The Clansman by Thomas Dixon

First published: 1905

Type of plot: Historical

Time of work: The 1860’s

Locale: The American South

Principal Characters:

• Austin Stoneman, a congressional leader determined to liberate southern blacks
• Elsie Stoneman, Austin’s daughter, in love with Ben Cameron
• Philip Stoneman, Austin’s son, in love with Margaret Cameron
• Dr. Richard Cameron, a southern aristocrat determined to save the South
• Ben Cameron, the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan
• Margaret Cameron, a southern belle, in love with Philip
• Mrs. Cameron, the wife of Dr. Cameron
• Lydia Brown, a mulatto, Austin Stoneman’s housekeeper
• Silas Lynch, a mulatto, lieutenant governor of South Carolina

The Novel

The Clansman is divided into four books covering a period from about 1865 to 1870. The first two books are centered on the activities in the nation’s capital, delineating the death of President Abraham Lincoln and the ensuing power struggle between Capitol Hill and the White House on how the South is to be treated. Books 3 and 4 shift to South Carolina and outline the havoc that the Reconstruction-era state governments have brought to the South, resulting in the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Clansman has an omniscient narrator who relates events, allowing major characters to voice the author’s philosophy. The novel opens with the celebration of the Union army in Washington, D.C., at the close of the Civil War, while thousands of soldiers from the North and the South lie in makeshift hospitals. At the height of the celebration, President Lincoln is assassinated, and while the nation mourns, Andrew Johnson, a southerner, becomes the next president. Lincoln’s intention was to bring the South back into the Union; Johnson, a less resolute leader, attempts to effectuate Lincoln’s design, but he is met with stiff opposition in Congress under the leadership of Austin Stoneman. Stoneman, who controls Congress but who appears to be under the control of Lydia Brown, his mulatto housekeeper, prevents Johnson from bringing the South back into the Union. Instead, Stoneman persuades Congress to enact laws that put the government of the South in the hands of blacks. This new dispensation in the South alienates whites, causing them to retaliate against blacks. Because Johnson balks at penalizing the South, he is impeached and tried by the members of the Senate. He is saved from conviction by one vote. While the political battle rages on Capitol Hill, Elsie Stoneman, who is nursing wounded soldiers, meets Ben Cameron and the Cameron family. She introduces her brother Philip to Margaret Cameron, and soon a relationship develops between the young people. Through Elsie’s intervention, Mrs. Cameron manages to see her husband, Dr. Richard Cameron, a political prisoner awaiting trial. Dr. Cameron urges his wife to return to the South to aid the poor and suffering and to manage what might be left of their own wealth. Austin Stoneman, worn out from his political struggles, falls ill and is encouraged by his physician to recuperate in the South. Stoneman’s children, pursuing their love affairs, encourage their father to settle in Piedmont, South Carolina, where the Camerons live. Before leaving Congress, Austin Stoneman has been successful in getting Congress to pass several Reconstruction Acts that enable him to put the southern states under the control of blacks; therefore, he acquiesces to going South, where he can better effectuate his plan.

Returning to the South, the Camerons discover that their social status has been diminished, their wealth has been depleted, and almost all of their slaves have left. Those slaves who remain have notions of acquiring forty acres and a mule. The state government is run by rapacious, uneducated freedmen, carpetbaggers, and scalawags. Despite the adverse conditions, the relationships between Elsie and Ben and Philip and Margaret grow stronger. Ben, meanwhile, has been working with a secret organization, the Ku Klux Klan, to eliminate black domination of the South. The organization’s deepest fears are realized when Marion Lenoir and her mother, neighbors of the Camerons, are found dead. It is later learned that Gus, one of the Camerons’ former slaves, has ravished Marion and that mother and daughter, too ashamed to let the world know what transpired, committed suicide. The Klan searches for Gus, who has left the state, finds him, and administers its justice by lynching him.

The Klan encourages whites to take control of the government in the upcoming general election, and Austin Stoneman, fearing that the Klansmen might be successful, orders more Union troops into the South. Under these tense conditions, two black men impose themselves on Margaret Cameron while she is dining. Ben and Philip rush to her defense, killing one of the intruders. Austin Stoneman, believing that Ben Cameron shot the man, orders that he be imprisoned, tried, and executed, but Stoneman’s son, Philip takes Ben’s place in prison. When Stoneman discovers that it is his own son who is to be executed, he attempts to get the Union soldiers to revoke the orders, but it is too late. The Klan members, however, have been waiting to intercept the Union army and to save Philip. When Stoneman realizes that his son has not been executed, he thanks God for the Ku Klux Klan. The next day, whites win the election and take control of the government.

