The South was not sufficiently punished after the war

[bluestateguy]

We lost the political will to finish Reconstruction the way it should have been done.

All pro-Confederate plantation owners should have had their land seized and redistributed to former slaves (I would say that plantation owners who were loyal to the union should get to keep a share).

There should have been lifetime voter disenfranchisement of all Confederate soldiers, politicians, Confederate government officials and sympathyzers.

Military occupation of the old Confederacy for the next 30 years.

The civil rights act of 1875 should have been enforced.

Jefferson Davis should have been charged and tried for treason and hung from a sour apple tree upon his conviction.

The Freedmen's Bureau should have been funded, and used to educate former slaves.

[randys1]

1. Excellent point. I am always saying cant we please publicly shame them, but it needed to

be done back then.

AS to

All pro-Confederate plantation owners should have had their land seized and redistributed to former slaves (I would say that plantation owners who were loyal to the union should get to keep a share).

Let me agree and change one word

Per Thom Hartmann, they were not plantations, they were concentration camps

[Glassunion]

2. That would have made it so much better.

[thucythucy]

44. Well, had there been true land reform

of the sort Lincoln was advocating shortly before his murder--"Forty Acres and a mule" for emancipated blacks and poor landless whites--along with treason trials of the major leadership (who would then lose their property after conviction to provide land for the landless), not to mention universal public education and universal suffrage (for men anyway), which was what the Freedman's Bureau tried to do, I think yes, this country would today be in a much better condition than it is right now.

Speculation of course. But unless you think the Nuremburg trials somehow made postwar Germany worse, I don't see how trying the major traitors in open court--allowing them due process--would have harmed anyone but the racist, slave owning, KKK organizing elite.

[brush]

92. Should we call it white privilege?

Last edited Wed Jun 24, 2015, 12:03 PM - Edit history (1)

Those traitors got off easy. See the last sentence below from Art. lll of the Constitution.


"The Constitution of the United States, Art. III, defines treason against the United States to consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort. This offense is punished with death."

[GusBob]

3. Also forced sterilization

Eom

[bluestateguy]

6. No, I'd be against that

nt

[Throd]

4. Well, you can go pee on their graves.

You'll feel better.

[Fumesucker]

5. Should have treated them like Germany and Japan after WWII

That seems to have worked reasonably well, everything considered.

[TheManInTheMac]

11. I think the op was suggesting something more like Germany after the Great War.

That didn't work out well for anyone--did it?

[Fumesucker]

16. Actually I was kind of envisioning Carthage when I read the OP...

Or maybe Béziers.

[thucythucy]

40. No, more like World War II:

after which came the Nuremburg trials for the major war criminals. I seem to recall Goring, Hess, Speer being tried, convicted. Goring was sentenced to death, Hess to life in prison, Speer to twenty years. Doenitz, commander of the U Boats, got ten years.

There were also trials of lower level Nazis, a program of "DeNazification" which, inconsistently enforced though it was, cleared tens of thousands of Nazis from public life. Those that didn't get jail time were forced to flee--some to cushy jobs with the US military (Werner von Braun comes to mind) but many to South America. BTW, Lincoln himself was quoted as saying he would prefer Jefferson Davis and the major southern leaders to flee to Mexico, and his "forty acres and a mule" program was land reform pure and simple--breaking the power base of the white slave owning elite, while giving poor whites and emancipated slaves a vested interest in the new social order.

The ONLY "Southerner" tried for war crimes was the commandant of Andersonville, and he was a German born northerner! Nathan Bedford Forest should have been tried for the Fort Pillow massacre. Lee and Davis should have been tried for needlessly extending the war when it was certain by November, 1864, that the south couldn't possibly win.

Had there been true land reform--with the breaking up of the white elite power base--I think this country would be very different today, and I mean different for the better.

[KingCharlemagne]

95. Well put. What James McPherson refers to as the "Second American Revolution" was only

half-completed at best, imo. Historically, one of the punishments for treason against the state was forfeiture of all land properties. Why this punishment was not levied upon the Southern slaveocrats is a subject that should be endlessly debated.

[lovemydog]

72. Yup. Unconditional surrender.

Followed by strict imposition of 14th and related amendments.

[backscatter712]

110. There was a little of the OP's suggestions in how we treated Germany and Japan after WWII.

Sure, we helped them rebuild, and that was totally awesome, and turned them into strong allies.

But we also de-Nazified Germany. We held the Nuremberg trials, and hanged the worst Nazi war criminals. We severely punished those that ran, or guarded the concentration camps, or participated in the atrocities. We did the same in Japan, executing those who abused and murdered civilians and POWs.

So perhaps the best strategy would have been to hang Jefferson Davis, General Lee, and hang or imprison virtually every high-ranking officer in the Confederate military and official in the Confederate government. Also conduct war crimes tribunals and crimes-against-humanity tribunals against slave-owning plantation owners, and hang those who were the worst abusers of their slaves, and make sure that all the slaveowners' property was forfeited.

