James Shepherd Pike

James Shepherd Pike (Sept. 8, 1811 - Nov. 29, 1882), born in Calais, Maine, was a leading American journalist of the mid 19th century. From 1850-1860 he was the chief Washington correspondent for the "New York Tribune" and became as well the associate editor, responsible for many political editorial. Pike was thus one of the most widely read and influential political journalists in the country in the years before the Civil War. Thousands of Republican editors across the North reprinted his dispatches and editorials. In 1854 he led the fight against the Kansas-Nebraska act, calling for the formation of a new political party (the Republicans) to oppose it. Pike charged that a "solid phalanx of aggression rears its black head everywhere south of Mason and Dixon's line, banded for the propagation of Slavery all over the continent." [Durden (2000) ] His reports were, "Widely quoted, bitterly attacked or enthusiastically praised, they exerted a profound influence upon public opinion and gave to their author national prominence, first as an uncompromising anti-slavery Whig, and later as an ardent Republican." [Van Cleve 1934]

President Abraham Lincoln rewarded Pike by appointing him minister to the Hague (Netherlands), where he fought Confederate diplomatic efforts and promoted the Union war aims from 1861 to 1866. On return to Washington in 1866 Pike resumed his writing for the "Tribune." He was an outspoken Radical Republican, standing with Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner and opposing President Andrew Johnson. Pike strongly supported Black suffrage and the disqualification of most ex-Confederates from holding office.

By 1872 Pike was convinced that Reconstruction was successful and the federal government should pull out its soldiers. He was a strong supporter of the Liberal Republican movement that in 1872 opposed President Ulysses Grant, denouncing his corruption and his insistence on using the Army to prop up Republican state governments in the South. Pike's boss, "New York Tribune" editor Horace Greeley was the Liberal Republican nominee in 1872, but lost to Grant by a landslide attributed to African American voters.

Pike's reports on South Carolina

In 1873 Pike toured South Carolina and wrote a series of newspaper articles republished in book form in 1874 as "The Prostrate State: South Carolina under Negro Government." It was a widely read and highly influential first hand account of the details of Reconstruction government in South Carolina, that systematically exposed what Pike considered to be corruption, incompetence, bribery, financial misdeeds and misbehavior in the state legislature. His critics, while not pointing to any incorrect statements, argue the tone and emphasis is distorted and hostile toward African Americans and Grant Republicans. Hundreds of other historians have, however, treated the book as reliable.

"The Prostrate State" painted a lurid picture accusing black lawmakers with a lack of decorum in the management of public affairs. Pike devoted only one chapter to their viewpoints, but used what in the 20th century became the racial slur "Sambo."

In his 1961 study of Reconstruction, historian John Hope Franklin said the book was "one of the 'classic accounts.'" However Franklin later observed of Pike that "By picking and choosing from his notes those events and incidents that supported his argument, he sought to place responsibility for the failure of Reconstruction on the U.S. Grant administration and on the freedmen, whom he despised with equal passion." [Franklin at [http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/jhfranklin.htm] ] Historian Mark Summers concludes that Pike stressed the sensational, but "however maliciously and mendaciously he shaded his evidence, his accounts squared with those of his colleagues Charles Nordhoff of the "New York Herald" and H.P. Redfield of the "Cincinnati Commercial." [Summers 193] James Freeman Clarke, a leading Boston abolitionist, visited South Carolina and reported back to tell his Boston congregation that the facts presented by Pike, "were confirmed by every man whom I saw." [McPherson p 41]

Durden (2000) reports::" A sweeping indictment of Republican rule in this state (and, by inference, other southern states), Pike's dramatic, "eye-witness" account gained much attention throughout the country. The book was so popular because it was seen as the work of an allegedly impartial Maine Republican and old foe of slavery who had come to his senses about the "wicked corruption" of the carpetbaggers and their "ignorant and barbaric" Negro allies. Pike's book not only played a role in the ending of Reconstruction but was much used by historians well into the twentieth century. In fact, it was far from objective, simply reflecting Pike's long-standing racism."

Bibliography

* Durden, Robert F. "Shepherd Pike. Republicanism and the American Negro, 1850–1882". (Duke University Press, 1957) ISBN 0-313-20168-4
* Durden, Robert F. "Pike, James Shepherd"; [http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-01296.html; "American National Biography" Online Feb. 2000]
* [http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/jhfranklin.htm Historian John Hope Franklin discusses Pike's work ]
* Franklin, John Hope. "Race and History: Selected Essays 1938-1988," Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.
* James M. McPherson. "The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP" (1975)
* Pike, James Shepherd, "The Prostrate State: South Carolina Under Negro Government"(New York, 1874). [http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=AFK4119.0001.001 full text online at Making of America, University of Michigan] ; paperback edition with introduction by Durden (1974)
* Pike, James Shepherd, "First Blows of the Civil War" (1879), collection of Pike's "Tribune" editorials and political letters [http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=dSNCAAAAIAAJ&dq=james+pike+First+Blows+of+the+Civil+War&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=BUUVA4yJPR&sig=u9S3qqHNUKmIVgGR72LzZKqruvg&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result online edition]
* Mark Wahlgren Summers, "The Press Gang: Newspapers and Politics, 1865-1878" (1994)
* Van Cleve, Thomas C. "Pike, James Shepherd, (Sept. 8, 1811 - Nov. 29, 1882)" in "Dictionary of American Biography" (1934)

References