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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 03:47 am |
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1st Post |
Bama46
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It has been said that the 2nd amendment is not about duck hunting. Was reconstruction about rebuilding Atlanta, Decatur, Meridian, Jackson or other southern towns?.. or was it something else?
Look at the CSA from the end of the war until today... we were conquered, beaten into submission, required to rejoin a nation that said we never left, disenfranchised (sp.. Thank you Gen Jackson!) suffered under military rule... the only section of the country that ever was, and I believe have not gotten over it yet, and have never been allowed to .
I have spent my life listening to people telling me i should get over the war.. I tell them we got over the war years ago, but we will never get over reconstruction
What think you?
Ed
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 05:09 am |
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2nd Post |
13PA
Member
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Johnson, Grant and Hayes were not the moral nor mental equivalent of Truman, Marshall and MacArthur.
ACW Post-War Reconstruction policy was an absolute disaster that filled the pockets of the greedy and emptied those of the needy. O. O. Howard and his crew were in way over their righteous hairy heads.
Hancock and Longstreet were the only ones who had the guts to tell it like it was. And therein lies the trap. During the Reconstruction era it was less like "put up or shut up" and more like "show me the money".
Everybody got screwed except for those that rigged the game.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 02:19 pm |
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 02:39 pm |
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 03:57 pm |
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5th Post |
ole
Member
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Lots of "not fair" going on even today. And it wasn't. It was a classic example of government bungling and vituperation. But it was a result that might be expected after picking a fight and getting thoroughly whipped. Broken bones mend and bruises fade. It seems that reconstruction doesn't go away.
"We" got whipped?
ole
Last edited on Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 04:00 pm by ole
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 05:04 pm |
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6th Post |
younglobo
Member
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havnt read much on reconstruction but early on the US had a mess with us and you will pay mentality (South, Indians) and how folks were treated after defeated guess we maybe have melowed a little heck we rebuilt Japan and now the build all the good stuff. LOL
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 05:08 pm |
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7th Post |
Bama46
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I say "we" not that I was in the fight..I am old, but not that old!
We in the sense of the region. Look at the relative wealth of the states of the CSA and compare that to the northern states.. from the war to today.. look at the roads, rail roads, interstates (discounting snowbird routes to florida) and compare them with the north. My hometown of 250,000 people (metro area) doesn't have an interstate within 60 miles of it...N-S and doesn't have an E-W interstate within probably 100 miles. How many northern cities of that size can make that claim? How much industry goes somewhere else because of this? .. This is true of the region..
Of course, there are places like Atlanta...but try to find a southerner living there..
Mississippi is reduced to gambling to keep the state afloat, Louisana ..tourism... Tennessee has a few metropolitan areas served by the interstates, Arkansas is the chicken state..I am not familiar enough with the Carolinas to comment, but I do believe the intercoastal waterway has become pretty much impassible except in the Northern states due to a lack of maintenance.
these are wonderful places and I am sad that they are still suffering from the effects of reconstruction.. and carpetbagging is very much alive and well in them. MHO
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 06:32 pm |
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8th Post |
ole
Member
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Please don't blame the impoverished south on the CW or reconstruction. At the time of the USCW, the south was a backwater society dominated by a few very wealthy, close-minded "aristocrats." It was not reconstruction that caused or perpetuated that stereotypical society.
Progress in the south was impeded by the peculiar institution. When it was gone, there is no reason I can think of that the south couldn't have bounced back to equal the progress in the north -- not even reconstruction -- except the obsession about "we was robbed."
True, the north did not suffer the devastation that the south did. But we are 150 years past that. And you're still blaming reconstruction for the lack of equality?
In any event, I don't see how reconstruction works into your argument that it kept the south impoverished to this day. If (IF) the south is impoverished, it can't be blamed on reconstruction. Something in the water?
ole
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 06:36 pm |
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9th Post |
PvtClewell
Member
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What if there had been no civil war and therefore no need for reconstruction? Would not the deep south states, almost exclusively agrarian and devoid of heavy industry, have entered the 20th and 21st centuries relatively impoverished compared to the north anyway? I agree reconstruction didn't help matters, but I think some of the comparative 'woes' of today's south were indigenous to the region's antebellum history anyhow.
I've lived here in Lexington, NC, for more than 30 years and this was once a thriving mill town, productive in both furniture and textiles (even as late as the 1970s). The town immediately to the east of us, Thomasville, is also famous for furniture. The town west of us, Spencer, was a bustling hub for the Southern Railroad. Further west is Kannapolis, site of the now defunct Cannon Mills (Cannon towels). North of us is Winston-Salem, its very name synonymous with tobacco.
We must be going through a new era of reconstruction and carpetbagging. Furniture and textiles have gone offshore, the railroads are museum pieces and tobacco is politically incorrect. The local economy sucks, but that wasn't true when I first arrived here. (Hey, maybe it's me)
(Just for fun, we have access to two interstates, and we're a town of only 20,000. I-85 goes through us to Charlotte and Greensboro, and I-40 runs through W-S.)
I guess all I'm saying is I don't think that you can't make blanket statement about reconstruction affecting the entire south in the same way. Some regions in the south bounced back better than others.
Also, I like relatively the slower pace of the south, which is why I'm still here instead of in Pennsylvania.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 06:53 pm |
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10th Post |
ole
Member
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Also, I like relatively the slower pace of the south, which is why I'm still here instead of in Pennsylvania.
Maybe you've hit on the crux of Bama's argument? Where did that slower pace, however pleasant, come from?
ole
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 07:03 pm |
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11th Post |
ole
Member
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(Just for fun, we have access to two interstates, and we're a town of only 20,000. I-85 goes through us to Charlotte and Greensboro, and I-40 runs through W-S.)
