Slapping Wrists for Treason

[Joohan]

So practically the entire South? Or, about 40% of the national population? The southern leaders who succeeded were voted into office and supported by the majority of the population. It's thought that nearly 800,000 men served in the confederate Army, would those men who willingly volunteered or fulfilled their duties as drafties be punished too? How about the families who supported their men in the fighting by buying war bonds, traveling with them to act as nurses on the battlefields, or cooked their meals? How about the families who opened up their homes to act as camps and hospitals? Nearly everyone was complicit.

I get it, you hate racists - but perhaps you should seek to be better than them? You want these people to be empathetic towards their fellow man, then show them how, by giving them that same empathy. Rehabilitation, not retribution!

No other nation did that though. Every other nation executed the rebel leadership not letting them live on.

I didn't know that we were trying to live up to the standards of Jacobin France or Bolshevik Russia. America showed compassion, and now we're the most powerful nation on the planet.

[Repubblica Fascista Sociale Italiana]

This entire thread has only two groups:

Group A: mass punishment and war crimes are unacceptable and inhuman.

Group B: racists aren't human, so they technically have no human rights with which to violate * furiously masturbates while reading, Sherman's March to sea *

I am entirely convinced that American Civil War threads on NSG exist purely as a safe space for people to vent all their edgy internet tough guy comments.

You don’t have to be an edgy internet tough guy, from my observation, most South apologists happen to be Northerners. Its much easier to understand the extent of the confederacy’s influence on the region when you actually live in the South, even here in Florida, which was not nearly as passionate about the whole thing as the other Southern states, you see monuments and roads named after rebels

[Thermodolia]

You're right, you didn't say they weren't human, you just want that we'd treated them like they weren't. Forefeit property rights is very banal way of hiding what Sherman's march to sea was: whole towns and cities burned to the ground, people's livelihood's turned to ash because of where they lived. Farmers robbed of their livestock and crops, their fields burned and their animals slaughtered. The common man forced into destitution and death.

And you wished that he'd done worse. Why not just say it: you wish we would have genocided the South.

To be honest, I don't think anything short of breaking the South's will to fight in that way would have ended the war.

It’s the same reason why we carpet boomed germany into submission

[Joohan]

They were elected to act a representatives for the people - everyone, rich and poor, had a say in voting these people in. When the southern states succeeded, it wasn't against the people's will, it had mass appeal. Parades, parties, droves of volunteers, all followed in the wake of succession. The Confederacy wasn't forced upon the common man, he'd consented to it. Sure it was illegal - but they were only allowed to do it because the people wanted and allowed them to. You can't be a democratic nation, while prosecuting 40% of the population.

You can if those people broke the law, and the last time I checked treason was a crime.

A crime punishable by death. Would you have had us put half the country up against the wall? Nearly all of them were all complicit in treason, as most the population consented and supported the confederate cause in opposition to the Union. Would you have had us massacre them for this? Do you think our history would have been better had we drowned the South in it's own blood?

[Thermodolia]

Sherman's March to Sea was justified. I'm not arguing against that. I'm against the insanity that comes with thinking we should have been vengeful, the kind that Grenatia was advocating, and you apparently.

" In my mind there should have been a harder response against the Confederates post-war. Hangings for the military & civilian leadership, imprisonment for the rest. "

The South was ruined and pillaged, living under military occupation for years afterward, and would struggle to recover from the destruction for generations onward. The south didn't get slapped on the wrist, it got thrashed nearly to death. The thought that we should have killed, punished, and imprisoned even more people is inhuman. Reconstruction could have gone better, absolutely, but not through some blood drenched revenge fantasy being enacted upon an already broken and destitute people.

America today is the most powerful country on the planet, and one of the most prosperous. Obviously, reconciliation worked.

Gren and I disagree on the extent that punishment should have been levied.

The Confederacy was a rich man's country, founded by rich men for rich men to keep their slaves when the law decided morality trumps money. Those same rich men should have been punished for the crime of secession and for starting a war that cost over a million American deaths.

Not the whole South, just the Confederate leaders. The men who sounded the horns, raised the flags, and rallied the men to arms against their country for an evil and immoral cause. Not the men who did the fighting, who deceived with honeyed-words of "States' Rights" - but the men who sent those boys to die for their own greed like the vile cowards they were.

