Is there any realistic way that Reconstruction would result in Civil Rights?

I've always wondered wether there is any chance that Reconstruction would have created civil rights for African-Americans immediately and permanently. What do you think?
 
My main idea is that Reconstruction is implemented more efficiently,with more help for black people and less retribution towards white Southerners. Because of this,Rutherford B. Hayes is elected by a wider margin,and does not have to make the deal to withdraw troops from the South. How plausible is this?
 
The only way to do this is to prevent the Redeemer governments that basically put the Confederates back into power from being elected back to office. This either happens by banning all former Confederate politicians from politics, the North keeping military control over the South longer than OTL (and some states were kept under control until 1874, if I'm not mistaken,) or keeping programs like the Freedmen's Bureau open, allowing for more economic uplift for freed slaves via education and agricultural help like receiving mules.

If none of these occur, then TTL will just see more Jim Crow and poll taxes. The mindset of the slave-owning South cannot be changed quickly enough for any changes to come from most of the whites. That front, unless you want a third of the Union a military dictatorship for decades, does not show much hope for progress. If change is to happen, it'll have to come from radical Republicans in Washington.
 
My main idea is that Reconstruction is implemented more efficiently,with more help for black people and less retribution towards white Southerners. Because of this,Rutherford B. Hayes is elected by a wider margin,and does not have to make the deal to withdraw troops from the South. How plausible is this?

Why is it that people always bring up how there was "retribution" and such horrible treatment for white southerners when we see scarcely a shred of evidence for it? Brownlow of Tennessee (one of the few examples I can think of of anything resembling retribution against ex-Confederates) may have been a jerk, but that wasn't "radical Republicans up North/in Congress".

We see Confederate generals in Congress post-war, and several others holding state offices (some doing both), we see the KKK and its fellows terrorizing blacks who dared to vote, we see this http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Civil_War_AdmissionReadmission.htm - with the latest state being in 1870 - and all signs pointing to a rush to reembrace the South.

By the point Hayes was elected, Reconstruction has been defeated about as decisively as anything short of overturning the latest three amendments could make it. Keeping a tiny handful of troops in South Carolina or Louisiana would not have done much of anything.


So unless there is an actual attempt to force more than lip service to those amendments, which would mean Reconstruction actually applying force to "reconstruct", no, there is no chance.
 
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Why is it that people always bring up how there was "retribution" and such horrible treatment for white southerners when we see scarcely a shred of evidence for it? Brownlow of Tennessee (one of the few examples I can think of of anything resembling retribution against ex-Confederates) may have been a jerk, but that wasn't "radical Republicans up North/in Congress".

We see Confederate generals in Congress post-war, and several others holding state offices (some doing both), we see the KKK and its fellows terrorizing blacks who dared to vote, we see this http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Civil_War_AdmissionReadmission.htm - with the latest state being in 1870 - and all signs pointing to a rush to reembrace the South.

By the point Hayes was elected, Reconstruction has been defeated about as decisively as anything short of overturning the latest three amendments could make it. Keeping a tiny handful of troops in South Carolina or Louisiana would not have done much of anything.


So unless there is an actual attempt to force more than lip service to those amendments, which would mean Reconstruction actually applying force to "reconstruct", no, there is no chance.

I've never understood why people talk like Reconstruction was such a terrible time for white Southerners. As far as I can tell, Reconstruction was incredibly half-assed, with a vast majority of the things that were supposed to happen (like Thaddeus Steven's idea to give freed slaves 40 acres and a mule, or something along those lines) never coming to fruition.

Reconstruction didn't fail because it was a bad idea, but because there was never really an actual serious attempt at Reconstruction at all.
 
My main idea is that Reconstruction is implemented more efficiently,with more help for black people and less retribution towards white Southerners. Because of this,Rutherford B. Hayes is elected by a wider margin,and does not have to make the deal to withdraw troops from the South. How plausible is this?

What retribution? Honestly I'd say that if things are going to be done the extremely lax peace that was reconstruction needs to be upped a couple dozen notches, the southern elite can't be allowed to reasert themselves, there has to be comprehensive land reform putting economic and political power in the hands of the black population, there has to be a deliberate effort to make the black community capable of defending themselves from terrorist groups like the KKK, groups like the KKK have to be treated as murderers by the court system, and the right to vote needs to protected much more seriously than it was.
 
