I agree that it’s not going to happen in reconstruction america, I am just pushing back against the claim that multiple winning parties are inevitable in democracies.
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Reconstruction: The Second American Revolution - The Sequel to Until Every Drop of Blood Is Paid
- Thread starter Red_Galiray
- Start date
Yes, pretty much.
AIUI most Blacks (and many Whites) were poor sharecroppers *during* Reconstruction as well as after it, and I can't see much indication that this was going to change even if Reconstruction went on longer.
I should note that the premise of this story is successful reconstruction, not a longer one.
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Kinda hard to be sharecroppers when the land has been confiscated from the planter class and redistributed to said poor blacks and whites
An ASB situation. The most votes that idea ever got in Congress was 37 out of 163 cast. IOW only one fourth even of the *Republicans* voted for it. it. It was never even remotely likely.
IIRC, the confiscations in this timeline were a wartime measure owing to the old planters being traitors, dead, fled, or some combination of all three. Keep in mind this civil war was a more radical affair than OTL as well.
Have you read the previous instalment of this series ? I'm getting an impression that you have not.
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Maybe you should actually read the TL before throwing out ASB accusations
I get the feeling you don't realize this is a sequel to another ATL Civil War thread where the Civil War went rather differently, with things like the Union congress having to flee DC to Philadelphia, war-time measures resulting in seizure of large amounts of land and immediate redistribution, Lincoln both being alive and never having Johnson as his VP, and the Confederate President (in this case, John Breckenridge) being couped by planter aristocracy loyalists angry that he was reaching out to accept terms.
This is a whole other ball game, sir.
Thebattles themselves have been quite ferocious, too; a couple hundred thousand more deathswith the war lasting a little bit longer and more scorched earth tactics on the part of the Confederates as well, leading to greater famine in the winter of '65.The number of total deaths resulting from war, disease, famine, etc. may be twice what it was OTL when the nation as a whole is considered, with of course the South suffering a good deal more of the extra deaths than the North.
LIncoln begins to be radicaplized in 1854 with the assassination of Senator Trumbull; Lincoln becomes his replacement,BleedingKansas becomes Be-out Kansas as a couple rival Constitutions exist, Maryland secedes (as noted) and Kentucky is flat-out bipolar in how it handles the war, having its own Civil War like Missouri OTL. The draft riots are worse in 1863 and Tammany Hall is wrecked, and the 13th Amendment, which is passed months early, has sharper language and more teeth.
Oh, and that doesn't count the fact that, despite the famine, the planters still try to keep the cotton coming, even though you can't eat cotton.
LIncoln begins to be radicaplized in 1854 with the assassination of Senator Trumbull; Lincoln becomes his replacement,BleedingKansas becomes Be-out Kansas as a couple rival Constitutions exist, Maryland secedes (as noted) and Kentucky is flat-out bipolar in how it handles the war, having its own Civil War like Missouri OTL. The draft riots are worse in 1863 and Tammany Hall is wrecked, and the 13th Amendment, which is passed months early, has sharper language and more teeth.
Oh, and that doesn't count the fact that, despite the famine, the planters still try to keep the cotton coming, even though you can't eat cotton.
I am SOO excited for this. As much as I liked the last thread, politics and economics are more my thing.
I cackled when I read this. Seeing those traitors get what they deserve brings a tear to my eye. It’s a travesty that, for the crime of literal treason, they received no punishment IOTL.
I could something like that, a romanticization of poor Southern Whites and apologia for Breckinridge, that says that they didn't do anything wrong while at the same time admitting that the cause of the Confederacy was horrible. Similar to those who say they are just military fans of Rommel but don't care for that Hitler fella.
I wanted the question to be ambiguous in-universe, as well, since it would be a pretty crucial for interpreting Lee. So there is no firm answer on my part either.
It's a possibility. Corruption, after all, is not inherent to any race - many Black politicians were known for being corrupt too during the OTL reconstruction, and a more successful one can only create opportunities for Black party bosses and robber barons.
Certainly, Unionism will be strengthened by the disastrous consequences of the coup. This Union is also far more aware of the need to cultivate and reward White Unionism, as we'll see soon.
