Have a smoother Reconstruction Era

The one thing I'd ask then - how would you approach this education issue?

In a general sense, I mean. From the standpoint of Reconstruciton, even those who wanted the new amendments accepted were generally lukewarm at best on "equality" - so I imagine any such program in the world we have to work with would be relatively puny.

But it couldn't have hurt to try to cement that the new order was a step forward, instead of just an odious annoyance.

One of the major problems with "democracy" in the South, as I understand it, was that it was inherently limited to the select few. Uneducated non-landowners, regardless of race, were generally shafted. This partially fits in with (though is a perversion of) the basic idea that only the educated citizen can be a good citizen. An idea that was present in American republicanism from the outset, both in the North (the generally Federalist financial elite supported it) and the South (the planter elite supported it).

Now, if somehow the Radical Republicans can be convinced that reconstruction has to truly be about constructing a new America (a more perfect union, needed more than ever), one ideal way to do that would be to ensure that all (or more) citizens became educated citizens, instilled with republican values.

For the poor whites of the south, it would free them from the planter yoke and make them less vulnerable to bigotry stemming from a general lack of education. (After all, proven fact: the more educated a population is, the more tolerant it generally becomes.) For the black population, it would mean that they could truly be independent, rather than being forced to return to the plantation and work for a measly sum under still terrible conditions.

In both cases, it would mean that the power of the planter elite would be broken without actually having to fight the planters at all (or much, anyway). The poor, undeducated people they could previously use and exploit as foot soldiers and cannon fodder (be it in a war, or in a racist militia) would become less and less available to them. Economically and socially, educating the poor makes perfect sense as a way to break the power of a corrupt elite.

As for how to do it: they could just dig up a proposal orginally made by Thomas Jefferson in 1781(!), to build schools in every county, where all children would receive an education at public expense. The top 10% of every class would receive further education at a district school, and the top 10% of those would receive funds to attend university.

And make the schools mixed/integrated from the outset. Black kids and white kids in the same classroom. Yes, there will be trouble over that. Yes, there will be hatred and violence. And yes, that's where you have to be tough and crack down relentlessly.

But a generation or two later? The disease of racism will be fading away already, dying with the old generation. The South will be on its way to a healthy economy, instead of a slavocracy. And America will be the better for it.

You said it right in your previous post: Lincoln could have done it better. He was the kind of man who, when presented with an approach like this, would have gone for it. It might have even been enthousiastically embraced by the Radical Republicans. After all: this, too, is radicalism. Just of a different kind. :)
 
You said it right in your previous post: Lincoln could have done it better. He was the kind of man who, when presented with an approach like this, would have gone for it. It might have even been enthousiastically embraced by the Radical Republicans. After all: this, too, is radicalism. Just of a different kind. :)

And a very nice kind.

I don't know how smoothly it would work in the short run, but it would - even if only a slight preventive of racism - do the South a great deal of good.

Unfortunately, the Radicals seem to have neglected that. I don't think they were half as dark as they're painted - but "reconstruction" was never handled as part of a "more perfect union".

This is the kind of thing I think a Lincoln could have done - because he did want such a thing, and could handle men who were not on the same page as him.

Neither the Radicals or the "let's just forget about this" or many others had either that ability or that vision. And thus, OTL.
 
So your not for either of those things then? :confused:

I'm against hypocrisy and double standards of people who moralize about napalming brown people but strongly support the same kind of thing 1941-45.

If that makes Bush and Obama Satan, then it makes FDR Satan too.
 
One needs to have the Southern leadership, Confederate Veterans, and the white lower class at large accept that they were beaten and that they need to accept the laws that were being enforced.

Reconstruction was moral, it was the Confederate Resistance that was inherently immoral.

Even Lincoln would have been forced to act when faced with the fact that the Pro-Confederate population by and large, was completely disinterested in obeying the law.

Reconstruction can be smooth or successful, can't be both. If you want it to go fast you can have Lincoln who could placate the Radicals and not piss them off like Johnson, if you want it to be successful you'll need someone like Benjamin Butler or Henry Winters Davis as President. Radical, furiously anti-Planter Class, and willing to do anything to crush resistance to federal authority. Early after Lincolns assassination, some people thought that Jefferson Davis or other Confederate higher ups had a role in his death. We know now that it wasn't, but if it was or spun to be caused by them, that could be casus belli for a whole generation of Radical Reconstruction.

