Posted on 02/04/2003 3:42:54 AM PST by kattracks
Nope. But at least I'm not trying to fight the Civil War still. Is General Sherman on the way to burn down your outhouse?
You accuse me of being divorced from reality while freely admitting that you still use confederate money. That's quite a stretch.
Then why did you say that the southern Black Codes and Jim Crow laws were based on those up North when the south had been enacting such laws for generations?
Because they were based on northern black codes. They had to eliminate all their slavery-based laws and replace them with "emancipation-acceptable" black codes like the north used. They used many of them as models to create their own new codes.
But how hard a job could redrafting the laws be? It doesn't look like clever lawyers and legislators needed much in the way of models to replace "slave" as "person of color" or other phrase. For whatever it's worth, Southern slave codes would certainly have antedated any Oregon laws, and those of Illinois or Indiana as well. Virginia's first slave code was passed in 1705.
But this lobbing of reproaches back and forth between North and South serves little purpose. As far as slavery and race are concerned, there is much to reproach in the conduct of both regions. What is significant about 19th century America is that the North was getting rid of slavery when the South was supporting it ever more passionately. Subsequently the North was reducing segregation while the South was building it up. Today, it certainly looks like Black-White relations are better in the South than in the North, but that doesn't alter the realities of past eras.
it was Lincoln's political opponents within his own party who were the true advocates of black suffrage. If anything, it was easier for them to achieve black suffrage with him dead and not there to interfere with the rest of Congress by promoting his exclusionary and conditional alternatives to full rights.
Probably only a minority of Northern voters wanted Black suffrage in 1865. The Fifteenth Amendment only came in 1870, and the problem in 1865 was still getting the Thirteenth Amendment ratified. Even in informed circles, most people didn't yet contemplate a constitutional amendment to guarantee Black suffrage. Whether Black civil rights was a local or a national issue was still at issue. Lincoln was behind the radicals but ahead of the electorate. It's impossible to tell whether Lincoln's proposal was his first or last answer to the question of Black suffrage after the war, because he didn't live to give that final answer.
It certainly was easier to get the Reconstruction amendments passed after Lincoln's death, but that's because the 13th Amendment was regarded by many as the nation's last tribute to Lincoln, and some of that spirit endured when the later amendments were proposed.
Would Lincoln have blocked egalitarian measures by Radical Republicans? It's impossible to say. He didn't live to complete his "arc of development." But Lincoln's emphasis in 1865 was on expanding the suffrage, but not on restricting it or on limiting its expansion. We don't know if Lincoln would have been carried along by the radicals or if he would have resisted them. It's likely that he would have been a stronger President than Johnson, but he could still have foundered. He certainly had some sympathy for the defeated Southerners, but he was more open to change than Johnson was. The idea that Lincoln's support for emancipation and limited Black suffrage were a result of radical pressure suggests that they might have moved him to still greater changes.
It is pretty clear that the radical trend wouldn't have been as strong had Lincoln lived, though, since it wouldn't have had him as martyr. Lincoln also would have had a stronger base of support than Johnson did. Had Lincoln not been killed, efforts for Black equality might have been less, but could have been longer-lived. An amendment to guarantee the vote to all voters regardless of color may or may not have been put through, but perhaps votes for the "talented tenth" of Black voters might have survived. It's likely though, that Southern opposition would have doomed even that.
But which would you prefer: a Lincoln who let Southern Whites back into power on their own terms, or one who would have pushed for racial equality? It looks to me like today's Confederates would have attacked him either way.
For example?
I dunno why. I never make unnecessary posts.
Walt
You thought I was serious? Yes, you are divorced form reality.
Well, that settles it then; we both agree that your statements are a joke.
Yes of course my statements to you were a joke, as any fool would have recognized from the beginning. When you ask a foolish question you can expect a jocular response. But you couldn't figure that out for yourself, you needed to be told. I am sorry for you, I genuinely pity fools.
OK, just remember to put in the sarcasm tag next time you complain about Lincoln.
Have you considered suing him for emotional distress? It's gotta suck to spend so much time complaining about something you niether lived thru or can do anything about.
Actually I spend very little time at it, I have many much better things to occupy my time with. Only when I am bored and want a few laughs do I visit this site to push the buttons of the Lincoln-lovers. But something can be done about the matter; the history can be revised to represent what really went on more accurately.
There are no saints. I have no problem whatsoever with your comments of correctly reporting history, but it is strange that there seems to be such an obsession with being anti-Lincoln on these threads.
We want the left to get over the segregation laws which are now defunct; but some on the right can't get over something that happened in the 1800's.
One reason is that the generally accepted history of Lincoln and his actions is seen by many as particularly distorted. Also, it is a reaction against the current attack on those wishing to honor and preserve their Confederate heritage, an attack which involves, among other things, further gross distortion of history.
I really am not deeply involved in this. I have no Confederate heritage myself, although I am sympathetic to those who do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.