There probably will still be some carpetbaggers. A lot of them came South in view of political office rather than becoming planters, and land redistribution isn't 100% thorough - there are loyal planters who kept their lands, supposedly loyal ones that had it returned due to giving up in time, Northerners who managed to snatch some acres first, and land that is being sold instead of confisctaed and thus can be acquired by Northerners. We'll soon see the details and statistics on land redistribution.
Of course, but it took some time for Grant to take such steps, and his efforts weren't as fruitful as they could have been thanks to Johnson.
The Union League, National Guard, and Constabulary all will be big political issues later. You're spot on regarding the most likely lines of debate. But they're needed, since the Regular Army can't prop up the Reconstruction State permanently. I was also aware of the dire lack of cavalry and how the dissolution of those units impacted Reconstruction. I can see the uptick in guerrilla warfare and irregular "marauding" resulting in cavalry units being kept for more time, but as time advances the costs of occupation are going to start bothering Northerners more and more.
I don't agree with you.
Again, if the only concern was assuring the presence of loyal men in power without regard for Black civil rights, why pass acts such as the Civil Rights Act and 14th amendment? When the Congress finally opened its December session, in fact, it quickly rejected Radical proposals to sweep away Johnson's governments, and instead insisted on measures to guarantee some protection to Black citizens. The Civil Rights Act says nothing about suffrage qualifications or who may be elected; the 14th amendment has equality under the law as its cornerstone and provides for no widespread disenfranchisement. Indeed, if the paramount concern was excluding rebels, wouldn't you expect an amendment with harsh penalties for them and Republican division on the issue of civil rights? Instead, you have the opposite - unity in regards to equality under the law, and divisions when it comes to disenfranchisement.
The admission of Tennessee after it ratified the amendment certainly implied, to a degree, that if a State were to accept legal equality it would have been admitted. Yet Johnson's governments rejected the amendment. It was only after this that Republicans finally coalesced around destroying Johnson's governments and imposing Black suffrage. Had they accepted the amendment, there was a real possibility they would have been admitted back into the Union with no Black suffrage and former rebels still in power. Hell, you quote Johnson's own concerns, yet he also declared "the work of restoration" complete and, had he got his way, Stephens would have been seated.
You also commit a mistake by seeing the exclusion of rebels and the protection of Black civil rights as unrelated, even opposite, issues. Republicans wished to protect Black rights because they were their most steadfast allies and the key to excluding rebels; they wished to exclude rebels because they knew they would not treat Black citizens with justice. For Republicans, these goals were inexorably intertwined. Otherwise, the Federal government could have adopted a model of Reconstruction that like of Maryland and Missouri - extensive disenfranchisement to maintain power with small White Unionist populations and with no Black voters, for they were not enfranchised. Faced with the conditions in the South, the Republican response was initially only requiring them to afford Black citizens equality under the law. It was only after it was clear that they wouldn't that Republicans came to regard Black suffrage as a viable possibility. Otherwise, the first bill of the Congress would have been a measure disenfranchising rebels and saying nothing about civil rights - instead, it did the opposite, it protected civil rights while saying nothing about disenfranchisement.
Finally, the disabilities on the 14th amendment were mostly lifted in order to steal the thunder of the Liberal Republicans and deprive them of a cudgel for the upcoming elections, and them being lifted did not represent in and of itself an abandonment of civil rights. Have you heard of the Civil Rights Act of 1875? Passed after these measures, and being widely recognized as a measure that lost Republicans significant support in some areas. Likewise, the Republican Party did maintain the fight for the South for a few years. President Hayes had a significant stand-off with the Democratic Congres over the issue of Army funding, while the last gasp of Reconstruction occurred during the Benjamin Harrison administration, where several "Force Bills" to provide for enforcement of civil rights and Federal oversight of elections were proposed. The North could have done more, and by 1876 it had largely lost the will to fight, but it had fought for over 12 years for a just settlement of the war. You saying that they never even tried and never ever supported Black rights is, frankly, nonsensical.
