Is it possible to have a reconstruction where blacks have full voting rights, no jim crow, less segregation and racial violence?
Is a successful Reconstruction ASB?
- Thread starter sirjackalot
- Start date
Sure, if you use mind control, or other extremely harsh measures.
No racial violence at all? Unlikely. But full voting rights could be done, in many places it was done and then allowed to recede under local push-back.
Much less racial violence then in OTL, like a 50% reduction, less KKK, stuff like that? Is that ASB?
Less KKK could be possible with better enforcement of the KKK act. The Ku Klux Klan actually became quieter as it was being hunted down at the end of Reconstruction, only to reemerge later after Reconstruction ended.
50% less might be a bit much but certainly less KKK is possible.
The key things are land redistribution and it happening early. In the spring of 1865 the South was beaten and basically knew it. Pretty well the whole World was shocked and outraged at Lincoln's murder. A President could have made pardon for treason condtional on accepting the full freedom of former slaves and their politcial and property rights and in the case of basically the planter class their near total expropiation, possibly their exile from the rebel states and their not interfering with the politics of those lands.
The vast majority of white Southerners would not lose land. Those who did would be out of the way.
It would also have been smart to push the idea that the war was caused by the Planter class.
For sure there would be some resistence. However the newly created loyal governments would have access to a National Guard consisting of former USCT forces.
Another helpful move might be a stronger consitutional protection of voting rights for former slaves and their descendants in the former rebel states.
I think that it is likely that there would be 2 way migration. African Americans from the North and the border states moving to the lands where their rights are guaranteed. Maybe half a million people who really cannot tolerate equal rigths would leave.
By the 1880s it would become as hard to find someone who 'really supported slavery and sessession' as it would be to find a German in the 1960s who really supported Hitler
The vast majority of white Southerners would not lose land. Those who did would be out of the way.
It would also have been smart to push the idea that the war was caused by the Planter class.
For sure there would be some resistence. However the newly created loyal governments would have access to a National Guard consisting of former USCT forces.
Another helpful move might be a stronger consitutional protection of voting rights for former slaves and their descendants in the former rebel states.
I think that it is likely that there would be 2 way migration. African Americans from the North and the border states moving to the lands where their rights are guaranteed. Maybe half a million people who really cannot tolerate equal rigths would leave.
By the 1880s it would become as hard to find someone who 'really supported slavery and sessession' as it would be to find a German in the 1960s who really supported Hitler
raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
It's ASB without major advances in western ideological thought that legitimize socialist and redistributive ideas more broadly, while happening to leave the politics that the led to the outbreak, course, and outcome of the Civil War as we knew it, intact.
Seems like tough trick, and a recurring allohistorical obsession to bend the arc of history in a desired way.
Governments and practical did not believe in class warfare qua class warfare in the 19th century, nor in pure taxpayer subsidized property giveaways. Government at times certainly confiscated properties for unpaid debts and other penalties, and this could have been expanded to cases of treason more often, but, there was never a model of giving said property free and clear to those lowest on the socioeconomic ladder. Governments always sought revenue and would put property up for auction for cash freedmen would not have. Governments did not have precedent for peacetime progressive income taxes either in the 19th century.
Loyalist land that was confiscated during the ARW was not handed out to members of society based on equity, need, leveling or any other redistributive principle, it was redistributed through the process of auctions and connections and lawyering and such. A mere 80 years later in the 1860s, notions of land reform like Russia circa 1917 or mid-20th century China did not exist in the Anglosphere.
Nor was there was any precedent in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence to declare any particularly defined socioeconomic class of people as forfeit of their property rights solely based on their class affiliation. All individual property owners would have some right to contest property seizures in court
Seems like tough trick, and a recurring allohistorical obsession to bend the arc of history in a desired way.
Governments and practical did not believe in class warfare qua class warfare in the 19th century, nor in pure taxpayer subsidized property giveaways. Government at times certainly confiscated properties for unpaid debts and other penalties, and this could have been expanded to cases of treason more often, but, there was never a model of giving said property free and clear to those lowest on the socioeconomic ladder. Governments always sought revenue and would put property up for auction for cash freedmen would not have. Governments did not have precedent for peacetime progressive income taxes either in the 19th century.
Loyalist land that was confiscated during the ARW was not handed out to members of society based on equity, need, leveling or any other redistributive principle, it was redistributed through the process of auctions and connections and lawyering and such. A mere 80 years later in the 1860s, notions of land reform like Russia circa 1917 or mid-20th century China did not exist in the Anglosphere.
