Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Did the civil war achieve its lofty goal of ending slavery and bringing freedom to black Americans?
Like WWI did not achieve its lofty goal of ending war, our civil war failed at achieving true freedom for black Americans. By 1879, Black Americans were being regulated into being second class citizens, living in an "separate but equal" world being enforced by "Jim Crow laws".
Was it all in vain the sacrifices 600,000 souls lost in our civil war? Their sacrifice along with black Americans sold out to embittered southern white interest to preserve harmony within the union.
The civil war did not end slavery as to change it to Apartheid.
There was a lot more involved than slavery. Somewhere in the genes of everyone is buried a strong fear of different. Although I might not recognize an Irishman as different, I would most certainly notice that a colored person is. This fear is not something that can be forbidden. It has to go away through education and logic. (Of course, education and logic ought to be pressed as hard as possible, it just can't be done by fiat.)
There is an apparent difference between apartheid, which we had, and slavery, which we had. Apartheid is racism, but our history extended that racial aspect into both separation and slavery.
Slavery, in Biblical times, was not race-based that I've detected. Many of you are far more well versed than I am. Conquered peoples were enslaved, but they weren't necessarily different colored. As I understand it, it was possible to sell yourself into slavery or indentured servitude if you fell on hard times. It never was color-based -- nevermind the Curse of Canaan.
And Biblical references mostly tend toward the treatment of the slave and the allegiance he/she owed to his master.
I'll wander further on the theological thread.
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
I am more inclined to view the segregationist phase in American History, as the result of the aborting of Reconstruction AFTER the CW.
The war was a success and it was recognized that southern society without slaves needed to be rehabilitated, but Reconstruction was not allowed to come to fruition, before it was abandoned.
I am more inclined to view the segregationist phase in American History, as the result of the aborting of Reconstruction AFTER the CW.
The war was a success and it was recognized that southern society without slaves needed to be rehabilitated, but Reconstruction was not allowed to come to fruition, before it was abandoned.
Opn,
Would you not called what was left by the failed Reconstruction period "Apartheid".
To me, Apartheidt is a SA term with a specific meaning. Much more restrictive, than the segregationist policies in America, after the CW until the 1950' and 60's.
In SA the Blacks were denied citizeship in SA, the national gov't of SA cobbled together national enclaves within the borders of SA to which various blacks of various ethnic groups were forced to reside and assumed the citizeship of their ersatz nations. In SA blacks had no civil rights in SA proper. In america the Blacks had guaranteed Constitutional Civil Rights that were no different thatn white citizens. The fact that the Constitution was not, at first, enforced does not mean those Civil Rights did not exist or were not there to be enforced when the south (and the nation was ready).
I Understand the point, trying to be made, but I am inclined to merely admit that segregation as practiced in the USA had some similarities to a 'form' of Apartheidt. To me the main similarity was that they both had the same foundation, racism.
As to the earlier question of Bibilical slavery, no, slavery was not racially based. Indeed, slaves were often acquired through conquest, but one could be sold into slavery to pay off one's debts, as could one's wife and children.
As to Aparteid: In my view, the Supreme Court gotched it completely following the Civil War during the reconstruction period. They completely blew construing the 14th Amendment in Plessy v. Ferguson by sapping the equal protection clause of any meaning. Then, they had to come back and read the equal protection clause back into the Constitution in Brown v. Board of Education by creating the fiction of substantive due process. Constitutional law under the 14th amendment has been a gosh awful mess ever since.
By ruling as they did, the system of segregation was allowed to stand for 100 years and although segregation was not Federal law, it was certainly sanctioned by the Federal government. Reconstruction was an abject failure, for both the whites and the blacks in the South (more for the blacks) and ended up harming blacks in the North as well, who were often subject to Jim Crowe laws there, as well.
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