AH Challenge: no confederate nostolgia
- Thread starter Straha
- Start date
That's not possible after 1865, I don't think. After the Civil War, the CSA is part of the heritege of the South, it's in the blood of the southerners. Nothing is going to change that, IMHO. Were the federal government to, say, crack down on the Confederate flag, it would be a more hidden feeling of nostalgia, but there nonetheless.
Straha said:
March 4, 1861...Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by a sniper as he takes the Oath of Office. Hannibal Hamlin is sworn in as President. The sniper is caught and revealed as an agent of the Confederate government. President Hamlin swears vengeance on those who slew "Honest Abe."
July 18, 1861...General Irvin McDowell inflicts a crushing defeat on the Confederate army under Generals Johnston and Beauregard at the Battle of Bull Run.
July 25, 1861...Union troops take Richmond. Jefferson Davis, the Confederate Cabinet, and most members of the Confederate Congress are captured while attempting to flee Richmond.
August 1861...Deprived of their national leadership, the secessionist states are thrown into turmoil. One by one, they surrender to the Union authorities. By September 1, the war is over.
September 1861...Trials are held of all Confederate national leaders, and military officers over the rank of Captain. The unanimous verdicts...guilty. The only sentence...death.
October 1861...Confederate leaders swing from gallows all over the South. President Hamlin orders Federal troops to occupy the South and place it under martial law. The Radical Republicans in Congress, with Hamlin's support, declare that the South is now an unorganized Territory, and that the former States which made it up no longer exist. The Supreme Court declares this illegal, and Hamlin has the Justices arrested.
November 1861...President Hamlin issues orders that all Southern men who served in Confederate armies, in local, state, or Confederate government positions, or who voted in favor of secession in any election (so far as that can be determined) be exiled from the country, with their families.
Thus, by the end of 1861, the only people left in the South are pro-Union scalawags, yankee troops, carpetbaggers, and black people. None of these is going to hold the Confederacy in any sort of nostalgia, especially with the ignominious defeat the Confederacy suffered in the war.
David S Poepoe
Banned
Actually your wrong. Firstly, the United States appears to become a dictatorship, so the lucky people would be those that are exiled. The nostalgia now would be for a group of people that unsuccessfully tried to rise up an oppressive Federal Government, since it appears likely that anyone who disagrees with the Federal Government will be deported. It also shreds the idea of US citizenship.
robertp6165 said:
Maybe if you change things here? Without 4 years of war, and with thousands of personal family ties, business relationships, friendships etc. binding north and south together, I don't think the US people or Congress would have stood for a policy of wholesale punishment. With the government of the Confederacy hanged the popular perception would be that Lincoln's death is avenged (and without the aura of the Great Emancipator, the killing of Lincoln, while a shock, will not have quite the same emotional resonance it had later). At this point, Hamlin has a chance of implementing emancipation on terms that Congress can swallow, but the wholesale expulsion of large numbers of former US citizens who are guilty of little more than fighting for their state (a concept many northerners would have understood) would likely lead to impeachment.
If, then, some form of settlement is found here, the Southern Secession will be remembered as a movement that disrupted the nation, cravenly assassinated a president of great promise, led to a terribly destructive war, fought ineptly, collapsed ignominiously, and eventually led to the speeding up of the one thing it was intended to prevent - the abolition of slavery. No heroic military legend. I doubt anyone would buy the 'States' Rights' line. And without four years of economic collapse, the destruction of the antebellum way of life will come slowly, as economic factors begin to bite. Only braindead hardcore racists could feel any nostalgia for the killers of Lincoln.
However - would any one member of the Confederate government or military (let alone all of them) have countenanced the killing of Lincoln? Never mind 'honourable Southron men' and all that, it sounds awfully twentieth century.
Brilliantlight
Banned
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
Pretty much. About the only people who have a great regard for the former Confederacy are hard core Southern racists which is made up largely of real losers.