From 1865 to 1877 there are 2 big issues, one was the depression that occurred in 1873 and gave new life to the moribund Democrats, two was the rampant corruption in the Grant Administration and the Reconstructed governments. Lots of bad press was given to the Scalawags, the Carpetbaggers, and the Freedmen as a result and as easy targets for both of those. Have Grant not be so bad at appointments, ease of the Gold Standard, maybe have some better people in charge of the state Republican Parties, and you've all but skinned the Democrats alive. No House, no Senate, no issues for them to come at the Republicans with. An better economy means more money for the government, and more money to finance the Army in the south to weed out the remnants of the KKK.

While this won't change the fundamental racial hatred that a lot of Southern Whites had, they will have to shut up and get over it. Maybe have some kind of patronage system be developed in the south, and effective one that transplanted a lot of rich plantations to poor whites, giving them money and favors. Ironically I say this after noting the issues the Southern Republicans had with corruption. But they did have big issues of giving too much to the wrong people, and not correctly currying favor with the right market.
 
You'd need the Southern Whites to remain "Secesh" and continue to wage guerrilla warfare against the US.

The main point of Reconstruction wasn't to be nice to the freedmen, but to keep the South under governments loyal to the US. Once it became clear that the ex-Rebs were willing to be loyal, and to write off secession as a dead issue, there was no real need to continue with Radical Reconstruction, and the North soon lost interest in it.
 
"Realistic" is the major problem in this question. What you'd need to do to speed about Afro-Amercian emancipation by a margin of two generations would be something like this. The question is the realism, of course.

The most major element would be land reform.

  • Expropriate planters down to a deliberate number of acres in order to crush the resources of the Southron spin doctors.
  • Actually make "40 acres and a mule" happen, not just to the freed slaves, but also to the poor white peons whose major drive to be racist was to have at least somebody to lash.
  • For all those deemed not integrable, set up an expensive resettlement programs so that e.g. the lowest of the white peons could set up a new existence in the Midwest or the like. This should dry out the last potential lackeys for a KKK or any equivalent.
 
Giving land as compensation for former slaves will have made them MUCH less vulnerable to intimidation.

Destroying the planter class by expropriation and possibly a period of exile would have helped.

Note either the South was a conquered Province in which case the North hadtherights of a conquerer

Or the Union never ended in which case anything less than like half a million hangings of folk who made war against the United States was less extreme than established law and practice

Exile and expropriation for the planter class and mercy for the rest could easily have been sold as generous and moderate.
 
I am at a loss at to how it could be sold at all. The US's constitutional definition of treason is so narrow that it would be virtually impossible to convict anyone of it - and arguably the prohibition of corruption of blood or forfeiture except in the lifetime of the person attainted is a serious impediment to seizing their lands.

I wouldn't want to say it would be utterly impossible, but it would not be easy - and that's ignoring any opposition on the part of Southerners to it.

But it would definitely be "contrary to law and practice" in the US - aka where the legal rights of the accused are relevant - to simply do this out of hand, no matter how mild US standards are by the standards of nearly everywhere else.
 
It's instructive to look at the history of the 14th Amendment.

The original version from the HoR provided for disfranchisement of ex-Rebs - though only until 1870. However, even this was too drastic for the Senate, which substituted the Section 3 as finally adopted. If even disfranchisement was seen as going too far, guess what the chances are for wholesale confiscation.

In case that weren't enough, even the OTL disabilities were lifted by Congress (with only a handful of exceptions) as early as 1872. There just wasn't any stomach for such measures.

Incidentally quite a bit of land was forfeited even OTL, for tax default and the like. However, the State governments (even Republican ones) needed the money, so had to sell the land rather than give it away. Needless to say, few Freedmen could afford to buy - even if they dared call attention to themselves by showing up at an auction.
 
Although this wouldn't result in full civil rights I think if the US government gave a homeland out west as a veterans benefit for those who served in the US army after the war ended regardless of race you might well see better treatment for Blacks due to a real labor shortage.
 
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