Historians' interpretation of the reconstruction varies in significant ways through time. The arguments presented by Thomas W. Wilson, Carter Woodson, Thomas A. Bailey, and Mary Beth Norton share a story of reconstruction but all in very different aspects. Wilson, in the beginning, claims that "These men, mere "carpet baggers" for the most part, who brought nothing with them, and had nothing to bring, but a change of clothing and their wits, became the new masters of the blacks" (10). Arguably, Woodson states that "Reconstruction began in the schoolhouses not in the State houses" (11). Alternatively, Bailey and Norton argue the issue of ex-slaves, and slaves. (14, 16). Using historical analysis to support their arguments, Wilson, Woodson, Bailey, Norton consider their ideas of the reconstruction because of their own racial opinions, and due to the socials at their time/era. .
Historians disagree over the story of reconstruction because of their own consideration of racial assumptions. Wilsons' racial assumption observes that blacks are ignorant "For the negroes there was nothing but occasional allotments of abandoned or forfeited land" (10). To support Wilsons statement an example/study from Mississippi shows that "six hundred and forty thousand acres of land had been forfeited for taxes, twenty percent, of the total acreage of the State" (11). In other words they could have been said to be unreliable people. However, Woodson argues that "The charge that all Negro officers were illiterate, ignorant of the science of government, cannot be sustained" (12). In a study shown to prove his argument shows that "Negro illiteracy has been reduced to 79.9 by 1870, just about the time the freedmen were actually participating in the beginning of the reconstruction" (12). Despite Woodson's argument he would agree with the other authors that "It is true that many of them were not prepared to vote, and decidedly disqualified for the positions which they held" (12).