For those that didn't participate in such abuses, help them rebuild.

The problem with Reconstruction is that we failed to cut the heads off the snake. Nathan Bedford Forestt should have been hanged for war crimes, instead, he was allowed his freedom, and went on to found the Ku Klux Klan.

[theycallmetrinity]

7. That would have started a guerrilla war

That was not what the North wanted

[bluestateguy]

9. In a sense there already was a guerrilla war

Violence by the KKK, the Redshirts, the White League and other white thugs resulted in thousands of (mostly black) deaths.

By the mid-1870's the US just gave up.

[theycallmetrinity]

12. I won't disagree with that

It lasted almost 100 years

At least now the KKK and other white power groups are seen as clowns by the vast majority of the country .

[CanadaexPat]

29. The U.S. Didn't just give up.

The Reps gave up in a deal with the Dems, the Compromise of 1877, to make Hayes President over Tilden in return for removing troops. Political expediency and selfishness was the reason.

[eppur_se_muova]

97. Worth reading up on. Here are some recs:

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780765302069-0
http://www.amazon.com/The-Stolen-Election-Versus-Tilden/dp/0765302063 (very long excerpt at the link)

http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780743255523

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/grant-election/

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_election.html

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ugliest-most-contentious-presidential-election-ever-28429530/?no-ist

The last three are included for those who don't care for long reads.

[uponit7771]

43. +1

[npk]

8. The South/Confederacy surrendered

As such part of the treaty agreement was to bring the south back into the union in a peaceful manner. You are stating that the North should have sought retribution, but that would have only made our nation worse. Your anger is understandable, but what the country needed was to come together, not a longer period of tension. I do think the country should have offered reparations and land to freed slaves and their immediate descendants, but unfortunately that didn't happen.

[Nobel_Twaddle_III]

15. If we (northen born) can't forgive and get over the war, how do we expect our (southern born)

cousins to do it.

Reconciliation could have been handled better, particularly protection of freed slaves, but reconciliation war the right thing to do.

So yes I agree with you. It has been 150 years. It is time to get over it.

[old guy]

17. Same excuse was offered when Ford pardoned Nixon.

I don't buy it in either case.

[Nobel_Twaddle_III]

20. What would you like to have seen happen with Nixon ?

just curious, I do not remember much of that part of history.

[old guy]

23. Nixon was toast.

There was every possibility if he stayed in office he would be impeached and convicted. So he resigned and Ford pardoned him so nothing could be done to him. Ford used the excuse of healing the nation and to save the integrity of the office of the President. I never bought it then and still don't.

[Nobel_Twaddle_III]

28. Ok, so Jail time? or

Bush never went down for war crimes, election theft etc.
So I see a bad pattern started, but I do not want to see examples like the Alabama governor propagate.

[old guy]

34. Yes, jail time at the least.

Nixon and Bush skated but Seigelman (sp) sits in jail. IOKIYAR.

[Nobel_Twaddle_III]

38. yup, seams just backwards.

[1939]

77. Siegelman could have been pardoned in January 2009

It would have needed just a stroke of a pen.

[old guy]

101. I have wondered about this.

There have been many opportunities to reopen this case, but it never happens. I had hoped he would be included in the last group of pardons. Maybe on his way out of office the Pres will do the right thing.

[1939]

112. In the enthusiasm of his first days in office

President Obama could have done it and the news would have sunk like a rock. Why didn't he do it?

1. He was afraid of Republican backlash

2. No one was really advocating it

3. He thought Siegleman was guilty

[thucythucy]

45. There was no "treaty agreement."

Treaties can only be signed between sovereign nations, and the south was never considered sovereign by the north--it was a rebellion, like Shay's Rebellion, except instead of poor farmers protesting the oligarchy, it was the oligarchy coopting poor whites to protect their racist empire.

Had the major traitors been tried in open court--with due process rights--and convicted, their estates would have been confiscated and that would have provided the land to divide up among not only emancipated slaves, but poor landless whites as well. Lincoln very much wanted poor whites to benefit from the breakup of what was then called "the slave power"--the slave-owning oligarchy--so that they too would have an investment in better conditions for blacks. That's what "Forty Acres and a Mule" was supposed to be. But after Lincoln's murder the idea was abandoned by President Johnson, much to the dismay of progressive Republicans who were Lincoln's closest political allies.

Instead, the oligarchs kept their power and imposed--through violence--a system of apartheid that lasted another century and cost the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people--blighting the lives of entire generations of American citizens. Compared to that atrocity, the trial in open court of a pack of murderous traitors would have been an act of true justice.

[npk]

49. Good Point. Shouldn't have said treaty

But I am not sure if even the major Confederate generals had been tried for treason it would have prevented the violence that the country experienced in the aftermath of the civil war. Maybe I am wrong, but this country, not just the south, has still not reckoned it's culture of racism and that has been shown overtime to be the larger problem, separate from the civil war.

