moneyhon2012

@InCollection{ moneyhon2012,
	crossref = {howell2012},
	author = {Carl H. Moneyhon},
	title = {The Democratic Party, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Politics of Fear},
	pages = {243--265},
	year = 2012,
}

Moneyhon challenges existing accounts of the Klan in Texas (including, to some extent, smallwood2012 in the same volume) by arguing that it was largely the “creature of the state’s Democratic Party.” Neither a “structured organization” closely tied to Tennessee roots nor a “spontaneous uprising” against Radical Reconstruction, for Moneyhon the Klan was created, promoted, and encouraged by Democrats “to effect the party’s principal political goal: restoration of the Democrats to power at both the state and national level in what was perceived a critical election year” (p. 261).

For Moneyhon, 1868 is the crucial peak, and he highlights incidents in Hempstead (June), Brenham (July), and Millican (July), which show the direct confrontation with Republican and Union League leaders (including freedmen who were active politicians and were well organized). Whereas smallwood2012 and howell2012 seem to see Reconstruction as a continuation of war under a differnt guise, Moneyhon sees the violence (more like Foner and hahn2003) as politics by other means.