^[119] This generalizing claim of black inferiority, excluding the blatant racism, was never explained, qualified, or supported by Dunning in the following sentences.^[120]Dunning’s racist rhetoric, as evidenced by the quote above, was exacerbated in terms of the severity of bigotry since the Essays, but the noticeable amplification in Dunning’s racist remarks was never accompanied by his typical “academic” explanations.^[121] Despite these shortcomings of Reconstruction, during the time of its publication, the volume produced considerable accolade.^[122] Rowe, who praised Essays in 1898, wrote in his review of Reconstruction that the Columbia professor “gave to students of American history a new outlook upon a period of our national development which has been so generally neglected, but which is fraught with lessons of the deepest import.”^[123] In another review of Reconstruction published in the AHR, Elisha B. Andrews—economist and professor of political economy at Brown during the 1880s—wrote that the book was “of extraordinary excellence.”^[124] “His mastery of the subject and of its literature is ideally thorough,” the former Brown professor praised his Columbia counterpart of much greater authority, accentuating his “analysis of causes and situations” for being “keen and correct.”^[125]Interestingly, Dunning referenced Andrews in Reconstruction, informing the reader that “The years after 1870 are very well treated” by Andrews’ The United States in Our Own Time.^[126]

Andrews’ review and Dunning’s reference both point to the fact that, within the sphere of academic dialogue, Dunning had become a seminal figure…

Dunning’s presidency of the [American Historical Association] was an achievement that provided Dunning with thousands more connections, more people to influence and indoctrinate with his ideas. This fact was best demonstrated during and after his first presidential address at the 1913 annual meeting of the AHA in Charleston, South Carolina.^[135] Before traveling South to attend the meeting, Fleming, arguably Dunning’s most infamous pupil, penned Dunning, “I am authorized by those former students of yours who expect to be in Charleston for the Historical Association to request that you dine with them.”^[136] During his stay at Charleston, Dunning encountered historians and scholars of history from across the nation, who all congratulated Dunning on his election.^[137] When Dunning gave the address before the hundreds gathered there, he received a standing ovation and applause; once he returned to New York, letters flooded his office and home.^[138]…

Just weeks after the presidential address, in January 1914, the chief constituents of the Dunning School—sixteen graduate students Dunning worked with—published a monograph titled Studies in Southern History and Politics, what Merriam, who was among the sixteen, described as “a testimonial to his inspiring work in this field.”^[140] Butler, on January 8, wrote to Dunning, congratulating him on the publication and his rewarding time as an educator. He wrote: “I look forward with keen interest and pleasure to the appearance, through the University Press, of the volume of Studies in Southern History made in your honor. These are things which make teaching worthwhile.”^[141] In the preface of Studies in Southern History, James W. Garner, Mississippi Dunningite, penned: “For more than twenty-five years he has been a distinguished member of a distinguished faculty and during this period hundreds of toilers for the doctorate have sat at his feet and received inspiration and wisdom from his teaching.”^[142] The publication of Studies in Southern History was the peak of Dunning’s career as educator and the unofficial origin of the Dunning School’s name.

Rewarding for Dunning but inexorably racist, the Dunningites produced works that elaborated the topics discussed and provided by Dunning’s two monographs on reconstruction. Fleming, for example, focused on the solution to the abolition of slavery and “the race problem,” much like his predecessor’s Essays that discussed “the race problem” at length.^[143] William R. Smith, Wisconsin historian, wrote on the topic of “negro suffrage in the South,” echoing Reconstruction, in which Dunning dedicates much paginal space regarding the “problem of suffrage.”^[144] Garner wrote on Southern politics since the Civil War, like Essays that trace the legislative battles of policies in the South post-Civil War.^[145] The entire volume was, in its essence, a public indication of the unofficial Dunning School’s arrival; a signal that a new generation of historians were ready to extend Dunning’s racist legacy….

The most obvious consequence of Dunning’s wildly successful career belongs to his students. Much like their beloved professor, the Dunning students, after Columbia, became active writers, editors, and scholars of reconstruction, promoting Dunning’s teachings with a heightened rhetoric of racism. For example, Fleming, who was a professor of history at West Virginia University, wrote the introduction and notes for a book titled Ku Klux Klan: It’s Origin, Growth, and Disbandment, in which he claimed that the Klan deserves to be recognized for its noble acts, not just its violence.^[162] He wrote, “The important work of the Klan was accomplished in regaining for the whites control over the social order and in putting them in a fair way to regain political control.”^[163]Claude Bowers, author of the best-selling The Tragic Era: The Revolution after Lincoln, denounced the Republican party for the development of “negro suffrage,” “negro politicians,” “negro delegation,” “negro ticket” and “negro vote.”^[164] The popularity of The Tragic Era was chiefly responsible for injecting the Dunning School ideologies into the vessels of the public, for the anti-Republican narrative appealed to the people.^[165] Bowers’ book, with much of the public attention surrounding it, caught the eyes of David W. Griffith, Kentucky native movie director who created “Birth of A Nation,” in which black men are portrayed as barbaric, sexually insatiable beings and the Klan is painted as heroic knights.^[166] The film, which did not have any direct relations to Dunning’s works or any Dunning School scholars, nonetheless still played a role in further popularizing the Dunning School racism. The despicable portrait of black Americans as savages—in both film and writing—provided an intellectual foundation for racism in both the academic and public spheres.

William Archibald Dunning was an intelligent scholar interested in historical accuracy and academic progress. Although his intent, in its purest form, may have been noble, Dunning failed to recognize the humanity of black Americans. Consider this: in 1910, when W.E.B. Du Bois presented “Black Reconstruction and its Benefits” in front of the American Historical Association, Dunning praised the black scholar’s work, despite the fact that it rejected Dunning’s interpretations of the era completely.^[167] Only three years prior, Dunning published Reconstruction and legitimized segregation as a necessary system for the peaceful coexistence of black and white Americans; four years after, Dunning wholeheartedly approved his students’ works in Studies in Southern History, lauding their contributions that championed white supremacy.^[168] Dunning praised Du Bois’ work, but his praise was aimed at the text; the humanity of Du Bois was never admitted, rather, Dunning was probably surprised by the scholastic capabilities of the black man standing before him.^[169]

…Without Columbia, Dunning or the Dunning School would not have come to existence. Although their works and following have disappeared from modern academia, they still loom over the nation, remaining in the minds of citizens who were shaped by the Dunningite literature and interpretations. White supremacy and racial violence surpass the boundaries of physical terrorism; they occupy and benefit from academia as well as mass media. Members of an academic institution, therefore, bear an obligation to know the history of the space they populate—both good and bad. As members of Columbia, it is thus critical to accept and process the evils of those who came before us.

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