[thucythucy]

59. To a great extent I agree.

Even during the Union occupation there was terrific racist violence--the "race riot" in Memphis in the summer of 1865 being one example. I put "race riot" in quotes because really it was an anti-black pogrom, with white police and firefighters doing some of the worst violence.

Still, removing some of the worst malefactors--Nathan Bedford Forrest being a good example--could only have done some good. Allowing Jefferson Davis and all the others to peacefully retire and write their "lost cause" memoires--allowing them in many cases to re-enter politics and even be elected again to positions of power--stifled any hope for meaningful reform.

[Art_from_Ark]

79. The situation was a lot more complicated than you make it out to be

See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_acres_and_a_mule

Also, most of Reconstruction was carried out under the most corrupt administration that had existed up to that time-- that of U.S.Grant (1869-77). The North wasn't so much interested in helping freed slaves as it was in exploiting the post-war situation in the South.

[thucythucy]

120. Actually, most of what passed for land reform

and efforts to bring education and empowerment to poor whites and emancipated slaves happened during the first few years after the war, during the administration of Andrew Johnson. A southerner, Johnson himself opposed most of these reforms, which were carried out in spite of him. Public schools, some land redistribution, protection of black voter rights--it wasn't nearly enough, but it was a start in the right direction.

As for corruption, the reconstructed state governments of 1865-1870, which included for the first time (and for last time until the 1970s) African American elected officials, were among the LEAST corrupt state administrations in southern history. The idea that Reconstruction was an era of corrupt "carpetbaggers" and "scalliwags" is southern revisionist history.

Rather that Wikipedia's couple of paragraphs on "forty acres and a mule" I'd recommend David Blight's "Race and Reunion," not to mention the work James McPherson has done on the topic.

What "complicated" the situation was that the same white racists who started the war were left with their landed estates--source of their wealth--largely intact, and were able after a few short years--with the aid of terrorist violence--to reassert control, thus condemning thousands of innocent people to death by lynching and other violence, and entire generations to the American version of apartheid.

That so many Americans still seek to paper over this history is a part of our continuing problems with racism today.

[Art_from_Ark]

127. Is saying that the Grant administration was the most corrupt up to that time

also "Southern revisionist history"?

You seem to have this image of carpetbaggers only having the best interests of Southerners in mind, when the actual situation was much more complicated. Read about the Brooks-Baxter War in Arkansas, for example, and then get back with me about reconstructed state governments.

[thucythucy]

129. Harping about the corruption of the Grant administration

is neither here nor there, when dealing with the realities of what passed for Reconstruction on the ground.

State governments of that era--north and south--were notoriously corrupt, though I hardly think the corruption of the reconstructed states was any worse than pre-war or post reconstruction.

Among the "carpetbaggers" were hundreds of northern school teachers who went south to found public schools and educate both blacks and poor whites. Go to the National Archives sometime, as I have, and read their accounts--the threats, arson, attempts at murder they encountered, all for the "crime" of wanting to teach people to read and write. The way northern women were reviled as whores by "decent" southern citizens makes very interesting reading indeed. Or check out the Memphis riot of 1865 for an example of the sort of abysmally corrupt and incompetent--and downright racist--city government that was par for the course for many southern cities before the wicked carpetbaggers arrived to corrupt all those poor innocent southerners.

Was all of Reconstruction wonderful, were all the people who participated pristine and honorable? Of course not. But was the era the parody and caricature foisted on us by southern revisionists? Also of course not.

Either way, the process was sadly cut short, and it wasn't until the 1960s that the nation picked up where it had left off in the late 1860s.

Part of that process should have been the trial of the worst traitors and war criminals--Nathan Bedford Forrest among them. Or do you believe we should still be erecting statues and naming state parks after these traitors, thus at least tacitly endorsing their racism and treason, as flying the Confederate flag on state property most definitely endorses a heritage of hate, fear, and apartheid?

[1939]

76. To be technical

The CS government never formally surrendered, it just ceased to exist. The multiple surrenders were the various rebel army generals surrendering their troops.

[bravenak]

10. No on lifetime disenfranchisement of all soldiers.

Many of those soldiers were kids when they were conscripted or told to go and fight. They owned no slaves ahd were never likely to own any ever. They did what the rich and powerful told them to do.
I'm pretty much yes on the rest.

[thucythucy]

47. I agree.

It was the south that first imposed conscription, and extended the terms of its enlistees for the duration when it became apparent that not enough poor whites were willing to be part of "a rich man's war but a poor man's fight."

But the major traitors should have been tried, there should have been true land reform, universal public education and universal suffrage--all of which could have been and probably would have been achieved by 1869, had Lincoln not been murdered. Well, universal male suffrage, anyway--I don't know what Lincoln's view of women's suffrage would have been.

