Why Did We Abandon Reconstruction?

[dales]

The comparison between the Taliban and the Southern Christians is fairly strong, both are brutal fanatics and both are intolerant of other religions and even other sects within their own religion.

[Big RR]

12 years was not long enough time to need an outside agent with the ability to exercise force to allow for the transition of blacks to full equality in the south

And how long do you think it would have taken for them to get full equality in the north? It's not like they had it in those states before, or even after, the civil war; hell, people in Boston fought school desegregation in the 1960s as much as any in southern cities did.

[rubato]

Changing the subject is not an argument. It is bullshit.

The status of blacks in the south from reconstruction to the end of the civil rights era was fundamentally different from their status in the north even though racism had its effects there as well. Now, can you make some feeble attempt to stay on track? Or are you as vacuous as dales?


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Only a nit-wit could compare Southern Christian churches to the KKK or the Taliban.

Well, I would have said "bloody moron" but nit-wit works...

It's unfortunate anyone bothered to respond to this thread; Rick nailed it:

Shoulda just walked by Lib, it was bait...

Complete waste of bandwidth.

[Rick]

Actually it was Dave that introduced racism.

Andrew as always was actually wanting to make another statement about the evils of the Republican party, and how we "Treasonous Secessionists" are to stooopid to see how bad they are and how they pay us to do nothing but wallow in our own filth.

While all the time knowing that the "Radical Republicans" (as they called themselves) were actually former members of the Whig Party that lost to Lincoln. In fact they were the individuals that set up the harsh form of "Reconstruction" in the South (not the moderates led by Lincoln) in an endeavor to punish the "Treasonous Secessionists" and ensure an elevated position for the newly "Freedmen".

Actually Andrew from what I've read you would have fit in rather well with them.

Of course I am one of but a hand full of illiterates that had their diploma rubber stamped, because the rest of my peers were off having dead babies...

[Lord Jim]

Andrew as always was actually wanting to make another statement about the evils of the Republican party, and how we "Treasonous Secessionists" are to stooopid to see how bad they are and how they pay us to do nothing but wallow in our own filth.

Rick, I haven't read any of the four OPs in this thread, (or anything else Andrew has written recently) but that's pretty much what I assumed was going on....

Andrew is nothing if not thoroughly predictable...

It's a shame that he and rube weren't left to wallow alone in this trolling thread....

They sort of deserve each other...

[rubato]

The KKK WERE the southern christian terrorists.

The public faces of nearly all of the churches supported them by doing nothing to stop or discourage them.


yrs,
rubato

[dales]

The KKK WERE the southern christian terrorists.

[Lord Jim]

The KKK WERE the southern christian terrorists.

Actually, at the height of it's influence, (back in the 20s and early 30s) some of the most powerful KKK groups weren't in the south; they were in the mid west. (One of the most influential in state affairs was in Indiana)

There were also other racist organizations that thrived in the mid-Atlantic and northeast...

(The German-American Bund was able to fill Madison Square Garden, and the last time I checked, that was in New York.)

Today the influence of these groups is frequently, (and deliberately) mis-stated by some who cite the growth in the number of these groups...But this very misleading for two reasons:

First, we live in a time when any yahoo with the price of a web host, a domain name and a Word Press template can set him or herself up as a "group"....

Second the people who are in actual groups like this frequently fall out with each other and splinter into multiple smaller groups...(This isn't really surprising; when you get a group of people who are pretty much by definition misanthropic anti-social misfits it's to be expected that they would frequently wind up not liking each other either.)

A KKK or other White Supremacist group that has as many as 100 members is huge by contemporary standards, (fewer than a dozen is much more common) I would be surprised if the total combined membership in such groups in this country was even as much as 50,000, in a nation of over 300 million. (In fact even the 50K figure may be a gross overstatement)

And then obviously the number that would participate in acts of violence is a fraction of that...

[dales]

The German-American Bund was able to fill Madison Square Garden, and the last time I checked, that was in New York.

My late uncle used to go to the one held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (for the chow). He was later stationed in England during WW2 in the Army Signal Corps.

I suppose by rubato's defective thought processes......this makes my late uncle a racsist and all the people of Milwaukee and NYC.

[Andrew D]

I am not comparing Southern Christians to the Taliban or to the KKK. (It does bear noting that the KKK was and is a nominally Christian organization, but only a minuscule fraction of today's Southern Christians share its numerous hatreds.)

The removal of federal troops from the South did not cause the end of Reconstruction; it marked the end of Reconstruction.

I agree that racism was and is not an exclusively Southern phenomenon. But black people suffered far more in the South, especially between Reconstruction and World War I, than they did in the North.

Yes, the Radical Republicans called themselves Radical Republicans. They were trying to get at the root of the racist-socio-political-institutions-and-culture problem in the South. That is, they were trying to eradicate it.

That is, after all, the core of what "radical" means: "Of action, change, an idea, etc.: going to the root or origin" (The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary). And that is why "eradicate" means "Pull up or out by the roots; uproot." (Id.)

Yes, the Republican party was divided over Reconstruction. Yes, Lincoln was on the "moderate" side of that divide.

But "harsh"? One could reasonably say "harsher". But in the context of the Reconstruction debate within the Republican party, "harsher" means "harsher than doing almost nothing".

To one who had been a field slave in the antebellum South, "harsh" would mean "nowhere near as harsh as what I and my family and my other loved ones and my friends and just about everyone else I know or knew were subjected to, generation after generation."