Yep. You need to destroy the planter elite, and redistribute their land to poor blacks and poor whites. A biracial alliance of the poor is the only way to make Reconstruction succeed.

There's a dystopian timeline here if someone with detailed knowledge of post-Civil War America cares to work it out.
You mean IOTL?
 
how would an approach similar to how the allies handled Nazi Germany post war work out?

basically execute/arrest the most fanatical leaders and other government officials/generals and engage in a thorough "de-confederization" or something to that affect?
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder

This could pose a problem with mass confiscation of land of the planter elite.

This is not to say this is an insurmountable problem. Eminent domain could be used or forfeiture of land could be part of a plea-bargain in treason trials.

Thing is, how would one decide who has committed treason and who hasn't? If you read the "made war on the US" portion of the Constitution strictly, you could charge every single Confederate soldier, even the draftees. One could limit it to the officer corps (which would have a larger proportion of landowner-types than the enlisted ranks) but we're still looking at an American version of the Bloody Assizes that could cause all sorts of problems.

There's also the matter of the terms of surrender signed at Appomattox and elsewhere that at the very least would preclude mass reprisals against the officer corps. If those are violated, nobody would ever trust the word of an American general again and make future wars that much bloodier.

If you limited it to the high leadership of the Confederate government at both the federal (i.e. Jeff Davis) and state level, that'd be easier legally and politically, but would it result in enough land to "buy off" enough poor whites to prevent Redemption or the later imposition of Jim Crow?

(The two aren't synonymous--according to a history book I found in a teacher friend's classroom while visiting, the rich whites allowed blacks to vote to some degree or another in order to use vote fraud in the black parts of town to keep power for themselves. It was an older book, but the Wikipedia article on Redemption confirms that blacks still voted for many years after 1877 and the last black Congressman from the South resigned in 1901.)

Something to consider. I don't know enough about the pre- and post-war South to comment intelligently on land ownership patterns. The state Confederate leadership of each state would produce more loot than the federal leadership I would surmise.
 
In order to make this work, you'll need to get rid of Andrew Johnson or neuter him to the point he'll go along with the Radical Republicans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson#Vice_President

His becoming the VP was not necessarily foreordained, although it would be very useful to Lincoln to have a Southerner and a Democrat as a VP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Andrew_Johnson

This presents another opportunity, although it is far enough after the end of the war that it gets trickier to impose penalties on the Confederate elite.
 
If the South had left the Union they are then 'conquered provinces' with the conquerer having the right to adjust social relations

If the South is seen as not having legally left the Union then any one who served the Confederacy was a traitor, and anything short of mass hangings could be portrayed as mercy.

This assumes action starting in the immediate aftermath of April 1865, not letting the old regime retake charge.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
For a lasting reconstruction you need

For a lasting reconstruction, you need the "Fusion" movement of the (historical) 1880s-1890s too come into being in the 1870s, and to be sustainable. One way to do this is have Lincoln survive, a smooth transfer to Grant in 1868, and then a smooth transfer to a Republican with "Fusion" tendencies in 1876. The obvious candidate would be Howard.

"Fusion" (historically) amounted to an alliance between the Republicans and the Populists, including crossing racial lines in places like North Carolina and Virginia (Mahone's Readjusters, for example).

The interesting element in this is that along with the cross-racial element, there was also a significant economic/class-based element - small farmers and townsmen, along with some aspiring industrialists - who were trying the break the hold the planter classes still had on southern politics at the state and federal levels.

Especially if the Civil War is "milder/shorter" (as yet to be defined) than historically, there is a possibility that a segment of the white electorate in the South could respond strongly to an argument that "the old guard got us into this mess" and something like Fusion could work out, in combination with emancipation and suffrage for African Americans who presumably would remain loyal Republicans.

Add to the Populist, Progressive, and Labor strains in American politics in other regions, and the possibility of a political spectrum divided into more than two major parties is a possibility by the end of the Nineteenth Century is possible.

