If Grant laughs off nasty 1868 election even more, a Reconstruction which better sticks after U.S. Civil War?

[Dancing Fool]

So, a hole below the pig’s tail?

Come on, say it loud, say it proud! If you look up the pig’s asshole, there . . . there is a picture of General Ulysses S. Grant! Or, if you insist on being more polite, alright, the pig’s anus.

I’d say this counts as a pretty nasty campaign ad. And I’ve never heard about this before.

—> this chapter in the book is about the 1964 Johnson campaign ad of a girl holding a daisy and a mushroom cloud at the end. The text at the end says, “Vote for President Johnson on November 3.” Implying that he’s a stable and responsible person, and by implication Senator Goldwater isn’t.

I’ve heard the expression “in a pig’s eye.” Don’t know if this is related.

I’m going to assume that since I’ve never heard about the 1868 campaign being particularly nasty, to some extent President Grant did laugh this off. But if Republicans in general go further in direction of laughing it off, can you envision a better Reconstruction and especially a Reconstruction which takes and has longer-lasting civil rights and voting rights?

 

[Mikestone8]

I’m going to assume that since I’ve never heard about struction?1868 campaign being particularly nasty, to some extent President Grant did laugh this off. But if Republicans in general go further in direction of laughing it off, can you envision a better Reconstruction and especially a Reconstruction which takes and has long-lasted civil rights and voting rights?

Why should it make any difference either to the election or to Reconstruction?

Such an insult to the nations great hero will only discredit the Democrats, while the Republicans have no one with half Grant's popularity, so have nothing to gain by changing candidates.

 

[Dancing Fool]

or to Reconstruction?

Such

I think because laughing something off is a sign of confidence.

And with President Grant, the Republican Congress will no longer need 2/3’s to override vetoes. Makes a big difference, might be able to come up with Reconstruction approaches which are far more long-lasting.

PS But I think you might have something else in mind. And by the way, I often like to start with small things in history and branch out from there.

 

[Hippomotapus]

Doubt it

The main problem with Reconstruction is that after a while, you're going to have a hard time convincing Americans that they need to keep occupying the South. Into the 1870s and 1880s, there was also a lot of sentiment among Republicans as well that troops would be better used out in the West, to finish conquering the Native Americans

Combine that with the fact that a lot of Americans weren't super sympathetic to giving blacks equality, and with a lot of Radical Republicans dying off in the late 1860s and early 1870s, it was harder to maintain an occupation of the South, which is why Grant was wrapping up Reconstruction even before the 1876 election

A successful Reconstruction requires a much earlier POD that changes the South's economic and social system so that there is less involvement of poor whites (who were invested in slavery as a social, if not economic, system) and such that there is less "racism" against blacks

 

[Dancing Fool]

In 1868, Black suffrage was on the ballot

Every election season in the United States revolves around a set of issues—health care, foreign affairs, the economy. In 1868, at the height of the Reconstruction, the pressing issue was Black male suffrage.

americanhistory.si.edu

“ . . In 1868, at the height of the Reconstruction, the pressing issue was Black male suffrage. When voters went to the polls that November, they were asked to decide if and how their nation's democracy should change to include Black men, millions of whom were newly freed from slavery. It was up to voters to decide: should Black men be granted the right to vote?

“With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that this question was answered just two years later in 1870, with ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. . . ”

*******************************

But we all know that once Reconstruction ended, southern whites viewed the whole situation as a zero sum game and rolled it back.

 

[Mikestone8]

“ . . In 1868, at the height of the Reconstruction, the pressing issue was Black male suffrage. When voters went to the polls that November, they were asked to decide if and how their nation's democracy should change to include Black men, millions of whom were newly freed from slavery. It was up to voters to decide: should Black men be granted the right to vote?

Actually they were only voting on whether Blacks should vote in the former Confederacy.

The Republicans platform (para 2) stated that " - -the question of suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those states".

Needless to say they changed their minds once the election was safely won. The 15th Amendment was passed during the lame-duck session, when members no longer need fear for their seats. They weren't as naïve as some of their 21C admirers. They knew perfectly well that this was a vote-loser, and that the best they could hope for was that people would vote for them *despite* their support for it. .

 

[GDIS Pathe]

Reconstruction dies when the panic of 1873 ushers in a Democratic House that fights attempts to appropriate any funds for the Army in the south while Grant and the Republicans can't articulate a coherent economic response. That puts the GOP's in a fragile enough position where the electoral calculus of protecting Southern black voters, thereby gaining them votes in the South, but losing them in the North, loses them the next election. Ergo, reconstruction gets drawn down, first under Grant, and then Hayes, who has to deal with a Democratic Congress that won't countenance any funding of it anyways.

To prolong Reconstruction you need to avert or delay the panic of 1873, or have a Democratic President/GOP Congress when it hits so that the next Republican President can resuscitate it, but you run into the issue, as mentioned above, the willingness of Southern whites to disenfranchise black voters in most of the South outweighs the willingness of Northern white voters to protect said rights.