[Big RR]

Changing the subject is not an argument. It is bullshit.

The status of blacks in the south from reconstruction to the end of the civil rights era was fundamentally different from their status in the north even though racism had its effects there as well. Now, can you make some feeble attempt to stay on track? Or are you as vacuous as dales?


yrs,
rubato

Gee, I've been taken to task by an asshole; I guess I'll hang my head in shame. If you don't have anything to say in response to my post, feel free to ignore it, as I will yours in this thread.

[Rick]

Then what are you on about?

Republicans are bad just about anything else is good, same old pedantic carp...

[Andrew D]

Actually Andrew from what I've read you would have fit in rather well with them [the Radical Republicans].

Given my inclinations, intellectual and emotional, I would probably have advocated measures designed primarily as reconstructive and objected to measures designed primarily as punitive.

On the other hand, given my family's history of building the South, history of slaveowning, and role in the Civil War, I might have been an ardent opponent of Reconstruction.

In my family, there were dozens of slaveowners. One of my cousins was reportedly one of the five largest slaveowners in America. I have a description of assets which includes sixteen slaves (valued in total at $57.70 as of 1814). I also have a will bequeathing various "negroes" to various people.

In my family, there were dozens of Confederate soldiers. At least eleven were officers in the CSA. And at least seven women conspicuously aided the South in the Civil War.

My family helped build the South. There are well over a dozen places in Maryland, Tennessee, and Virginia that are named for various them. My great-great-grandfather built his house in eastern Tennessee; it is still standing. He was also member of the Tennessee legislature and a Presidential Elector. His son was High Sheriff of his county.

One of my cousins served as Attorney General, Judge of the Admiralty, and in various other positions in Maryland. Another was Secretary of the Province for many years. According to Woodrow Wilson, one of his papers "supplied the great Pitt with the chief grounds of his argument against taxing America."

The long and short of it is that my family was and remains, on the whole, Southern.

But familial attachments cannot prevent me from acknowledging a straightforward truth: The South, including many members of my own family, "lev[ied] War against" the United States, and that is treason. (U.S. Const., Art. III, Sec. 3.)

[dales]

Since we're honoring our dead ancestors on this here Memorial weekend.....

My great-great-grandfather was Govenor of New Hampshire.

Now you know my sur-name.........http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezekiel_A._Straw


I don't think he owned any slaves.

[rubato]

Changing the subject is not an argument. It is bullshit.

The status of blacks in the south from reconstruction to the end of the civil rights era was fundamentally different from their status in the north even though racism had its effects there as well. Now, can you make some feeble attempt to stay on track? Or are you as vacuous as dales?


yrs,
rubato

Gee, I've been taken to task by an asshole; I guess I'll hang my head in shame. If you don't have anything to say in response to my post, feel free to ignore it, as I will yours in this thread.

Someone who cannot distinguish between the histories of racism in the southern united states and the north is so deeply stupid that it is not a surprise you cannot support your own bullshit.

Weak.


In which states did federal troops need to be called out to enroll children in school? In which states were federal troops called out to enroll James Meredith in University? In which states where children killed by church bombings? In which states did thousands of black families have their land stolen?* In which states were blacks murdered for trying to vote? And if reconstruction was not failed then what is the point of this thread?

Stupid.


*
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1202-03.htm




yrs,
rubato

[dales]

Changing the subject is not an argument. It is bullshit.

The status of blacks in the south from reconstruction to the end of the civil rights era was fundamentally different from their status in the north even though racism had its effects there as well. Now, can you make some feeble attempt to stay on track? Or are you as vacuous as dales?


yrs,
rubato

Gee, I've been taken to task by an asshole; I guess I'll hang my head in shame. If you don't have anything to say in response to my post, feel free to ignore it, as I will yours in this thread.

Someone who cannot distinguish between the histories of racism in the southern united states and the north is so deeply stupid that it is not a surprise you cannot support your own bullshit.

Weak.


In which states did federal troops need to be called out to enroll children in school? In which states were federal troops called out to enroll James Meredith in University? In which states where children killed by church bombings? In which states did thousands of black families have their land stolen?* In which states were blacks murdered for trying to vote? And if reconstruction was not failed then what is the point of this thread?

Stupid.


*
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1202-03.htm




yrs,
rubato

Isn't it interesting that the segregationist south was run by democrats and it took a republican president to call in federal troops to integrate the schools. Once more rubato kicks hisself in the ass............TooFunny!

[MajGenl.Meade]

Since we're honoring our dead ancestors on this here Memorial weekend.....

My great-great-grandfather was Govenor of New Hampshire.

Now you know my sur-name.........http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezekiel_A._Straw


I don't think he owned any slaves.

Oh dales, that's just a straw man

[dales]

On the contrary.

If I had one one-thousandth the ability that he had I would be a far better man than I presently am.

I might even get off my fat rear end once in awhile.

Except for the fact that he was active in the Unitarian Society of Manchester, N.H. I can find no fault with the man.

[liberty]

[quote="Andrew DThe long and short of it is that my family was and remains, on the whole, Southern.

But familial attachments cannot prevent me from acknowledging a straightforward truth: The South, including many members of my own family, "lev[ied] War against" the United States, and that is treason. (U.S. Const., Art. III, Sec. 3.)[/quote]

One man is a traitor, a million is a separate country. A man can only be a traitor to his own country.