WI: Successful reconstruction?

What would it take for reconstruction to be successful? Success is here defined as:

1. Full legal equality between blacks and whites in the south (or at least basic protections, so whites can't just kill blacks and get away with it)
2. Land reform of the big plantations to benefit freed slaves and poor whites
3. The creation of a stable and secure black middle class that is not forced to limit its business to its own community.
 
What would it take for reconstruction to be successful? Success is here defined as:

1. Full legal equality between blacks and whites in the south (or at least basic protections, so whites can't just kill blacks and get away with it)
2. Land reform of the big plantations to benefit freed slaves and poor whites
3. The creation of a stable and secure black middle class that is not forced to limit its business to its own community.


It would probably need ASB intervention.

1) In theory the 14th Amendment did give them that. But of course it meant nothing w/o the will to enforce it, and such a will did not exist and couldn't be made to exist.

2) Politically impossible. Indeed, even when land did get seized (as huge amounts were due to tax default etc) there was no will to use it in that way. It was just auctioned.

Also, even if the intervention of a Fairy Godmother did somehow bring it about, it would probably have achieved little. For obvious reasons, very few Freedmen had any money, so that the practical effect would be to turn penniless sharecroppers into penniless subsistence farmers. And farmers with no money are rarely able to hang on to their land for very long. All this w/o even considering what the KKK and like-minded bodies would be doing to any Freedman rash enough to move onto confiscated land. The most likely result, as the poor Blacks (and poor Whites) were bought out by wealthier men, would be to replace one set of planters by another, and even if some of these were of northern origin, after a generation or two in the South they would probably be just as racist as their Southern neighbours - if indeed they weren't that way to start with.

3) Same problem. How many Southern Blacks could acquire the money to join this "middle class"?
 
Key thing is that this happens immediatly after Lincoln's murder. The reality could be accepted. Key issues destroy the planter class and give former slaves strong security.

I also think that strong guarantees of voting rights for former slaves and their descendants especailly in former rebel states and alnds was achievable
 
Key thing is that this happens immediatly after Lincoln's murder. The reality could be accepted. Key issues destroy the planter class and give former slaves strong security.

What is the point of destroying the planter class?

1) It is unnecessary since they have largely accepted the outcome of the war and aren't planning another rebellion.

2) A new planter class would probably soon arise, as the penniless Freedmen lose the land and it is bought up by wealthier men, virtually all of whom will be white.

3) As already mentioned, OTL a sizeable chunk of the planter class did lose their land. It didn't make any real difference as such land was always auctioned and the Freedmen couldn't afford it. Even if they were given it free (never even remotely likely) lack of money would make it very difficult to keep.


I also think that strong guarantees of voting rights for former slaves and their descendants especailly in former rebel states and alnds was achievable

Achievable how?

Once the Army had shrunk back to prewar levels, it was far too small to police the South. Note that nine out of eleven Confederate States had already been "redeemed" even before the troops were withdrawn in 1877.

And before anyone suggests forming coloured militias, this was done OTL and didn't work. Had there been any way to guarantee Black voting rights w/o requiring undue effort, the Republicans would have done it.
 
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In otl the old ruling class was allowed to take back power for the couple of years after the war. They also had the land. The former slaves were left very vulnerable and without resources. He things been changed quickly and the planter class lost all land power and was exiled reality would have become clearer
 
In otl the old ruling class was allowed to take back power for the couple of years after the war. They also had the land. The former slaves were left very vulnerable and without resources. He things been changed quickly and the planter class lost all land power and was exiled reality would have become clearer

This is getting into ASB erritory. There was never any question of exiling anybody.

As for land, lots of planters lost it anyway through being ruined by the war. It made no difference since, as you note, the Freedmen were without recources and in no position to buy it.

Meaning no offence, but have you made any use of the search function? Reconstruction is one of the "hardy perennials" of this forum, and everything you suggest has been discuseed innnumerable times on previous threads. It might be worth running over them.

In particular the link below is well worth a look.


https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...econstruction-get.424723/page-4#post-15535367
 
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