One of the sources of many modern political woes in the United States is that Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War ended before the South was reconstructed.
This could have, and probably should have, been handled differently. Some things that we should have done instead:
* Execute all of the Confederate regime's elected officials, senior political appointees ("officers" of the regime's government), judges, military officers and spies for treason.
* Execute all pro-slavery clergy.
* Permanently remove the right to vote of every Confederate government official, every every Confederate solider who was a volunteer, and everyone who had ever owned a slave as an adult. Make it a crime for any of these persons to bear arms.
* Seize all real property and all other significant property (including all firearms and military equipment) of the families of everyone executed due to these Reconstruction mandates, everyone whose right to vote was lost, everyone who served voluntarily in the Confederate military and died, and every slave owner. Use this seized property for reparations to the freed slaves and exiled Native American tribes. Reparations for former slaves would be in a concept something alone the lines of "40 acres and a mule" affording freed slaves the resources necessary to survive as subsistence freeholder farmers.
* Seize all property of pro-slavery churches and pro-slavery or pro-confederacy political or civic organization. Use this seized property as part of the funding for integrated, universal, free public educational institutions and libraries.
* Convert all states that seceded to unorganized federal territories eligible for readmission to the United States as states only when they we sufficiently reconstructed. These would be under military rule for a decade or two in any given place before territorial self-rule subject to Congressional direction and a federally appointed territorial governor would be permitted.
In this kind of scenario, the South might have actually reconstructed itself.
Except that down deep, every white person believed blacks were inferior.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrew, I assume this was somewhat tongue in cheek. Executing folks for legal actions or post hoc thought crimes would have been so far beyond the pale that you are talking about a different universe. Oh, or maybe the USSR or Communist China. We can see now, how that is working out in a post USSR world.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Guy
2nd comment, I suppose you are rereading Foner's "Reconstruction". I can't think of any book that made me stomp around the house and consider punching walls so much. The shear stupidity and malice on display makes you lose your emotional control and love for man. However, coming to the conclusion that more inhumanity and violence is the answer, just shows how intractable the problem is.
ReplyDeletePs. Is this the 2nd edition? Is it significantly different than the 1st edition?
@Guy
ReplyDeleteTreason wasn't legal. Not really tongue in cheek although obviously moot. And, it wasn't inspired by reading anything in particular.