Chris
Banned
Have the south lose first bull run. In the confusion and with mcCallon commanding, the north does not press its advantage at once. While waiting for the north to invade, the southern leaders pressgang troops and generally make themselves unpopular and the south disintergrates into a mess. Planters are blamed for unleashing the forces of their oppression accross the south and are generally hated. Blacks are either killed (to weaken the planters powers), freed by southerners or allowed to head north. In the mini- civil war within a civil war, the US troops are basically peacekeepers. The southern leaders are hung or expelled from the US by their fellows.
Chris
Chris
Mike Collins
Banned
How about this. While overrunning the South, Federal forces find the Confederacy was pursuing a "Final Solution" against Blacks. Unlikely, but it ought to do the trick!
Brilliantlight
Banned
Mike Collins said:
VERY unlikely, I am no fan of the Confederacy but neither Robert E Lee or Jefferson Davis was stark raving mad.
Chris
Banned
Practically, it a) won't happen, and b) most southern whites won't care. It won't happen because the planters would be unhappy to lose their prime ecomonic assert.
On the other hand, it would give the southern blacks a hard lession on why they need to stand up for themselves. Kinda like Isreal.
Chris
On the other hand, it would give the southern blacks a hard lession on why they need to stand up for themselves. Kinda like Isreal.
Chris
Mike Collins
Banned
Dont disagree at all. Like you said, the Confederate leaders werent butchers and killing off blacks would be the modern day equivalent of making the Fortune 500 companies destroy all of their computers. I was just putting up a possibility of how to curb any longing for the "Old Times".
Xen
Banned
Ok people, pay attention to detail. The original idea was to come up with a POD no later than 1865. In case you guys didnt realize it the Battle of Bull Run (both of the) and 1861 happened before 1865. Its not to complicated to follow the original instructions is it?
Simple, Abraham Lincoln doesnt relieve his guard at Fords Theater that fateful night in 1865. When Booth sees the guard he panics and flees, moving to San Francisco under an assumed name. When he dies in 1902 his diary is found by his son, and is published telling of his plan to assassinate the President.
Lincoln locks horn with Congress and the hard core radical republicans over reconstruction, but is ultimatley victorious, even after being impeached in 1867 (though he retains his office). Reconstruction goes much better, and there is less racial problems because Lincoln gives the blacks land in the plains. Immigrants start pouring into the South but are at odds with the religious nutcases because they are Orthodox or Catholic. Eventually they outnumber the hard core southerners and begin to influence the direction of southern governments, state and federal. The prejudice southerners either go west towards New Mexico and Arizona or northwards to Ohio and Indiana, leaving Dixe inhabited by immigrants and the children of immigrants.
By 2000 after nearly a century and a half of Eastern European/Irish immigrants being the backbone of the south, the midwestern states complain about the liberal south trying to lead the country into hell.
Simple, Abraham Lincoln doesnt relieve his guard at Fords Theater that fateful night in 1865. When Booth sees the guard he panics and flees, moving to San Francisco under an assumed name. When he dies in 1902 his diary is found by his son, and is published telling of his plan to assassinate the President.
Lincoln locks horn with Congress and the hard core radical republicans over reconstruction, but is ultimatley victorious, even after being impeached in 1867 (though he retains his office). Reconstruction goes much better, and there is less racial problems because Lincoln gives the blacks land in the plains. Immigrants start pouring into the South but are at odds with the religious nutcases because they are Orthodox or Catholic. Eventually they outnumber the hard core southerners and begin to influence the direction of southern governments, state and federal. The prejudice southerners either go west towards New Mexico and Arizona or northwards to Ohio and Indiana, leaving Dixe inhabited by immigrants and the children of immigrants.
By 2000 after nearly a century and a half of Eastern European/Irish immigrants being the backbone of the south, the midwestern states complain about the liberal south trying to lead the country into hell.
Brilliantlight said:
Where oh where is our intrepid administrator when trolls like this are put out? Or is it that he just jumps all over those who make comments he doesn't agree with?
robertp6165 said:
Actually, I found that remark, and Pasha's, a bit low too, but hey, who cares!
Funny thing is that you find a dozen guys in places like this who fawn over the Romans, bigoted slaveholders as they were, but people who find the Confederacy fascinating and somewhat romantic are considered idiots...
Regards and all!
- Bluenote.