this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
107 points (85.4% liked)

politics

19240 readers
2262 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Confederates weren’t punished after the US Civil War, and what did they do after that?

The ideals and policies the Confederates had during and after the war were abhorrent. That is unquestionable.

However, I struggle to envision what "punishment" for the former Confederate state would have been.

"The population of the Union was 18.5 million. In the Confederacy, the population was listed as 5.5 million free and 3.5 million enslaved. In the Border States there were 2.5 million free inhabitants and 500,000 enslaved people." source

So 25% of the newly reunited population of the USA was part of the Confederacy. How do you punish 25% of your population? Some kind of tax or restriction of freedom on them? Discrimination against blacks was the primary driver for the war. How could the Union then go on to build a new system that would do that to 25% of its citizens?

We also have history to draw from with regard to punishing an entire aggressor population. Post WWI Germany got smacked down hard with huge debts and restrictions on production as punishment for starting WWI. Most historical analysis I've seen says that this punishment was a large contributor to the rise of NAZI Germany just 21 years later.

If the post-civil war US government did the same to the former Confederacy, would the USA have a history including Civil War II?

[–] Xanis@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

Punish here isn't meant as a short-term restriction or taking of freedoms. Punish is instead meant for the long term. While I cannot say as to what the correct option would have been, I will say we far too quickly, in reference to the passage of years from the Civil War to today, went from "FREE THEM!" to "Welp, aight, did that. Guess everything is good now."

It wasn't good now.

So what we failed to truly do was follow up and quash the little pockets that exist today much larger and with a damned ancient fruit as their lead.

[–] bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

don't they teach reconstruction any more?

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world -2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Its been a long time since I've been in a classroom, so I can't say.

With your question do you believe Reconstruction was contained punishment that was insufficient to meet @billiam0202@lemmy.world 's desired level?

[–] bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't know.

I don't believe in punishment, myself. but the South was obviously punished.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Up until it was politically expedient to end the punishment and hey look the worst of Jim Crow...

[–] bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

the problem wasn't that there was not enough government though, it was that there was too much government. without States, Jim Crow could not have n been made law. abolish the state.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes, because without the states to make laws that racists followed, there would have been no Jim Crow reaction to newly freed slaves. And I bet we'd also still have newly freed slaves too.

[–] billiam0202@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My dude, there's a vast difference between "justice" and "vengeance."

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

My dude, there’s a vast difference between “justice” and “vengeance.”

I agree completely.

For the post @billiam0202@lemmy.world 's post above, what is your suggestion about how to pushing the newly defeated Confederacy in 1865?