But Lincoln's murder was motivated by racism, and that's a fact. Booth was on the White House lawn when Lincoln gave his last speech, during which he praised the efforts of Louisiana Unionists who had drawn up a new constitution giving voting rights to black veterans. Lincoln approved the effort, but clearly wanted to go further. Booth was said to have turned to one of his friends and said, "That means n@@er citizenship. That's the last speech he'll ever make."

And so racism was the root cause behind one of the worst events--if not the single worst event--in American political history.

Racism is the cancer that has eaten at the soul of this nation since before its inception. It has and will kill this democracy stone dead, until we figure out a just and lasting cure. One step toward that cure would have been smashing "the slave power" when we had the chance.

Just my opinion, for what it's worth.

[Igel]

48. It's a vindictive, hate-based system.

Or intensely self-righteous.

With a lot of political supremacy built into it. Fortunately, Lincoln showed a bit more wisdom.

Unfortunately, it's the same effect as defeat for the Sunnis in Iraq. There is no reconciliation in such a values system: There is victory and there is humiliation that must be avenged. It's intensely silly.

It's a system that embraces one's inner genocide. It's a system that I find deeply offensive; it's a system that was standard among humanity for many thousands of years, and in some places still is standard. It's a system best subverted and undermined, replaced by cultural osmosis and pressure. It gave us Muslims massacring Serbians and vice-versa in the '90s. It gave us communal violence in India in '48 and still in Pakistan and India in 2015. Sadly, we have this weird idea (only sometimes, when it suits our politics) that that kind of cultural assimilation is somehow evil. It's a cultural trait that nation-states tried to overcome by moving the nexus of communalism to between states, not within cities or states. We decry that kind of jingoism and embrace it warmly when we see political or social advantage it in.

Some of the South and the mixed-legacy sons of the South have been culturally assimilated to the North. (Heck, not all of the North was fully assimilated; more than a few Irish and rural communities were left backwards.) "Southern pride" resists it, as do some other nationalist-pride currents in American thought. When it's held by anybody other than a white Southerner, though, it's not only given a pass but seen as "ethnic." So I guess I have to say that I'm Irish-American, so I'm allowed to diss Irish-Americans (that's how it works in that kind of communalistic thinking, right?)

[thucythucy]

122. Trying war criminals is not "genocide"

unless you consider the Nuremburg trials equivalent to the Holocaust.

Let's take just one example. In April 1864 hundreds of black and white prisoners were slaughtered--after they'd
surrendered--during the Fort Pillow massacre. Their bodies were found later when the north reoccupied the area--the blacks had almost all been killed by gunshot to the back of the head. Nathan Bedford Forrest was in command of the troops who committed what was widely seen as one of the worst war crimes of the era--at least one witness had him personally supervising the slaughter.

Would it have been genocide to bring him to trial? To at least charge him and force him to defend himself in open court? Rather than lionizing him as some great folk hero (who just happened to be a slave trader, and the first Grand Wizard of the KKK)?

To equate an effort to offer some measure of justice to those brutalized and even murdered by racists like Bedford to "genocide" is absurd.

[oneshooter]

13. Do you also want to bulldoze confederate cemetaries? n/t

[SpartanDem]

39. I wouldn't bulldoze them, but I'd revoke the veteran status Confederate soliders

[oneshooter]

42. They are still veterans, honorably buried.

Their families received no benefits. You can not "revoke" their status as veterans. No more than you can revoke the status of German or Japanese veterans.

[SpartanDem]

46. They receive benefits

it may not be monetary , but the ancestors of Confederate veterans get the benefit of their family member being honored as an equal to the union dead. There was a quote I saw today from head of the Sons of Confederate Veterans that perfectly summed why this needs to be done, "If you accept something other than our actual ancestors' flag, it's like saying our ancestors were wrong and we know it. They were wrong and the very reason these types think it's ok to still fly that racist flag around is that service in Confederacy is a point of pride. You said yourself they're honorably buried, let them stay buried, but they deserve no fucking honor.

[ncjustice80]

116. DIShonorably buried. n/t

[ncjustice80]

52. Yes, I would. And turn them into dog parks. n/t

[Coventina]

107. Grave desecration? Really? I would hope DUers would be above that.

At some point, vindictiveness becomes a reflection upon the perpetrator, and not about the crimes of the dead.

[oneshooter]

125. Apparently there are several DUers that would willingly bulldoze a Confederate

graveyard.

Such hate is bad for your health.

[hifiguy]

14. An argument I have made for years.

A minimum of 50 years of military occupation and law enforcement and the forcible destruction and rebuilding of the social structures of the entire region would have been my prescription. And hanging or jailing the leadership of the confederacy, civilian and military. Lincoln's "forgive and reunite" was a pathetic romanticizing of human nature and power politics.