I simply don't understand how you can see a government passing laws to ensure equality under the law, Black suffrage, and Black civil rights, as part of a peace settlement, only to see those measures nullified by concerted terrorism and fraud, and declare that the government won. I repeat once again, if the only concern was to ensure free soil for the territories and the passage of railroad and tariffs bills, there was absolutely no need to overturn Johnson's governments and attempt to secure and enforce Black rights. This would all have been possible, heck, easier, just by accepting a loyal yet unreconstructed South. Was the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and that of 1875, the Ku Klux Klan Act, the 14th and 15th amendments, and all other Reconstruction measures passed just for shit and giggles? Why, to achieve your terms of peace, the North didn't even have to destroy slavery - free soil for the territories and lowering Southern representation would have sufficed. Likewise, I sincerely don't understand how you can say that the Black situation after Reconstruction was not worse than that during it. They certainly were better off than a slave, but they also remembered a time when Black people could vote and hold office and the State governments were on their side during labor disputes.
Bitterness still lingered over the federal government’s failure to distribute land or protect blacks’ civil and political rights. “The Yankees helped free us, so they say,” declared eighty-one-year old former slave Thomas Hall, “but they let us be put back in slavery again.” Yet coupled with this disillusionment were proud, vivid recollections of a time when “the colored used to hold office.” Some pulled from their shelves dusty scrap-books of clippings from Reconstruction newspapers; others could still recount the names of local black leaders. “They made pretty fair officers,” remarked one elderly freedman; “I thought them was good times in the country,” said another. Younger blacks spoke of being taught by their parents “about the old times, mostly about the Reconstruction, and the Ku Klux.” “I know folks think the books tell the truth, but they shore don’t,” one eighty-eight-year old former slave told the WPA. 11 For some blacks, such memories helped to keep alive the aspirations of the Reconstruction era. “This here used to be a good county,” said Arkansas freedman Boston Blackwell, “but I tell you it sure is tough now. I think it’s wrong—exactly wrong that we can’t vote now.” “I does believe that the negro ought to be given more privileges in voting,” echoed Taby Jones, born a slave in South Carolina in 1850, “because they went through the reconstruction period with banners flying.”
Just see at how Black circumstances changed as a result of the so-called "Redemption." Taxation turned regressive, as the new States lightly taxed planters while demanding all sorts of taxes, excises, and patents on laborers and farmers. The Reconstruction-era lien crop laws, which secured first payment for the laborers, were similarly reversed, resulting in first lien for the landowners. Democrats destroyed the South Carolina land commission, depriving many Black farmers of their land, and dismantled the public education systems Republicans had created, affecting Black people disproportionately. Vagrancy, anti-enticement, and prison labor laws became commonplace, limiting Black rights and opportunities. And they all were faced by hostile all White sheriffs, judges, and juries, all but ensuring that injustice would be dealt and that they would have no recourse against White oppression. There's a reason why the 1890-1920 era is called the "Nadir" - because things were better before. Ask a Black person in 1920 if he'd rather have his grandfather's place as a slave. He'd say no. Now ask him if he wanted Reconstruction, an era of Black rights and Federal enforcement that still lived on Black popular memory, and he'd say yes.
Thank you! Glad to have you on board!
It is true that Northerners had abandoned the effort, deserting Black Americans, but it isn't true as you claim that they never cared or that it was never regarded as an important thing. And I don't know what to say to you if you don't see a South where Black people were voting freely and holding office and having real hopes of a better future as "something incredible."
There was, as I explained a few messages ago. Ask yourself, if there was no substantial difference between Republican rule with Black votes in 1870 and Democratic rule with Jim Crow in 1890, why engage in a systematic campaign of terror to topple Reconstruction? There was a real difference.
Even ignoring the probable (evident I dare say) fact that you haven't read the first part of the TL, I must say that to dismiss land redistribution like that is foolish. While most Republicans, including Lincoln, were wary of large scale land redistribution, they included the option in their Confiscation Acts, approved of Sherman's Forty Acres and a Mule orders, and there was a significative lobby in its favor. You don't seem to realize how fundamentally Johnson shifted the political debate in a conservative direction - due to the need for compromise, most radical measures had to be dropped. For example, the original Freedman's Bureau bill Johnson vetoed included provisions for further confiscation, allowed Black people to hold the "Shermanland" farms under a "possessory" title for three years, and made the Bureau permanent. All this was killed by Johnson's veto, because Republicans did not have enough votes to apply these radical measures over his veto. Indeed, several generals had already started to settle freedmen, and General Howard, the head of the Bureau, ordered in his circular 13 to set aside 40 acres for Black families and insisted that Johnson's pardons did not restore already distributed land. Johnson had to overrule him. All that is needed for land redistribution is less desire to conciliate the planters, and stronger sympathy for the freedmen. Something not imposible to envision.