Just for fun, I have access to three intestates. One is 3 miles away, one is 23 miles away, and one is 30 miles away. The local metropolitan area numbers close to 30,000. The Interstate system was not designed to include this area, it just happened that we were close to the Chicgo/St. Louis/Memphis link. Accidental proximity. Nothing at all to do with preferential treatment.
ole
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 07:23 pm |
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12th Post |
PvtClewell
Member
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I'm guessing that the slower pace was always there in the pre-war, under-industrialized south. Climate, no doubt, played a major role in slowing everybody's social metabolism. But the world is quickly encroaching. Charlotte is an hour away, and it might as well be Philadelphia. I avoid Charlotte as much as possible.
There are slower paces northward, too. The Finger Lakes region is nice. Upstate Pennsylvania, near Penn State, is very rural. And there are places in New England that are quite bucolic. But they also get blizzards and I'm seriously allergic to shoveling snow, and even worse, driving in it.
In the circles that I move, there are lots of things about the south that are slower than the north. A slower way of talking, a slower way of moving, a more casual approach to deadlines and a keener sense of community (at least in my neighborhood). I'm not so sure these aren't regional traits that are handed down from generation to generation (Southern hospitality) and that I find very appealing. Not sure reconstruction had much to do with that.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 07:25 pm |
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 07:54 pm |
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14th Post |
Johan Steele
Life NRA,SUVCW # 48,Legion 352
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Bama46 wrote: How could it have been worse?
The US Army could have been a Roman, Mongol, French, British, Russian, Japanese etc.
There was no decimation, depopulation, mass executions etc.
The problem w/ concentrating wholly upon the CW is that it's not very easy to realize how many times things have happened before. Knowing history too well you realize that the more things change the more they stay the same.
I often hear how brutal Sherman's march wa or that Sherman was the first to practice total war. the only way to say such w/ a straight face is to ignore more than 2000 years of history prior to 1865.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 08:11 pm |
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 08:28 pm |
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16th Post |
javal1
Grumpy Geezer
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This has the possibility of being a fantastic thread. The problem, as alluded to in previous posts, is that you can't look at the problems the South may have today and ascribe them all to reconstruction. I do, by the way, happen to believe that reconstruction was a horrible setback for a country which, after 4 years of hell, finally had an opportunity to come together. And I certainly believe (which will draw the ire of all those Lincoln haters out there) that had he lived, things would have been done differently (and better).
Now at the risk of offending some Southerners, I think many of the problems they have today are the fault of norms and mores that they carried well into the 20th-century. Yes, the South still lags behind in many (most) statistics - education, per capita income, etc., but can that really be blamed on reconstruction? Is it possible that the overt racism of the 1940's, 50's, and 60's contributed? Before all the partisans jump on me and point out that the North was racist as well, I concede that. But give a black in the 40's, 50's, or 60's a choice of where to live, say Philadelphia, Mississippi or Philadelphia, Pa., where do you think they chose?
What does that have to do with why the South lags behind today? Much of the income to state's comes from the Federal government in the form of Block Grant's. Money given to state's by the US Gov't. to build schools, build roads, etc. How are they allocated? Population.
There are other issues that could be blamed, but the point is this - how do you differentiate between the the social problems caused by reconstruction and those caused by the behavior of the South in the 20th-century?
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 08:47 pm |
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17th Post |
39th Miss. Walker
Member
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"Give a black in the 40's or 50's or 60's a choice of where to live, say Philadelphia, Mississippi, or Philadelphia, Pa. where do you think they chose?"
Lets see the racist South or the racist North? How about the place with the industry and possibly jobs! Same with Detroit, Chicago, NY......
Look at the school desegregation. How many Northern states does this Federal Law apply to? How many Southern States?
Why are only Southern States still under Federal oversight? Why did this not apply to Northern States? Or the rest of the US?
So yes hints of reconstruction are still with us today.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 08:54 pm |
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18th Post |
Bama46
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Did the whites of the south suddenly decide one day to begin the systematic suppression of the black folk who lived among them or was something else at work here? If reconstruction was a bad thing and most say it was, is it not possible that Jim Crow came into being as a direct of the abuses whites endured during reconstruction. If that is the case, is it possible that many of the racial turmoil our country has experienced for the past 100 years or so be tied to reconstruction? That turmoil had done as much as anything to hold down or back the south....I am not trying to construct an Animal House hearing here and no one is on double secret probation..
I believe things happen in a continuium and can see direct casue and effect from reconstruction to today. I certainly am not being an apologist for the south or whining about inequities.
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 10:04 pm |
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19th Post |
Bama46
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39th Miss Walker hit on an important point here. JObs and Money. If there is none and no hope for any, there will not be much social, political or certainly not much ecomomic progress. Reconstruction systematicaly drained the south of her resources for the benefit of northern interests. Depression came and stayed. I don't have facts, but it would be interesting to compare lifespans of the population of northern vs southern cities and towns.
By the way Joe, I agree with you that had Lincoln lived, reconstruction would never have taken place. Much of it was in retribution to both the war and the assasination (sp, thank you Gen Jackson!)
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| Posted: Sat Dec 22nd, 2007 10:28 pm |
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20th Post |
javal1
Grumpy Geezer
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Bama and 39th,
Good posts by both of you. That's really what I was trying to do - get folks to relate the late 19th-century events (reconstruction) to what we saw in the early and late 20th-century. To me anyway it's so important to (as I believe Bama said) look at these things as a "continuim" rather than isolated events.
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