Were the terms and treatment of the defeated south a moral failure of the United States ? I think so

Henry Brown

Retired User
Joined
Apr 11, 2017
Location
In Transit
“We are sometimes asked in the name of patriotism to forget the merits of this fearful struggle”, Douglass declared in 1871, “and to remember with equal admiration those who struck at the nation’s life, and those who struck to save it.” He would have nothing of it. “I am no minister of malice . . . but may my ‘right hand forget her cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth’ if I forget the difference between the parties to that terrible, protracted, and bloody conflict.”
“Whatever else I may forget, I shall never forget the difference between those who fought to save the Republic and those who fought to destroy it.” Frederick Douglass

Each year on September 17, the anniversary of the battle of Antietam, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who had been a lieutenant in the 20th Massachusetts that day, received a red rose from his fellow justice, Edward Douglass White, a former Confederate soldier from Louisiana whom Holmes joined on the Court after Holmes’ appointment by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902. It was the kind of sentimental gesture Holmes appreciated, and which Frederick Douglass would have deplored. But Justice White had a point to make. “My God”, the old Confederate would mutter in palpable horror as he reflected on the war he had lost, “My God, if we had succeeded.” Allen C. Guelzo

Chattel slavery, tyranny, ****, and terrorism made rather unappetizing ad copy — as Grant later wrote, the Confederate cause was "one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse." Ryan Cooper

The antebellum South was cast as a sepia-toned paradise of noble gentlemen, virtuous ladies, and happy slaves. Ulysses Grant was smeared as a drunken butcher, while Robert E. Lee was virtually deified as the picture of honor and the greatest general in American history, if not the world. Reconstruction governments were depicted as hopelessly corrupt, and black men as unfit for the franchise.

Confederates were not remotely subtle about why they were seceding.

It was Grant who was the best general of the war, and Lee — who lost by far the largest proportion of his men out of any general on either side — who was the senseless butcher.

The slurs of Reconstruction were just as mendacious. Southern state governments were no more corrupt than Northern ones during this period, and blacks were if anything better than whites on this score — especially when you account for all the terrorism. The object of "Redemption" was to disenfranchise and subjugate blacks, nothing more.

But never underestimate the capacity of people to forget. Southern historians repeated the Lost Cause agitprop over and over. The fact that maintaining democracy during Reconstruction required constant use of force to fight white terrorism helped enormously in this effort. Northern voters and politicians grew tired, wondering how long they'd have to keep fighting the same battle. Viewing the conflict as a noble tragedy on both sides — and not a heroic fight against a profoundly evil tyranny — became more and more tempting. As direct memories of the Civil War faded and Union veterans started to die off, Northern whites — who were on average only somewhat less racist than Southern ones — began to internalize the Lost Cause and the associated slurs of Reconstruction.

As Josh Marshall writes, "the North and the South made a tacit bargain in the years after the Civil War to valorize Southern generals as a way to salve the sting of Southern defeat and provide a cultural and political basis for uniting the country with more than military force ... what was gained it was gained at a terrible price and a price paid more or less solely by black citizens."

If the federal government had beaten ex-Confederate terrorists into submission for as long as it took — particularly in the crucial two years after the war, when Johnson's stubborn racism allowed them to regroup and regain some initiative, we would not be having this crisis. Instead tyranny displaced democracy in the American South, white Americans swallowed a lot of comforting lies to cover up that fact, and open racism continued to thrive — only partly beaten back by the civil rights advances of the 1960s. Ryan Cooper

http://theweek.com/articles/718986/how-america-forgot-true-history-civil-war

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2011/09/01/a-war-lost-and-found/
Edited.
 
Back
Top