ABSTRACT
As former Confederates negotiated the processes of reconciling and reuniting with the United States in the years immediately following Confederate defeat, they envisioned their national Reconstruction as part of a larger international debate over the meaning of nations and nationhood. During the early years of Reconstruction, elite white southern analysts drew on their knowledge of the many nationalist revolutions in nineteenth-century Europe to place American Reconstruction within an international context. This broader international context, including both successful and failed attempts at nation-building in Europe, provided much-needed guidance for former Confederates in navigating the process of American national reconciliation. In particular, former Confederates drew comparisons between the defeated Confederacy and defeated nations in Europe to direct Reconstruction by placing boundaries around acceptable actions on the part of the North. By dramatizing examples of failed attempts at subjugating aspiring nations in Europe, former Confederates argued that national reconciliation must respect the rights and desires of white southerners or it would fail. Similarly, by dramatizing examples of what white southerners considered to be tyrannical actions against aspiring nations in Europe, white southerners argued that any attempts by the North to limit the rights of white southerners, humiliate white southerners, or grant rights to black southerners would constitute European-style tyranny. Through an international perspective, then, former Confederates sought to shape Reconstruction in accordance with their own goals for national reconciliation.