Japan and Germany were fundamentally changed after WW II but it had to be done at the point of a howitzer. Fortunately sanity took deep root in both countries. The south got off easy and went right back to its old ways, putting Jim Crow into effect while the departing Union Army could still see their old forts.

[okasha]

30. You mean kind of like the Washington government

and Union generals did to the Native American nations?

Oh, yeah. Feel the love.

[thucythucy]

53. The idea that Lincoln opposed the sort of meaningful social restructuring

you're citing isn't true. Lincoln wanted land reform, "Forty Acres and a Mule" for emancipated slaves AND for poor whites. He wanted poor whites included because he thought this would give them an incentive to support the new society he hoped to build.

Stephen Oates has a pretty good essay on Lincoln's actual writings and speeches about reconstruction--as opposed to the mythology that rose up around him after his murder. It's true, Lincoln opposed violent and unthinking retribution motivated by a desire for revenge--but he also wanted to use the opportunity the Union victory gave him to recast southern society. And when asked at a cabinet meeting what he'd do to the southern leaders, people like Jefferson Davis, now that the south was defeated, he made a gesture as if to say "shoo!"--meaning he hoped they'd all go into exile.

Lincoln was one of the most brilliant political minds this nation has ever produced--and a shrewd judge of human character. It's just my opinion, and probably pure speculation, but I don't think Lincoln would have hesitated to recast southern society, once the war was over, even at bayonet point. The man who led the nation through the bloodbaths of Fredericksburg and Antietam would hardly have flinched when imposing a just peace.

[RobinA]

83. You Can't

"forcibly destruct" social structures and expect anything good to come of it. We rained money on Germany and Japan to rebuild, which has a whole lot to do with what success has been there. Had we "punished" them things would have turned out a whole lot different (see, WWI).

[n2doc]

18. Well they are making up for that now

By electing idiots like Jindal, Perry and Scott who have destroyed their budgets and education systems. If they keep it up the entire south will end up a third world hellhole.

[madville]

33. Interestingly

Record numbers of people are currently leaving high-tax states and moving to the South in droves due to the lower cost of living than say the Northeast.

That's why we will continue to see states like NY lose Congressional seats and electoral votes to the likes of Florida and Texas like they did after the 2010 Census. People are flocking to the few states with no state income tax and/or low property taxes.

[bluestateguy]

35. Texas and Florida are gaining because of Hispanics

Many are under 18 or not US citizens, but that is the largest reason.

[yeoman6987]

37. True. But the northern states do seem to lose electoral votes every

Census. Many residences from the north are moving south mostly for weather but for a cheaper living too.

[n2doc]

71. It isn't the taxes

It's the cost of housing. I paid way more taxes overall in Texas and Georgia than I did in when I lived in Washington State.

Property taxes in Texas are high unless you have something you can call a farm.

[madville]

118. Texas does have somewhat high property taxes

But no state income tax which can counter that pretty well.

Florida is my favorite place to live and work, no state income tax and my property taxes are around $600-$700 a year for one acre with a 1200 sq ft house built in 1994.

[greatauntoftriplets]

19. Lincoln's take on that, from his second inaugural address.

With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.

Abraham Lincoln

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin138222.html#rLJw3E7cqZeeo6WK.99

[alcibiades_mystery]

26. History has proven Lincoln wrong on that

[6chars]

32. what do you expect from a Republican

[Igel]

50. Yup.

We're progressives.

We believe in the goodness of human nature and are deeply in touch with our empathy and compassion.

Now that that's over, let the virtuous genocide of those who are benighted haters, unlike we enlightened brights, begin.

Esp. those who somehow think that we're judged on how we treat "the least of these." Perhaps Southern baby-back ribs could have been from ...

Ick.

[NCjack]

21. Punishments harden people into resisting. The South need a federal education system. nt

[SpartanDem]

24. We've let the white South be in denial that their ancestors were on the wrong side

you think they'd be waving that flag if they understood their ancestors died for a shitty cause? If the political and military leadership had hanged, you think the South would littered with memorials to the likes Davis and Lee if their last image was hanging from a tree? We can't fix the past, but that is why I want to go beyond the removing the flag to removing all memorials and tributes to the Confederacy.

[Igel]

54. There is no "the South."

Any more than there is a single "Xianity" or a single variety of English.

Embrace the diversity. Get past the stereotypes and prejudice.

I've run into some intensely bigoted and racist white Southerners. Also black Southerners. And not a few Central Americans.

I've also run into white Southerners who make Obama look backwards and racist. Same for black Southerners. And not a few Central Americans.

Most are in between. Not a few vary by context and by which group they're interacting with at the time.

There is no single "South" any more than there is a single "North." All Northerners are educated and prosperous or solid, prosperous upright hard-working working class. Right? Dream on. Notherners are hard working and lazy, educated and high school drop outs, progressive and conservative, non-racist and deeply racist, Jewish and Muslim and atheist and Xian and Buddhist and Sikh.