 

[Dancing Fool]

The main problem with Reconstruction is that after a while, you're going to have a hard time convincing Americans that they need to keep occupying the South. Into the 1870s and 1880s, there was also a lot of sentiment among Republicans as well that troops would be better used out in the West, to finish conquering the Native Americans

Ouch.

So unlike the post-World War II occupation of Germany and Japan in which a longer term occupation dovetails in with the Cold War, this is kind of the opposite.

All the same, I embrace the obstacles.

And I guess someone needs to say the boring ethical stuff. That if we had more respectfully treated Native Americans, we might be richer today in sheer economic terms, as well as in cultural options viewed as “normal,” maybe in a sense for all of us [although individual tribes are not going to be happy about idealistic young foreigners wanting to join them! But LGBT+ rights might have been viewed as normal as early as the 1920s. The Comstock era of prudery in the U.S. mail make never have gained traction, etc]

 

[Mikestone8]

So unlike the post-World War II occupation of Germany and Japan in which a longer term occupation dovetails in with the Cold War, this is kind of the opposite.

Whom would this earlier "cold war" have been waged *against*?

The rebuilding of Germany and japan worked because to turn against the WAllies would have left them to the tender mercies of Josef Stalin. There was no equivalent figure in the america of 1865 - no "worse" to keep the South clinging to a northern "nurse" - so the South need only keep resisting until the north got bored with it all.

 

[jmc247]

Actually they were only voting on whether Blacks should vote in the former Confederacy.

There was a significant divide even among major Republicans about the issue of the franchise for freed slaves. Lincoln supported a limited franchise for certain classes of freedmen. That was about where the northern public was at post war. It helps to get a better picture when you look at what major Republicans outside the radical camp like Gideon Welles Secretary of Navy were saying post war.

"I would not enslave the negro, but his enfranchisement is another question, and until he is better informed, it is not desirable that he should vote." "Is it politic, and wise, or right even...to elevate the ignorant negro, who has been enslaved mentally as well as physically, to the discharge of the highest duties of citizenship, especially when our Free States will not permit the few free negroes to vote?" "It is evident that intense partisanship instead of philanthropy is the root of the movement [for Freedman suffrage]. When pressed by arguments which they cannot refute, they turn and say if the negro is not allowed to vote, the Democrats will get control of the gov't."

Among elite Republicans post war outside the radical faction the mainstream view was close to that of Welles. Their view was education to free their minds from what they termed enslavement should come first.

Modern historiography has a tendency to warp the debate by presenting the radical faction as representing all northern views. North and South it was really divided into three. The radical position of universal male franchise post war. The moderate position which a number of major figures including Lincoln, Lee, and Secretary Welles staked out. The conservative position of no never which had some significant proponents in the North and South.

 

[Dancing Fool]

Reconstruction dies when the panic of 1873 ushers in a Democratic House that fights attempts to appropriate any funds for the Army in the south while Grant and the Republicans can't articulate a coherent economic response.

Yes, the “panic” of 1873. What we would now call a recession or even a depression. In fact, I think for a long while 1873 and the years following were called the “Great Depression” [basically until 1929 and following years eclipsed it!]

1873 and following was also called the “Long Depression,” because we recovered from this thing only slowly.

I feel I’m becoming medium good at economics, at least able to talk about it and ask questions. And I want to become even better because — Yes, absolutely! — economics have a big effect on the course of human events.

 

[Dancing Fool]

To prolong Reconstruction

I’m not asking to prolong Reconstruction.

I’m actually thinking hard and fast. Or almost with 20-20 hindsight, which is unfair of course, that radical Republicans + moderates get it right.

I’ll give you example of something from the “After 1900” board. The topic was the conspiracy mindset in American politics. For example in the 1950s that some Americans, notably the “John Birch Society” but also probably others, thought President Eisenhower was a “communist dupe” or that water fluoridation was a “communist plot.” And a higher percent of people believed this crap than is probably healthy for a democracy, but that’s life.

I made the point that most southern whites after the Civil War kept expecting the other shoe to drop. They expected end times almost in religious terms. And/or they expected a complete 180 degree inversion where they’re be “under of the heel” of black Americans or some similar nonsense. And when this didn’t happen, it fed into conspiracy theory that it was still in the future.

If instead, Reconstruction had confiscated land from disloyal planters and re-distributed it black families and white families on a 50-50 basis, that would have seemed positively genteel!

 

[Mikestone8]

If instead, Reconstruction had confiscated land from disloyal planters and re-distributed it black families and white families on a 50-50 basis, that would have seemed positively genteel!

Do you mean formerly disloyal planters?

Most of them, postwar, were willing enough to be loyal to the restored Union. They weren't keen on political equality for Blacks, but then neither were manypeople in the North. Going around stealing their property would promote disloyalty, not reduce it - quite apart from probably being unconstitutional.