This is my position as well. We should have barred the leadership of the CSA from ever having a chance at political office again

[Last Breath]

You can if those people broke the law, and the last time I checked treason was a crime.

A crime punishable by death. Would you have had us put half the country up against the wall? Nearly all of them were all complicit in treason, as most the population consented and supported the confederate cause in opposition to the Union. Would you have had us massacre them for this? Do you think our history would have been better had we drowned the South in it's own blood?

I do not propose execution, as that would certainly be unreasonable, but letting the south get off as easy as it did allowed them to perpetuate the same institutions that the Civil War was fought over.

[Joohan]

To be honest, I don't think anything short of breaking the South's will to fight in that way would have ended the war.

It’s the same reason why we carpet boomed germany into submission

And after that war was over, we punished those who had committed crimes against humanity. Not everyone who was a nazi or supported the nazi's - only those people who had committed war crimes. That we didn't enact vengeful retribution on the Germans ( like the Soviets did ) is why West Germany today is one of the most prosperous regions in the entire world.

[Thermodolia]

No other nation did that though. Every other nation executed the rebel leadership not letting them live on.

I didn't know that we were trying to live up to the standards of Jacobin France or Bolshevik Russia. America showed compassion, and now we're the most powerful nation on the planet.

Literally every other nation that had a civil war executed the rebel leadership. After the English civil war they executed the rebel leadership and they went on to become the largest empire the world has ever seen. So being compassionate has nothing to do with weather or not we are a superpower

[Rojava Free State]

Gren and I disagree on the extent that punishment should have been levied.

The Confederacy was a rich man's country, founded by rich men for rich men to keep their slaves when the law decided morality trumps money. Those same rich men should have been punished for the crime of secession and for starting a war that cost over a million American deaths.

Not the whole South, just the Confederate leaders. The men who sounded the horns, raised the flags, and rallied the men to arms against their country for an evil and immoral cause. Not the men who did the fighting, who deceived with honeyed-words of "States' Rights" - but the men who sent those boys to die for their own greed like the vile cowards they were.

This is my position as well. We should have barred the leadership of the CSA from ever having a chance at political office again

I would have had the planters locked up for crimes against humanity.

[Thermodolia]

It’s the same reason why we carpet boomed germany into submission

And after that war was over, we punished those who had committed crimes against humanity. Not everyone who was a nazi or supported the nazi's - only those people who had committed war crimes. That we didn't enact vengeful retribution on the Germans ( like the Soviets did ) is why West Germany today is one of the most prosperous regions in the entire world.

But we didn’t even do that to the CSA leadership. We let them walk free. And you are saying that we shouldn’t have attempted to punish the leadership of the CSA.

Also us not doing what the Soviets did has nothing to do with why germany is prosperous and has everything to do with the fact that we dumped billions to restart their economy

[Joohan]

I didn't know that we were trying to live up to the standards of Jacobin France or Bolshevik Russia. America showed compassion, and now we're the most powerful nation on the planet.

Literally every other nation that had a civil war executed the rebel leadership. After the English civil war they executed the rebel leadership and they went on to become the largest empire the world has ever seen. So being compassionate has nothing to do with weather or not we are a superpower

The rebels won the English civil war. Once again, why are we trying to compare ourselves to other nations?

[Thermodolia]

This is my position as well. We should have barred the leadership of the CSA from ever having a chance at political office again

I would have had the planters locked up for crimes against humanity.

Yes we should have tried the plantation owners for crimes against humanity.

[Thermodolia]

Literally every other nation that had a civil war executed the rebel leadership. After the English civil war they executed the rebel leadership and they went on to become the largest empire the world has ever seen. So being compassionate has nothing to do with weather or not we are a superpower

The rebels won the English civil war.

You got the point though. Those who won a civil war end up executing the leadership.

Once again, why are we trying to compare ourselves to other nations?

Why are you trying to make excuses for the CSA leadership and rich plantation owners? They where the ones in charge and they should have been arrested and executed for their crimes.

Yet you think we shouldn’t have done that for some very stupid reasons

[Grenartia]

I would have had the planters locked up for crimes against humanity.

Yes we should have tried the plantation owners for crimes against humanity.