So are Southerners. The frequency and distribution are a bit different. The racial dynamics are different. But the hardest thing for all the groups I interact with is for people to stop seeing those in other ethnic groups as members of hostile ethnic groups and see them as people. Which, oddly, was the same problem I saw when I was a kid ... up North. And a young adult in Oregon. And a slightly less young adult in Los Angeles.

To speak of a virtuous North is as prejudiced and stereotyping as to think all Southerners are waving Confederate flags and trying to find a black family to enslave to restore the Old Dominion to its glory days. (Esp. the S. Asian Muslim families, the Korean immigrants, and the 1/3 of Houston that's Latino. Other large Southern cities have similar but different mixes of immigrants.) Heck, a lot of Southerners are transplanted Northerners. Or, in my case, a Marylander--Baltimore being culturally Southern and the most northern Southern port economically until the Civil War, at which point it culturally, economically, and even linguistically swung Northern.

Yup. Martin O'Malley ... one of those Southerners that so many complain about. Right?

[zazen]

80. thank you!! n/t

[alcibiades_mystery]

25. Agreed...Davis should have been hung, probably Lee, too

Bedford Forrest should have been hunted down like a dog and hung.

[onenote]

68. What about Hirohito after WWII?

[alcibiades_mystery]

69. Hirohito was symbolic...Tojo was hung, as were numerous other military leaders

in Japan. Ditto Germany. There was help to rebuild in both cases, but ideological Nazis and Imperial Japanese were hunted down and punished - often with the death penalty. They were put to fucking heel, which should have happened to Nathan Bedford Forrest and the other Confederate terrorists.

The ideology was eradicated forcefully. They were forced to admit they lost, and they were not allowed to keep their ideological apparatus in place. Hirohito was a symbolic wink as the hangings happened en masse. Jefferson Davis was a criminal, period, and should have been punished along with the rest of the leadership. Only the vaguest notion of honor saved Lee, who should have spent 20 years in prison after the war at a minimum. He was a traitor, period.

[NightWatcher]

27. Lincoln wanted to keep the United States together, punishing the South would've driven a wedge

It was much more important to put the war behind everyone than to punish the South for generations.

Heal the wounds the war created, don't make it worse for your neighbors.

[roamer65]

31. The problem was the failed election of 1876.

Hayes versus Tilden. Hayes finally secured the office of President by agreeing to end Reconstruction.
It was called the Compromise of 1877, aka the "Corrupt Bargain". Racist southern democrats called "Redeemers" got Hayes to end Reconstruction, in exchange for the Presidency over Tilden, by basically let them revert back to their old system...minus actual slavery.
The Democratic Party of 1876 was not at all like the party we know today. In many ways, the 2 major parties have now actually reversed roles.
It was also another disputed election where Florida threw a monkey wrench into the Electoral College.

Hmmm...doesn't that sound familiar?????

So, this one election basically set back the attempts to change the South for nearly 100 years.

[Igel]

62. Reconstruction failed.

There was none to little.

The result was a depressed South that bred illiteracy and resentment with former institutions largely broken and none to replace them--on top of the humiliation of having lost the war with much of its infrastructure intentionally destroyed and 10s of thousands not just dead but dead and insulted. By modern standards, Sherman was a war criminal. It led to poverty, and the reason for the humiliation, poverty, and backwardness was trumpeted: It was done to free the slaves. Mix blacks as the target of resentment in with all the other humiliations and resentment in a large area kept largely poor because it suited the industrial North ... Instead of shared prosperity in an area already riven before the war by deep economic divides but held together by a sense of cultural and geographic unity we got intensified scapegoating, and it's alive and well. "I'd be better off if not for ____________." When we have a problem, the first person we blame is somebody else, preferably of different ethnicity. Such a lovely legacy that was nurtured in Dixie and exported in the 20th century. Some even consider it a virtue.

The US reaped what it sowed. Lincoln's idea was betrayed and falsified (even if it's now considered wrong-headed). The kind of punishment some wanted was partially meted out. Minus the jackboots.

The field command applicable just for a specific area to divide land and hand out "40 acres and a mule" to help displaced people and jump-start food production became a myth that also bred resentment, a promise never made but which was considered broken. The freedom and condescending "uplift" that was promised never resulted in anything large-scale enough to amount to much.

Pyrrhic victory. The kind of forcible reconstruction the OP calls for just wasn't doable on so many levels. Even the German and Japanese examples fail to meet his sense of supremacy and vengefulness. The Japanese one is especially inappropriate, culturally speaking.

[Pooka Fey]

78. un bel poème, ça, en bas

I always appreciate the people that take the time to point out that world history, including US national history, is rarely simple. Great post.

[RobinA]

85. Thank You!

Sheesh, do people even read basic history before they spout?

[historylovr]

108. This. And to think some here would see that resentment intensified.

Because that, apparently, would have completely reunified the country and done away with today's state of affairs.