Nor was there was any precedent in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence to declare any particularly defined socioeconomic class of people as forfeit of their property rights solely based on their class affiliation. All individual property owners would have some right to contest property seizures in court
Reconstruction was successful in OTL, what people are really asking about when this inevitably comes up is whether Radical Reconstruction is possible.
raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
Darn right- No second rebellion, no second secession.... ever. A far cry from Hungary, Poland, Ireland, Iraqi Kurdistan, Eritrea, South Sudan, Croatia, Ukraine, Korea ---- all lands of multiple rebellions or secession attempts, most eventually successful.
Arguing that the US government did not believe in property redistribution immediately after it engaged in the largest de-commodification of property (in persons, specifically) in history until 1917 seems logically inconsistent. Especially when that same government was simultaneously engaging in land redistribution with conquered indigenous land through the Homestead Act.
I agree though that to get a real Reconstruction you need to permanently destroy the planter class. Ironically, this might be better done with a longer Civil War rather than a shorter one. I’m not sure how much longer the war can go - ‘66? ‘67? - but every burned down plantation and southern city strengthens the position of the Union and the formerly enslaved peoples compared to the planter class.
I agree though that to get a real Reconstruction you need to permanently destroy the planter class. Ironically, this might be better done with a longer Civil War rather than a shorter one. I’m not sure how much longer the war can go - ‘66? ‘67? - but every burned down plantation and southern city strengthens the position of the Union and the formerly enslaved peoples compared to the planter class.
Thomas1195
Banned
Have the Civil War going the way of the English Civil War but withou a Pride's Purge would help.
raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
Gimme a break, in no country where slave or serf emancipation occurred were formerly bonded laborers given all their owners’ former land in a single generation- except where they conquered it themselves- Haiti.
Yes Reconstruction can be more successful. But it’s a delicate thing. If you push to hard the whole house of cards comes down. Imo the best results would be received if Lincoln was still president and he could successfully persuade some high profile confederates to be the spokesmen for the message. Get people who are respected in the south and know how to talk to the people in the south to get them on board at least partially. I think this combined with a harder crackdown on the KKK you could reduce the violence to a large degree. But the discrimination is almost inevitable unless you crack down hard on the south in general, which just encourages further rebellion. You can get a slightly more successful reconstruction, but there’s no such thing as a perfect reconstruction.
Thomas1195
Banned
You need the Confederates to keep fighting again and again, even going terrorist mode, instead of surrendering. It's similar to Charles I kept escaping and waged war with the Parliament 3 times (the last one sealed his fate).
IMO giving some land to poor whites as well would help enormously. Otherwise, the OTL myth that the Reconstructed governments were for the freedmen and against the whites would only be stronger. Giving land to both landless whites and freedmen would go a long way towards both groups seeing each other's interests as aligned.
SuperSage125
Banned
The government would need to get rid of the Southern upper class(exile generals and upper officals) and issue land reform to divide their land among the former slaves and poor or homeless whites. Keep laws that forbid confederates officials and supporters from voting and running for office. Use Christian churchs to promote peace between blacks and whites. Then they would need to either give autonomy to black majority areas or work to put together some power sharing scheme among the whites and the blacks. Either that or send the a portion of the Black population out west to fight the natives and settles the land or deport them to Liberia. Maybe both.
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You need more prominent former Confederates working for the peace rather than waiting for a chance to regain power and reimpose the old order.
You need a way for white and black poor to prosper and look at the pre war as the bad old days.
You need to counter the lost cause narrative early and raise voices early. Don't let people like Longstreet get tarred as disloyal. Pay for Nathan Bedford Forrest to tour the South denouncing the Klan. He took a full page add at his own expense to denounce the Klan and then was fighting for black civil rights when he died. Maybe not kill a few people on the battlefield in your alt TL and kill a few others. Trade Patrick Cleburne for Early or Gordon.
You need to have someone who can sit in a room with Fredrick Douglas and former Confederates, perhaps at the same time. Only person who might be able to pull it off is Lincoln.
Hope that helps.
You need a way for white and black poor to prosper and look at the pre war as the bad old days.
You need to counter the lost cause narrative early and raise voices early. Don't let people like Longstreet get tarred as disloyal. Pay for Nathan Bedford Forrest to tour the South denouncing the Klan. He took a full page add at his own expense to denounce the Klan and then was fighting for black civil rights when he died. Maybe not kill a few people on the battlefield in your alt TL and kill a few others. Trade Patrick Cleburne for Early or Gordon.
You need to have someone who can sit in a room with Fredrick Douglas and former Confederates, perhaps at the same time. Only person who might be able to pull it off is Lincoln.
Hope that helps.