It’s also worth pointing out that the ILO’s anti-slavery conventions have a similar exception for forced labor by prisoners (with, however, the exception that this must not be done for private profit). The idea of forced labor as a punishment for crime has, much like capital or corporal punishment, been popular and uncontroversial for a long time, and it is really only quite recently (much more so than 1865) that this has changed.
Until Every Drop of Blood Is Paid: A More Radical American Civil War
- Thread starter Red_Galiray
- Start date
Yeah the tl is mostly focused on Britain but the US does radical reconstruction and ends up with a black president in the 20s
also lincoln serves like 6 terms, half of that being him coming back to crush the kkk once and for all in the 1880s
In all honesty, U.S. policies towards the Native Americans will likely still be terrible. We can probably still expect reservations and the Dawes Act allotments. How corrupt the policy enactments are in a more radical postwar-USA however is up to the butterflies.
A lot of people have discussed about how a postwar US should deal with the poor white population. The consensus has been the government should help them get them back up on their feet so they don’t feel like they’re taken advantage of and mistreated by the Union occupiers. My guess is that some people in Lincoln’s government might pursue this as a divide-and-conquer strategy by helping both freed Blacks and poor whites equally so that there won’t be any serious feelings if animosity between each other and rob the white supremacist ruling class of people to take advantage of. If the Union is smart they can potentially help freed Blacks a lot better than they did OTL, ensure white-Black reconciliation, and crush the white supremacist slaver elites and their thuggish allies.
A random thought I had is how Brazil is responding to all of this. They’re definitely paying attention for sure.
A random thought I had is how Brazil is responding to all of this. They’re definitely paying attention for sure.
You probably already know this, but this comment creates an implication that I want to correct just in case. Specifically that it isn't just the general societal attitudes that inform the ways in which police commit prejudicial and immoral actions, but also the structure of the institution. Police in America are highly unaccountable OTL for a variety of reasons, and if they were more accountable, then the number and severity of their more blatantly unsavory actions would decrease, even if America is just as racist and in the same way. How this works out with this future gendarmerie is, of course, up to what you determine is reasonable/likely.
If Pedro and co learn the right lessons the Brazilian monarchy might just survive. Then again you'd still need Pedro to want the monarchy to survive and from what I understand by the time of the coup the man himself was fully expecting it to fall after his death.
Maybe if Isabel does something that earns his trust that the monarchy can survive with her... Queen Victoria was a thing and even the very patriarchal Brazil could stand a female queen in the right circumstances
I just had a rather bizarre discussion over at reddit. When I commented on a post about the Civil War, expressing my opinion that Reconstruction was too lenient, someone basically accused me of being a cruel war criminal and "whitewashing" a criminal process. I believe I've been spoiled by this forum and its conversations with people who are reasonable and knowledgeable.
Some highlights:
I gently ask that no one try to find these comments or the person who posted them. If I share them here it's only because they are rather appalling, not because I wish anyone to brigade either the thread or the user.
Some highlights:
I said you apologize for the reconstruction as a marxist apologizes for communist regimes—describing only the intent rather than the actualized systems as manifested in real life. A quibble about the scale and precise details is deliberately misrepresenting the analogy.
Frankly it seems like this is a useless conversation, since you do evidently believe that any wrongs done to southerners, slavers and abolitionists alike, are deserved comeuppance. That Uncle Tom's Cabin was a near-journalistic account of southerners wrongs, rather than a scaremongering propagandistic screed. That inhumane oppression is no great sin in the balance of a greater ideology.
......
If I had one thing to convey it's my distaste for your glorification of the proto neocons that played as much a hand in the civil war as the secessionists. The cause you seem to support is the same Ideological Imperialism that even today makes enemies by the day of all but a small number of Western nations and puts us on the cusp of another global conflict. And when survivors of the post-nuclear world write books about this time, the future winners will sneer at the past losers and, like you, think "they deserved it"
.....
The rest though is as wooly headed and prejudiced as your earlier broad-brush conception of all southerners as unimaginably horrific slavers. You sound like Donald Trump describing Hispanic migrants as murderers and rapists.
I get the sense it would be scarcely an exaggeration and simultaneously an oblivious-to-you insult to say your essay on the causes of the civil war would be only a single word long.
How about you do something less tired and boring than a winner's perspective take on Reconstruction and instead narrow your focus to its lived experience effects on the non-slaving small holders, crackers and blacks that survived it?
.....
As if you'd be any better, having professed continuously to exhibit the same lack of humanity you blankly apply to all southern inhabitants.
By the sound if it if you lived then you'd be Simon Legree and Jonas Wilkerson all wrapped up in one.
Frankly it seems like this is a useless conversation, since you do evidently believe that any wrongs done to southerners, slavers and abolitionists alike, are deserved comeuppance. That Uncle Tom's Cabin was a near-journalistic account of southerners wrongs, rather than a scaremongering propagandistic screed. That inhumane oppression is no great sin in the balance of a greater ideology.
......
If I had one thing to convey it's my distaste for your glorification of the proto neocons that played as much a hand in the civil war as the secessionists. The cause you seem to support is the same Ideological Imperialism that even today makes enemies by the day of all but a small number of Western nations and puts us on the cusp of another global conflict. And when survivors of the post-nuclear world write books about this time, the future winners will sneer at the past losers and, like you, think "they deserved it"
.....
The rest though is as wooly headed and prejudiced as your earlier broad-brush conception of all southerners as unimaginably horrific slavers. You sound like Donald Trump describing Hispanic migrants as murderers and rapists.
I get the sense it would be scarcely an exaggeration and simultaneously an oblivious-to-you insult to say your essay on the causes of the civil war would be only a single word long.