[Pooka Fey]

36. Agreed. If only they could have used the Allied example of 1918 as a template

You should really punish and forever cripple your defeated enemy, so a tragedy of that magnitude never happens again.

[linuxman]

41. LOL.

I hear you.

Seriously, this thread is one big hilarious stroke-fest by people who never cracked a history book in their lives.

And I thought the southerners were the ones with sour grapes.

[DustyJoe]

61. No Lie

The need for a time machine to send all these that now state coulda, shoulda, woulda back 150 years and draft them into the side of their choice. They would have had the war won in a week.

[Pooka Fey]

74. lol!

"stroke-fest"

[X_Digger]

60. You owe me a soda for that. ;) n/t

[NuclearDem]

67. The post-WWII plan would have worked just fine.

Funds to rebuild infrastructure, a Confederate equivalent of denazification forced on them, military occupation, and Confederate officers and leaders arrested and put on trial.

And as we know, Germany is an absolute hellhole right now.

[davidn3600]

51. So you wanted a 2nd civil war?

Because that's what would happen.

[TheOther95Percent]

55. It's Never Too Late for Reparations.

[Nye Bevan]

64. Absolutely. My ancestors were enslaved by the Holy Roman Empire.

Why shouldn't I get a big fat check from the Italian government?

[Pooka Fey]

73. lol

[MosheFeingold]

100. Me, too

The Romans tore down my people's Temple and drove us from our homes. Italy needs to pay.

And slavery in Egypt? Well, we're working on that with our Zionist sharks and vultures. And, of course, the stealing of shoes.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/06/uk-muslim-leader-asghar-bukhari-zionists-stole-my-shoe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-related_animal_conspiracy_theories

[pogglethrope]

56. In that case,

let's make a point of punishing the South now. What do you have in mind?

[ncjustice80]

57. Indeed, this is why Lincoln is one of the histories greatest disappointments to me.

We had those scumbag traitors by the cajones, and that fool just...let them go.

EVERY confederate officer of the rank of colonel or higher should have been hunted down, tried, and executed. All his holding seized and re-distributed to freed slaves.

ALL plantations seized, and handed over to freed slaves.

ALL civilian members of the southern parliament captured and exiled, with their property seized and re-distributed.

ALL members of the confederate army and government disenfranchised for life.

Any city that resisted, and Lincoln could unleash Sherman on them again.

A cesspool of slave-loving rascists, reconciliation with the South was a ridiculously naive idea. If Lincoln had fully committed, he could have ensured mostly African-American representatives and crushed American Apartheid; instead, he choked and failed. And now we have the mess we are in today.

[RobinA]

87. On What Basis

do you seize plantations? They were involved in a legal enterprise up until slavery became illegal.

[ncjustice80]

117. Slavery is a gross human rights violation, and I'm sure they continued operation during the war.

They provided material support to the slave-owning/slavery supporting southern terrorists. Those plantations should rightfully have been given over to the slaves who toiled to make them.

[1939]

88. Robert E. Lee

Lee's (or rather his wife's) plantation was confiscated by the federal government during the war and is now Arlington National Cemetery. Lee never owned his own home again. His wife and daughters lived in a rented house in Richmond and after the war, he and they lived in the Washington College (now Washington & Lee Uni) president's house until his death. After his death, the college was faced with the problem of evicting the widow which they solved by making Lee's son, Custis, president.

[MosheFeingold]

121. Sadly, we did not "have them by the cajones"

We had no way to occupy the South in any meaningful way.

You think Bagdad was bad? Try playing that at home.

There would have been no USA, as it would be destroyed from inside and invaded from out.

[seveneyes]

58. Really???

[Nye Bevan]

63. You have unintentionally showed a big reason why Lincoln was such a great man (nt)

[cherokeeprogressive]

65. Next maybe you'll give us your ideas about how every white person should be made to pay for their

treatment of North America's indigenous peoples.

Maybe those who agree with your OP could toss in a few ideas as well.

[Nye Bevan]

66. Ah, but that's completely different.

Because, well, because..... ummmm, because reasons.

[Doctor Who]

70. +1000. Nt

[Pooka Fey]

75. +1000

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

104. That's why we have a government.

Reparations to Native Americans should come out of collected taxes. Along with repatriation of Native lands currently held by the federal government.

[cherokeeprogressive]

109. But those taxes should only be paid by white people, right?

If people want "The South" treated like a monolith, then why should anyone but whites pay reparations?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

111. If you can figure out how to do it, fine.

Given that most of the wealth in the country is held by whites, though, you're probably pretty close to that anyway, just from general tax revenue.

[Freddie Stubbs]

81. You sound like a Radical Republican

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Republican

[ladjf]

91. "Radical Republicans". That's a group that Americans need to learn more about.

Then they was see that most current Republicans have the exact mindset , hence political strategies as the "Radical Republicans" of 1865 and beyond.

