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chapter 9 Reconstruction: The Making and Unmaking of a Revolution
development, and social welfare institutions such as hospitals and asylums for orphans 1865–1877
and the mentally ill. In many ways, these were among the most progressive state con-
stitutions and state governments the nation ever had, and they are why Du Bois called
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Reconstruction a “splendid failure” — splendid for what could have been.
Du Bois also argued that Black Reconstruction was splendid because it did not fail
due to alleged black incompetence and inferiority, as many whites expected. Instead,
Black Reconstruction clearly demonstrated African American competence and
equality. From the first, white southerners who did not participate in the conventions
denigrated the black delegates as incompetent and the white delegates as “carpetbag-
gers” and “scalawags.” Carpetbaggers were northern whites who were stereotyped as
having come to the South with their belongings in travel bags made from carpet. Their
aim was allegedly to make money off plantation, railroad, and industrial interests as

The First Colored Senator and Representatives, 1872
this dignified group portrait represents the first black men to serve in congress as
statesmen as well as pioneering black political leaders. In the back row, from left to right,
are robert c. De Large (South carolina) and Jefferson F. Long (Georgia). In the front row are
hiram r. revels (Mississippi), Benjamin S. turner (alabama), Josiah t. Walls (Florida), Joseph
h. rainey (South carolina), and robert Brown elliott (South carolina). except for revels, who
served in the Senate (1870–1871), all of these men served in the house of representatives
during the Forty-First (1869–1871) and/or Forty-Second congress (1871–1873). Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C., LC-DIG-ppmsca-17564.

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