How about you do something less tired and boring than a winner's perspective take on Reconstruction and instead narrow your focus to its lived experience effects on the non-slaving small holders, crackers and blacks that survived it?
.....
As if you'd be any better, having professed continuously to exhibit the same lack of humanity you blankly apply to all southern inhabitants.
By the sound if it if you lived then you'd be Simon Legree and Jonas Wilkerson all wrapped up in one.
I gently ask that no one try to find these comments or the person who posted them. If I share them here it's only because they are rather appalling, not because I wish anyone to brigade either the thread or the user.
Indeed. The amendment is, I will admit... worded in an unfortunate manner. But to say that retaining slavery was a careful plot to retain slavery, when they could have just, you know, not abolished it in the first place... That's going too far, yet it's a very common opinion.
Very interesting...
There's no need to apologize! You can bring up anything that's relevant. I'm sorry if my tone was in any way aggressive, it's just that, being Latin American, I tend not to look too kindly upon American imperialism.
Sadly, you're right. I do think we could see less corruption, but the most enlightened politicians were those who believed that Native Americans could become good citizens. Paternalism versus genocide, in other words.
That's all been considered, and don't worry something like that will be done.
Of course, you're right. The particular structure of the police as an institution is what allows these actions to happen in the first place. I will say that society with less institutional racism wouldn't have created these particular structures, or wouldn't have tolerated them. But we should droop the topic since it comes dangerously close to modern politics. Getting back on track, this gendarmerie is going to be created as primarily a Federal enforcement agency against people who sympathize, or are thought to sympathize, with the rebellion. This would make it a far more national institution. We will see how it develops in future updates.
Very understandable. The whole history of it is so fucked up that it's just too depressing to even think about. And that's coming from a non-Latin American. I do wonder if US-Latin American relations will be much different though with the whole civil war heading on a new direction. That being said, the US will be the dominant power of the Americas no matter what though I like to believe it'll take a less interventionist role this time around assuming that the people in charge are more sympathetic towards egalitarianism AKA Radical Republican-like presidents. Though I could be way too naively optimistic.
Honesty though I think that Central American and Caribbean countries owe Mexico a bit gratitude for existing because if American had conquered Mexico, those countries would have been more been filibustered/ Texased into the US.
I also understand your aversion to American imperialism, I imagine it might be similar to an Irish person's aversion to British imperialism.
Maybe this is a stupid suggestion, but with the avoidance of the Dakota War, maybe the Lincoln Administration can come to a more diplomatic agreement that doesn't end in slaughter? Maybe some regions of the midwest can be signed over to them, and with a stronger occupation of the South, the United States is much more willing to take action against settlers who cross into indigenous territory to avoid an unneeded war that requires man power with the bulk of the army stationed in the former Confederacy? And if peace is sustained long enough, maybe the idea of fighting the larger nations can become more unappealing to the general public, especially if major commanders publicly come out and support Lincoln's plan for peaceful relations with the tribes. I'm pretty sure I've brought him up a lot, but John Pope was supportive of better, more human treatment of the natives after fighting against them, but continued to do so because of his orders. Maybe generals/officers like Pope could be appointed to the Indian Bureau to oversee better relations. Even if its extremely paternalistic, it could at least be better than OTL. Its probably unrealistic and not that good a suggestion though.
Texas was an extremely unique case that couldn't possibly have been replicated elsewhere (not every country has huge underpopulated borderlands that are plagued by nomadic attacks...nor does it happen to undergo internal political convulsions that happen to particularly affect the foreigners it invited in to settle said borderlands at exactly the point where they get militarily strong enough to foil attempts at reconquering them). Anyway, it's at least as likely, if not more likely, that the result is the U.S. being so preoccupied occupying/exploiting Mexico that it basically forgets about or is too busy to mess much with Central America.
I am think more in the late 1800's when they are looking to build a canal
If the US’s military will be much more preoccupied with the South (which I bet will happen considering that there’s going to be a much better version of Reconstruction that needs to be enforced which will mean staying longer to deal with a lot of resistance) then I highly doubt it’s going to get that involve in international affairs. This could lead to things like Spain keeping the Philippines or Britain taking Hawaii. Eventually business interests in the country will force it to expand its influence elsewhere although by then I don’t think it’ll be as extensive as before.
And if the US will have to spend more on Reconstruction, Russia might as well keep Alaska. And that’s got some interesting ramifications.
And if the US will have to spend more on Reconstruction, Russia might as well keep Alaska. And that’s got some interesting ramifications.
Without Hayes(I'm pretty sure he won't be President, there would be no Paraguay)
I mean Spain keeping the Philippines, British Hawaii nor Russian Alaska would be good ends either. Honestly given how this US could develop I'd rather them get all three still. The Philippines would likely be done with the intention from the get go of a friendly republic after being built up. Hawaii is in to strategic a location to not be taken over and a less racist US is better then the British. Alaska if only because if a Russian revolution happens it likely becomes the bastion of the exiles and bad things will happen to the natives worse then OTL on that case.
Just looked that up and “wow”. Though could some other president be a mediator in his stead?
Also another benefit would be that Hawaii has a far better chance of being independent since I highly doubt the massive influx of white settlers would occur. Oh and yeah a Russian Alaska is going to be a White faction bastion, which itself would have interesting consequences.
Something I envisioned is that while not everyone who fought for the Confederacy will be punished, I do believe there’s going to be some sort of blacklist where anyone on it won’t be allowed to hold any position of power for life. Basically slavers, politicians, and other big heads and more wealthier/powerful individuals will be on it. This means that the same people who tried to reverse the Reconstruction in OTL may not be in power for this time.