[DrDan]

82. and some in the south are accused of still fighting the war

[TheKentuckian]

84. While blacks were not elevated mostly because the north was also racist as fuck

[raccoon]

86. The freed slaves should have been given 40 acres and a mule. But they weren't. Why? Because the

powerful in the North really didn't give a flying toot about the freed slaves. After the slaves were freed, the
US did very little for them.

Most of the Northern whites, except for the abolitionists, didn't care a hoot in Hades about the freed slaves. And they
sure didn't want to be around them, either.

[Smarmie Doofus]

89. I think a lot of the rebel army was conscripted.

And JD's execution would have elevated him to martyr status. And belied Lincoln's theme of reconciliation.

Otherwise I generally agree. ESP about land redistribution. ( We ought to try that up here one of these days, btw)

[1939]

93. A trial of Davis

would have been welcomed by the southern lawyers because it would have allowed them to raise and test the constitutional issue of whether a state had the right to leave a voluntary union. This is why Lincoln (and many of the US leaders) hoped that Davis and his cabinet would escape and just disappear from history. It also led to the decision of not to bring Davis to trial.

[ladjf]

90. Sounds like you've been reading General Sherman's letters.

The Southerners paid dearly both during and after the War. If you are interested, do some INTERNET research.

[1939]

94. Within fiftteen years after 1865

Every major southern railroad had passed into northern ownership.

[ladjf]

96. ...not to mention huge amounts of Southern land passed into then hands of Northerner's ownership.

asdfasdfadsfasdfasdfadsfasdfadsfasdfasdfadsfadsf

[MosheFeingold]

98. On the other hand

The reason this nation did not descend into chaos and become easy prey for European powers is the South agreed not to fight a guerrilla war/terrorist war. Part of the gentleman's agreement to not fight such a war was agreement to "go easy."

Had they done that in any scale, the torn nation would have fallen apart and England, France, Germany, and Spain/Mexico would have taken over.

Just look at the handful of bandits that did keep fighting. They spread chaos.

[snooper2]

99. These OPs are getting dumber and dumber

[B2G]

106. And some say the SOUTH never got over the Civil War

Seems to be a lot of DUers haven't either.

Perhaps this is why some in the south haven't.

[ileus]

102. I say we start punishing them now.

[raging moderate]

103. It's the WEATHER! Northern refugee here, seeking to move from Illinois to Maryland.

My husband and I are actively trying to sell our house here in Northern Illinois, and we are looking for a comparable house in Maryland. Partly, we are trying to be near our daughter and her family (they fled several years ago). For all of us, it is these horrendous winters that have become more horrendous in recent years. I read that there is this change in the winds due to melting of some Arctic ice, so that some cold winds that used to swing down on Alaska are now free to swing down on us. Anyway, we both injured ourselves shoveling snow after each of these huge blizzards, and it took my husband months of medication and physical therapy to recover. He is 72, and I am 67. We figure we'd better get out of here before we get too old to do it. It has NOTHING to do with lower prices. Actually, we are avoiding the Deep South, because of the poor social conditions that lead to lower prices. I told my husband we might wind up paying unofficial "taxes" in such a place, in bail money for me, if I am present during one of these White Supremacist incidents.

[upaloopa]

105. Ah glad to see someone who is smarter than

President Lincoln. After all who needs a United States anyway.

[MohRokTah]

114. The problem was the Lincoln Assassination.

Lincoln had a plan that would have not been punishment but Reconstruction on a grand scale that would have provided for an economically sound South with equality for former slaves.

Then Booth shot him and Johnson took over, which completely fucked up everything.

[struggle4progress]

119. Everyone who fought that war is long dead. Those who made it to the 1913 Gettysburg reunion

were an elderly lot. Hardly any veterans lasted beyond the 1920s; a tiny handful made it into the 1950s

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth

[seveneyes]

124. Last night down by the grave ...

[DustyJoe]

126. What to do for atonement

What punishment needs to be meted out to the states that seceded from the union in 1861 that would make the current spate of 'off with their heads' crowd happy ?

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia according to detractors have not been punished enough in their eyes. Of course this was over 150 years ago and no living person was around back then, but that doesn't dim the clarion call for what ? Reparations, revenge ?? None of the offenders are alive.

Maybe they could kick these 11 states out of the 'United' States. But wait, That's already been done 154 years ago in reverse when the 11 states left the union.

So what to do to make these states residents atone for their sins and actions ? But wait, the current residents had nothing to do with any of it. So who to punish ?

Take their flags away, their memorials away, their memories away, It's the murican way.

Sheeeeesh ! Ridiculous !!

[Donald Ian Rankin]

128. I'm afraid I think that's nonsense.

Compare and contrast the results of the punitively harsh treaty of Versailles after WWI (result: the rise of Nazism and WWII) with the results of the Marshall plan after WWII (result: peace ever since, and the rise of a stable and democratic Germany).