The problem with "re" words

Note:  this is in a series of essays that I will be using to form the written version of the Tales.  Some are ideas and themes I am exploring -- others may be rough drafts of portions of the Tales.  --Ann McColl

Albion Tourgée is generally recognized as the most famous “carpetbagger” to participate in North Carolina politics after the Civil War.  He left a significant imprint on North Carolina in his role in state constitutional and statutory revisions and as a lawyer and judge.  At the national level, Tourgée had a prominent career that included serving as lead attorney for the plaintiff in Plessy v. Ferguson – a case he lost that established the constitutional principle of separate but equal.  He shared his views as a civil rights activist in both political writings and fiction, including his well-read novel, A Fool’s Errand, which draws on his experiences in North Carolina.  I will use blogs to share brief excerpts and quotes from Tourgée that relate to themes explored in Constitutional Tales. 

Tourgée is in North Carolina during Reconstruction and is an influential delegate to the 1868 N.C. Constitutional Convention.  While fully supportive of the agenda of Congress and the Republican party of securing political rights for blacks, he is critical of the approach, including the choice of term, “reconstruction.”

“The word itself was one of ill-omen, in that it rushed back into the past for the type and model of what was to be in the future.  By its very force it accustomed the people to the idea that the work which was to be done was but the patching up of an old garment; that it was an act of restoration rather than one of creation.”  (“Root, Hog, or Die,” 1876, p. 58.) 

It is an interesting commentary on the importance of terms.  And “re” words have hardly gone out of style.  We use them to endorse a prior act: we reaffirm (presumably meaning more than once), reapply, reauthorize, recommission, rededicate, and reestablish.  Perhaps Tourgée would not be concerned by this kind of intentional affirmation.  Other times, however, we use “re” words to describe a process of analysis: we reanalyze, reassess, recalibrate, recompute, reevaluate, reexamine, reformulate, revalidate, and revise.  Does the “re” limit the scope of inquiry?  Are we closer here to Tourgée’s concern that we begin an endeavor with a limited intention of patching it up?  And perhaps most problematic is the use of “re” words when we intend a new beginning:  we say we will reconceive, reconceptualize, reconfigure, rediscover, reenvision, reimagine, reorient, retheorize, and rethink.  Are these words of creation?  Or do they keep us from starting anew? 

A constitutional tale tells us something important about history.  But it also should tell something important about us. Tourgée was one of the most significant public intellectuals of the nineteenth century.  Perhaps he can still be of help.

Source:

Elliot, Mark, & Smith, John David, eds., Undaunted Radical: The Selected Writings and Speeches of Albion Tourgée (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press 2010)

Other Useful Resource:

Elliott, Mark Emory, Color-blind Justice: Albion Tourgée and the Quest for Racial Equality from the Civil War to Plessy v. Ferguson (Oxford, N.Y.: Oxford University Press 2006).