cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/56194138

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/shermanposting/p/1825854/i-mean-she-s-right

What would proper punishment look like and what goal do you think that would achieve?

Racists were given everything they needed for their insurrection to live on and return. Jan 6 was a direct result of not hanging the leaders of the confederacy, allowing them to recast themselves as plucky underdogs, and letting the losers (maybe for the first time in history that I can think of) to write the history.

I have a coworker with a history degree from the UW who confidently asserts that the civil war was about states rights and not slavery. That should not be possible.

You cannot let traitors to a republic reclaim the powers and privileges in the society they betrayed. No actively serving Confederate should have held any elected position thereafter. At least some should have hanged for treason and crimes against humanity.

And most of all perhaps, we should not have explicitly enshrined SLAVERY IN THE CONSTITUTION AS A GIFT TO THEM ON THEIR LOSING THE WAR. Slavery continues to this day thanks to the 13th amendment because our victorious union was still a bunch of myopic racist idiots who couldn't face the truth of slavery's inherent evil.

So now we have a US with confederate sympathisers running the government who actively want to subjugate you. They grew up believing enemy propaganda, they have the legal means to criminalise you, and enact slavery upon you for it. Over a century later, the ghosts of unhung traitors are killing again.

We can argue about what the exact proper punishments should have been, fine - but we should agree that the intended effect of those punishments would have looked like NOT LOSING THE CIVIL WAR almost 160 years after we won it. Okay?

Let's start with the 13,000 individual pardons to wealthy planters and high-ranking Confederate leaders by Johnson. Write at least 2 paragraphs on how the proper punishment of the traitors would have changed the power dynamics after the war across the South, and establish a parallel with how the Nuremberg trials were conducted folowing WW2.

When you're done, we'll move on to how Southern states were allowed to organize all-white governments without protecting the African American civil rights that the entire fucking war was fought over.

There's more, but let's take it step by step shall we?

Operation Paperclip wasn't exactly great either.

Since even prior to 1776.

So what would proper punishment look like and what goal do you think that would achieve?

I fully agree but AFAIK the Civil War was about states' rights. (Edit: To be clear, it was the right of states to not enforce slavery.) Correct me if I'm wrong but the sequence of events was something like this:

Several slavery-averse states passed laws that would automatically free any slave who entered them. The states who were reliant on slave labor argued that states should not have the right to pass such laws. Their complaint failed and the laws were upheld. The slave states decided that they didn't want to be part of a country that didn't protect their ownership of people and seceded.

So states' rights would've been the underlying reason, just not in the way Confederate apologists think it was.

One might argue it all went downhill the moment the capitalism didn't realize it needed to turn into post-capitalism.

Goal:
To prevent traitors to a republic from reclaiming power and privileges in the society they betrayed.

Proper punishment:

• No actively serving Confederate can hold any elected position thereafter.
• Hang some for treason and crimes against humanity.

Does this accurately represent your answer to my question?

Recommend reading the articles of confederation. They aren't shy about it, they state explicitly that preserving slavery is their chief concern in secession.

Funny if you flip it and reverse it, the logic doesn't hold up. If states rights are so important, why couldn't states pass laws of emancipation? Now the union is the one that cares so much about states rights! That can't be right, they weren't the ones trying to secede. See?

I explicitly stated that I'm open to different ideas, but sure for the sake of argument go ahead with your point.

You haven't concluded your assignment.

And by explicit, he means explicit. They state their new nation is about slavery at least 4 separate times in a relatively short document, with black chattel slavery named as a requirement of any confederate state that was foundational, and could not at any point be outlawed. Their states had no "states rights" when it came to slavery.

The confederate States foundation was not a rejection of the US that happened to include legalizing slavery, it was was a rejection of the Union in order to forever legalize slavery specifically, as its primary aim, and they were not at any point shy about that fact in founding their slaver nation.

I was thinking about the sequence of events that led to the secession, not the justification for it. Of course looking at how the Conferedates justified the secession is another valid perspective that paints a much different picture. So you're definitely right in that regard.

And yes, we're both thinking about how the states' rights that were being disrespected were northern states' rights. That's just something modern slavery apologists don't want to admit because then their side wouldn't be the plucky underdogs rising up against oppression. I'm going to edit my earlier comment to make this clearer.

Also, Reagan

And they succeeded in this with the 13th amendment.

Goldwater.

The part of it as well is Europe sent their undesirables here. Political opponents, prisoners, religious fanatics.

Well if we had started with the slavers after the Civil War, I would say "death." If you owned human beings as property, you deserve nothing better.

Also, reparations for the slaves and their descendants wouldn't hurt.

To be clear, it was the right of states to not enforce slavery

Yeah, no that's backwards. If anything, it was about the right of states to enforce slavery.

Death. The proper punishment at the time was death.

For the leaders or everyone who fought for the South? All the supporters as well?

Why are you so agitated?

If you don't want be understood then there isn't any point for me here.

Blatant bad faith? Cool and normal, have a blessed day.

I've been sincere in my questions so you seeing bad faith is a you thing, maybe reflect on that.

The religious fanatics self-segregated and sent themselves, for the most part.

The political opponents would from Europe be a point to the positive side, at least pre-1917. German immigrants after 1848 tended to be radical Republicans, anti-slavery and pro-labour. One post-1948 German immigrant was August Willich, a German communist (he had previously challenged Marx for a duel for being "too conservative") who went on to become a general in the Civil War.

Hanging nathan bedford forrest alone might have been enough

No, the confederate constitution directly takes away states rights on the subject of slavery.

Article 1. Section 9.

1. No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairring the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

Right, so they can enforce slavery...? I don't think we're disagreeing.

For anyone who owned slaves at the very least.

It means states have absolutely no choice but to enforce slavery. E.g. their rights have been removed.

I'm talking earlier than the 1800s here of people being off boarded and shoved over here. In the 1800s the foundation for our current insanity was being laid.

Britain seemed to like doing that sort of thing.

That and a.complete and utter failure to stop the rich

That's...maybe not circular, but definitely oblong or oval shaped.

It’s crazy how little the average American knows about Native American culture. Where did they all go? Why do we know so little about them when they lived here for thousands of years before we arrived in the americas… it’s like they just.. disappeared

We should have given Sherman free reign in the south and not sent him to the west, then given the land to the enslaved people.

As far as I'm concerned we should have historians who specialize in the atrocities Sherman inflicted on plantation owners.

Do you think the children of the killed people would have moved on anymore than those descendants have today?

Im not sure that I care