I'm not sure that was a crime at that time. But they definitely should have been tried for treason, and had their land, monetary, and other assets divided amongst their former slaves. No member of any Confederate Army should have been allowed to attain a rank higher than Captain in the US Army post-war, and the leadership should have been locked up and the key melted as scrap.

[Kowani]

Regardless of what you think of the confederacy, I believe the consensus of most historians is that Reconstruction was a disaster.

[Rojava Free State]

Yes we should have tried the plantation owners for crimes against humanity.

I'm not sure that was a crime at that time. But they definitely should have been tried for treason, and had their land, monetary, and other assets divided amongst their former slaves. No member of any Confederate Army should have been allowed to attain a rank higher than Captain in the US Army post-war, and the leadership should have been locked up and the key melted as scrap.

Due to the rules of this forum, I am not allowed to say what should have happened to the CSA's leadership.

[Grenartia]

Regardless of what you think of the confederacy, I believe the consensus of most historians is that Reconstruction was a disaster.

Only because it was half-assed.

[Thermodolia]

Yes we should have tried the plantation owners for crimes against humanity.

I'm not sure that was a crime at that time. But they definitely should have been tried for treason, and had their land, monetary, and other assets divided amongst their former slaves. No member of any Confederate Army should have been allowed to attain a rank higher than Captain in the US Army post-war, and the leadership should have been locked up and the key melted as scrap.

Crimes against humanity wherent really a thing during WW2 either but we decided that we needed to make them.

[Joohan]

The rebels won the English civil war.

You got the point though. Those who won a civil war end up executing the leadership.

Once again, why are we trying to compare ourselves to other nations?

Why are you trying to make excuses for the CSA leadership and rich plantation owners? They where the ones in charge and they should have been arrested and executed for their crimes.

Yet you think we shouldn’t have done that for some very stupid reasons

England was an aristocratic monarchy. The belligerents of that war wielded political power by birth right.

The United States is a democracy. The belligerents of the civil war wielded power given to them by the people. The confederate leaders were representatives of the localities - entrusted by their constitutes to wield political power on their behalf. When independence of the southern states was declared, there was no mass rebellion or rejection of their leaders decisions, there was celebration. The people gave the confederate leaders their power, and consented to the actions taken in their name. If the confederate leaders had been executed for fulfilling the desires of their constitutes, it would have trampled upon the very democratic ideals which founded this country. Whatever scars were left by the civil war, never could have been more jarring than watching the government execute the leaders you had elected to give power to. That they were merely stripped of power was the best possible outcome for American democracy.

[SangMar]

Regardless of what you think of the confederacy, I believe the consensus of most historians is that Reconstruction was a disaster.

Only because it was half-assed.

*Laughs in 1876 Election*

[Grenartia]

I'm not sure that was a crime at that time. But they definitely should have been tried for treason, and had their land, monetary, and other assets divided amongst their former slaves. No member of any Confederate Army should have been allowed to attain a rank higher than Captain in the US Army post-war, and the leadership should have been locked up and the key melted as scrap.

Crimes against humanity wherent really a thing during WW2 either but we decided that we needed to make them.

There were entirely different conditions causing that.

[Joohan]

Regardless of what you think of the confederacy, I believe the consensus of most historians is that Reconstruction was a disaster.

I wouldn't say a disaster ( the south is a well integrated part of the country today after all ), but it certainly could have gone much better.

[Last Breath]

Regardless of what you think of the confederacy, I believe the consensus of most historians is that Reconstruction was a disaster.

I wouldn't say a disaster ( the south is a well integrated part of the country today after all ), but it certainly could have gone much better.

Institutionalized racism was literally left to flourish because the North gave up, allowing southerners to continue treating African Americans in basically the same ways they had been treated before. The freedoms that had been granted to them became all but ignored.

[Albrenia]

I don't really think flags should be banned or anything, but it does rather amuse me that so-called 'freedom loving patriots' seemingly love to fly the flag of a treasonous cause and celebrate people who went to war to keep their slaves.

[Joohan]

I wouldn't say a disaster ( the south is a well integrated part of the country today after all ), but it certainly could have gone much better.

Institutionalized racism was literally left to flourish because the North gave up, allowing southerners to continue treating African Americans in basically the same ways they had been treated before. The freedoms that had been granted to them became all but ignored.

that... wasn't unique to the south i'm afraid...