One could see:

1) an urban working class party centered on Catholic immigrants and machine politics ("Democratic Party");
2) an urban, middle-income to wealthy party centered on Protestant "natives" and "reform" politics, heavily backed by the financial classes, and with a gold-backed currency as a central point in their platform ("Republican Party");
3) a rural/small town party centered on white supremacy (in the south) and anti-Catholic factions (elsewhere), but with a free silver/greenback economic element ("Populist Party");
4) a rural/small town party focused on (grudging) racial equality (although probably separate but equal in the South), also with a silver/greenback element ("Progressive Party")

Factions with different focuses on civil rights for AA males, woman's suffrage, and host of "Progressive" issues (direct elections, referendra and initiatives, civil service reform, etc.) would certainly be likely.

Basically, 1) are the historical urban Democrats of the period; 2) are the Gilded Age Republicans (more or less); 3) is a Southern Democrat/Populist mix; and 4) is a Populist/Progressive/Radical Republican mix.

There are probably some Socialists wandering around on the "left", as well as some "revanchist" type nationalists/militarists on the "right" (north and south) because of a "different" Civil War.

It would make for an interesting departure for American politics inthe early Twentieth Century, certainly.

Best,
 
If the South had left the Union they are then 'conquered provinces' with the conquerer having the right to adjust social relations

If the South is seen as not having legally left the Union then any one who served the Confederacy was a traitor, and anything short of mass hangings could be portrayed as mercy.

1. The Union wouldn't even concede that, for the precedent it set.

2. There's still that matter of rule of law.
 
The supreme law of the United states clearly defines making war on the United states as treason

It also says that

No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
 
The supreme law of the United states clearly defines making war on the United states as treason

The supreme law also prohibits bills of attainder. The forfeiture provision Elfwine cited specifically could be problematic if you want to confiscate the rebel leadership's land.

Now, if you want to hold mass treason trials and then have plea-bargains on condition of ceding lands, that might be one way to do it. However, the Taney Court is still around and they might claim this was a bill of attainder de facto if not de jure.
 
However, the Taney Court is still around and they might claim this was a bill of attainder de facto if not de jure.
No it isn't. However, we have the problem that "no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted." So, the land would have to return to the planter's heirs after his death... unfortunately.
 
Fines are legal...

Fines are clearly legal--so fining someone a set percentage of their net worth would be legal, as far as I can see. Otherwise, every fine collectded through our nation's history would need to be refunded to the heirs.

And--plea bargaining a hanging to a fine should be constitutional. If someone contests the fine afterwards, simply say, "OK--the plea bargain wasn't allowed--the initial penalty shall be reinstated. Hang him!"
 
Fines are clearly legal--so fining someone a set percentage of their net worth would be legal, as far as I can see. Otherwise, every fine collectded through our nation's history would need to be refunded to the heirs.

And--plea bargaining a hanging to a fine should be constitutional. If someone contests the fine afterwards, simply say, "OK--the plea bargain wasn't allowed--the initial penalty shall be reinstated. Hang him!"


Alternately, although without the satisfaction of "for treason", confiscate land for nonpayment of taxes. And then don't sell it back in large parcels.

OTL failed for reasons discussed elsewhere at the latter, but it would be a better idea than trying to convict someone of treason by the US standard required.
 
The OTL South WAS a cesspit of racist militias. Making it clear that terrorism (and there is no other word for their tactics) would not be tolerated would have gone a lot further than "Wait, we still have troops down there outside coastal garrisons?"


But very few after about 1870.

The US Army rapidly dropped back to peacetime levels, and by 1876 numbered only about 27,000 all told, of whom about 3,000 were in the South. Given that the region contained something like a million Confederate veterans, the outcome of this conflict was kind of predictable.
 
But very few after about 1870.

The US Army rapidly dropped back to peacetime levels, and by 1876 numbered only about 27,000 all told, of whom about 3,000 were in the South. Given that the region contained something like a million Confederate veterans, the outcome of this conflict was kind of predictable.

That's not even enough to watch South Carolina alone (say). If Hays was offered a chance at support in exchange for reducing that to zero, he was giving up nothing.
 
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