A new and better era, indeed! Thanks for your comment!
Certainly, they are more my thing as well
And yes, it's infuriating how IOTL they received no punishment yet bitched and moaned for decades about the supposed cruelty of Reconstruction. At least men like Hampton and Early won't be around to spread their lies - they are hanging together instead!
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For what it’s worth, my suspicion is that he would have backed the junta. He was a Virginian “nationalist” at heart judging by the decisions he made IOTL and definitely a firm racist; Breckinridge from that perspective was “selling out the cause” of slavery and Virginia stronk near the end, and so Toombs and his gang of idiots would have been the right horse to back.
EDIT: not to mention that I always took Lee as a bit of a political coward? He wouldn’t have made the brave but correct decision to stand up to the new status quo of the junta.
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That's why I used the Frank Robinson example, a superstar who was given away for absolutely nothing or almost that. So I said that they did have something substantial in voting rights and officeholders.
His point about the fact most were still sharecroppers is valid in that the right to vote and black office holders in 1870 had not totally helped them rise to a level where they could vote themselves out of these conditions. That, however, is simply an example of why Frederick Douglass said that for true equality to exist, Black people needed equality on 3 levels, political, economic, and social.
I agree that they had the first. The last was slowly changing.
The second was something that needed a consistent government that would vote for measures which would decrease planter power and increase black rights and economic ability. They didn't have time to cement that.
TTL, the second will be easier because the planter class has been devastated much more thoroughly. He and I have disagreements about how easily it could have happened or whether it could have happened at all in OTL, but those are not related to TTL anyway.
But if he is arguing that political was not achieved in 1870 then I'm as confused as you.
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Many planters were old Whigs and had either opposed secession or accepted it only with reluctance. Quite a few became Republicans during Reconstruction, notably James L Alcorn, the first Republican Governor of Mississippi. If anything they were *easier* to reconcile than their smaller neighbours.
Because they did not see it as loyal.
The election of a whole slew of high ranking Rebs naturally raised doubts about this, to the point that even Andrew Johnson expressed concern. In fact they needn't have worried, as even the ex-Rebs had accepted reunion and were no longer a menace, but naturally this took time to become clear.
Why did they need to decrease it?
Many planters were old Whigs and had either opposed secession or accepted it only with reluctance. Quite a few became Republicans during Reconstruction, notably James L Alcorn, the first Republican Governor of Mississippi. If anything they were *easier* to reconcile than their smaller neighbours.
Because they did not see it as loyal.
The election of a whole slew of high ranking Rebs naturally raised doubts about this, to the point that even Andrew Johnson expressed concern. In fact they needn't have worried, as even the ex-Rebs had accepted reunion and were no longer a menace, but naturally this took time to become clear.
Care to elaborate on your statements on the Planters and how it was not them who you say were the most "guilty" class per se during Secession and the subsequent Civil War (that dubious honor falling to the "small slaveholders" in your opinion)? Though even if they weren't, the slavocratic nature of the Confederacy and their actions towards their chattel did make them the most obvious targets for "who to blame for this recent mess", especially with the junta here.
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Honestly, I think Red should make a summary of the first part of the TL for new readers to avoid anything like this.
I don't think so.
Perhaps, but I still think he's out of line. It's become clear that he's missing context and he's not taking the time to seek it out despite being pointed by several people towards it.
@Mikestone8 There's an entire TL justifying and explaining every single thing you're complaining about in this TL. Until Every Drop of Blood Is Paid: A More Radical American Civil War . Before you start complaining about this part, consider that Red took the the time to essentially write a full length prologue to the TL he actually wanted to write, which is this one.
Do him the courtesy of at least skimming the previous one before coming at him.
Edit: Changed link to reader mode.
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