The Characters

Characters in The Clansman are basically one-dimensional types. Austin Stoneman, as his last name suggests, is a man of stone, implacable in his dealing with the Confederacy. His views of blacks contravene the prevailing opinion, which is that the physical differences between blacks and whites make it impossible for the races to coexist as political and social equals. Stoneman believes that God made all men the same and that, given the opportunity, the blacks will acquire the necessary skills and will become as morally and politically upright as whites. Because of his views, he is depicted as a fanatic who, if unchecked, will destroy both the federal government and the Confederacy. Dr. Richard Cameron, on the other hand, is depicted as the ideal southern aristocrat who, observing the deplorable conditions of state government under the black administrations, takes on the mantle of senior statesman and protector; however, he is one of the leading figures in the Ku Klux Klan. Ben, his son, is suave, courageous, and courteous, the ideal gentleman who is ever mindful of southern white ladies. At night, he becomes the Grand Dragon of the Klan, attacking blacks who refuse to acquiesce to the demands of whites. It is Ben and his father, Dr. Cameron, who are responsible for the death of Gus. Philip Stoneman, unlike his father, becomes an industrialist, starting a milling business and helping to bring economic prosperity to the South. The female characters, with the exception of Elsie, are delineated as southern belles at various stages of life. Mrs. Cameron is the virtuous matron, the epitome of grace under pressure. Margaret, even in an old, shabby dress, is stately, the ideal beauty at her peak. Marion Lenoir, the nubile southern belle, has the courage to go into a burning stable, almost naked, to save a horse, but once she has been raped by a black man, the loss of her virtue is too much for her to bear.

While whites are presented as types in The Clansman, blacks become caricatures. Their language, their features, and their actions all work together to highlight their primitiveness. Lydia Brown, Austin Stoneman’s housekeeper, who has clouded Stoneman’s life and fogged his name with “vulgar gossip,” is referred to as a “leopardess” and a “she devil”; she is an animalistic individual of questionable morals. A congressman forced to acknowledge her as his equal touches her hand “as if she were a toad.” The omnipotent narrator says of Lydia that “no more curious or sinister figure ever cast a shadow over the history of a great nation.” Silas Lynch, the lieutenant governor of South Carolina, is also cast in a stereotypical mold. He is college educated and apparently sophisticated, but in his eyes glows “the brightness of the African jungle.” Blacks are described in terms of their kinky hair, black skin, thick lips, and flat noses. Even Aleck, who protects the Camerons, and Jake, the old retainer who acknowledges Dr. Cameron as his master, are made to look like characters from a minstrel show. Dr. Cameron, who maintains that blacks are half-children, half-animals, sums up this view when he says: “[the black] race is not an infant; it is a degenerate.”

Critical Context

More so than any other novelist, Thomas Dixon helped set the tone of white supremacy that prevailed in America for the first half of the twentieth century. He might not have done so with malice, for he maintained that he did not hate blacks, but he strongly believed that the two races could not exist in America as equals. He promulgated his views in a trilogy dealing with the Reconstruction South. The first novel in the trilogy, The Leopard’s Spot (1903), suggests that blacks are inferior; like the leopard, blacks cannot “change their spots” and therefore should be treated as inferior. The Clansman, the second of the trilogy, suggests how blacks might be controlled; the third installment, The Traitor (1907), explains how and why the controlling force, the Klan, might be abandoned when it is no longer needed. Through various mediums, Dixon managed to keep his concept of race in the public domain for the first two decades of the twentieth century. Dixon was also a professional actor, and he adapted The Clansman for the stage. In 1905, the play began touring the country. As drama, The Clansman caused as much divisiveness as the novel, but the play became so popular that two companies were touring the country simultaneously.

In 1915, Dixon’s story was used as the basis for D. W. Griffith’s seminal motion picture Birth of a Nation, which again thrilled and horrified Americans with its racial content. Together, the print, stage, and film versions of Dixon’s story helped to fix a negative image of blacks in the American consciousness, an image that would persist for decades.

Bibliography

Cook, Raymond A. Fire from the Flint: The Amazing Careers of Thomas Dixon. Winston-Salem, N.C.: John F. Blair, 1968. A penetrating discussion of Dixon that explains how his youthful experiences might have influenced his work.

Cook, Raymond A. Thomas Dixon. New York: Twayne, 1974. An insightful evaluation of Dixon’s literary career.

Coulter, E. Merton. The South During Reconstruction, 1865-1877. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1947. A good discussion of the Reconstruction period; useful background for an understanding of Dixon’s novel.

Osofsky, Gilbert. The Burden of Race: A Documentary History of Negro-White Relations in America. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. An excellent sourcebook on race relations, with a specific entry on Thomas Dixon and his attitude toward blacks.