Cultural Deprogramming of Post-War Confederacy

[Caiaphas]

I've been stress-reading a lot of WWII histories recently, and the thought struck me that there's basically no resemblance between the fascist governments of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany and their modern-day counterparts, and someone more versed than I could probably make a strong argument that culturally a modern German or Japanese citizen would be actively repulsed by the attitudes of the average person from their respective countries from 70 years ago.

The questions, to me, that follow (EDIT: when considering how well-regarded my own country's own moment of national insanity is) are

1. What would have been necessary to accomplish a similar shift in attitudes in the post-war South, at least to the extent of ensuring that it's commonly accepted in the modern day that the Confederacy's leaders were traitors who prosecuted an unjust war in defense of a morally unjustifiable system? and

2. Would it have been at all possible for this to happen given the prevailing political attitudes immediately post-war and the simple logistics of trying to occupy the defeated Confederacy as Germany and Japan were?

I'd appreciate the thoughts of those more historically versed than I, or direction to resources that might better answer these questions.

[Elheru Aran]

The problem with the Reconstruction period is twofold: the Federal government wasn't harsh enough, and they were too harsh in some areas.

First step: Arrest as many Confederate general officers, and perhaps a good bunch of the senior officers as well. Arrest the national government-- from Jeff Davis on down to the Congressmen, as well as the various Confederate governors.

Jeff Davis, Alexander Stephens, Robert Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest, etc? All those big-name guys get the gallows, or thrown into a prison for the remainder of their natural lives. They are the most obvious committers of treason against the United States. The punishment should fit the crime. Any less famous guys, prison terms depending on the severity of what they did. Judah P. Benjamin (Treasury Secretary of the Confederate Cabinet) would get the gallows or a life sentence; the secretary of the Confederate Congress would get a prison term of a few years.

Second step: Permanently bar anybody who served in the Confederate government or military from having any role in the states' government, at -any- level. No more retired Confederate generals becoming governors or Congressmen or heads of state colleges. They owned huge plantations? Congratulations, you've just been fined 1 Plantation, to be disposed of as the government chooses.

Speaking of which. Third step: Southern planter aristocracy? Gone. They supported the Confederacy with their money and their children in the name of preserving the slavery which their riches were built upon the back of. Anybody who owned more than one or two slaves, their property is confiscated. This goes for rich townspeople as well.

Part of the reason for this, in hindsight, is to prevent the landowners, many of which held on to their property after the war and became rich off the new slavery of sharecropping, from remaining in essentially the same social position they were before the war and continuing the social mores and culture of the Confederacy after Reconstruction ended.

Which is really the big thing. You have to make it abundantly clear to this country of secessionists and traitors that they were -in the wrong.- That this culture of slavocracy that they rested upon for a couple hundred years or so before the war was immoral, evil, and inhumane. You have to depose all the people who were in positions of power, never to hold power again, and replace them with men and women (oh who am I kidding, it would've just been men) of integrity. Extreme? Yes. But you're trying to root out a poisonous vein that's been there for centuries, versus the Nazis who were only around for a couple of decades or so, if that.

Fourth: Support the black population of the South. Protect them from the retaliation of white Southerners. Establish institutions for them. Give them the property that they used to work for their own if they want it, or give them a small sum of money to move North and get established. Monitor elections rigorously to ensure that voter discrimination isn't happening. You probably can't prevent segregation entirely, but minimize it as much as possible. This will require at least a decade or two of Federal interference in the states' affairs. So be it.

A lot of this is hindsight. Perhaps it's overly harsh. But we are talking about a culture that had rested upon the notion of white supremacy for centuries, that could not simply stop oppressing the black, formerly enslaved population after the war, that preserved their former glories as part of their culture. This is not something easily removed. You have to go nuclear or go home. And the Federal government fell drastically short IRL.

[Mr Bean]

Ah yes lets hang General Lee the man who spent his post war career being a college President and giving speeches telling people the war was over and decided and best get used to it states rights lost.

Sure lets kill Lee not like that won't create a ton of unrest and instability as one of the South's main heros is publicly killed by the state as opposed to Nathan Bedford Forest who spent his entire post war career as a terrorist. Lets hang them from the same tree right Elheru Aran?

[TheFeniX]

I'm not certain at all that executions down the chain of command for Confederate forces and Slave Owning Society would have done anything but hamper reunification efforts and lead to more hostility, both from Southerners and Northerners. More than a few Northern groups were against the war for multiple reasons and I recall anti-black sentiment in the North came to same pretty violent "resolutions."

Maybe the generals and stuff, but those guys were pretty much done. So killing them would have been seen as just another example of the North getting their licks in after the fact. Sending Northern forces to Federalize all plantation lands would be the biggest catalyst for more armed conflict and be a huge expenditure of resources for an ailing Republic coming out of it's bloodiest war, against it's own people.

The North damn sure could have done more to ensure slaves were actually freed and blacks weren't being exploited under the same basic system with a new coat of paint. But Northern and Southern citizenry were "done" at this point. They bled enough for "the black man" and just wanted things to get back to "normal" or whatever. So, spending more manhours and money tracking down abuses in a stupidly large landmass had very little support: blacks were free, let's get back to reality. And no one definitely was going to spend the money, outside some reparations which was handled poorly, to bolster the black community.

They just spanked the South the best they could and gave them a harsh talking to about being nicer to black folk, then went back North and continued their own racist policies.

[TheFeniX]

Ghetto Edit: Upon re-reading, my post comes off rather harsh. I'd like to think my post history speaks for itself, but I'll clarify: There might have been a big swelling of anti-slavery in the North and even parts of the South, but there wasn't a whole lot of "anti-racism." So, when the shooting was done, the mentality seemed to be more about bringing good god fearing White Americans back into the fold than continuing to shed blood for ex-slaves.

I obviously don't agree with this mentality, but I also don't see any benefit, considering the history, of being more punitive toward the Confederates. After-all, unification was the most important goal since external threats did and do exist. If anything, the Federal government should have spent more resources bolstering the recently freed slaved than using them to punish.

[Joun_Lord]

Much as I hate the Confederacy and would probably enjoy seeing every traitor hang from a very short rope, unfortunately any severe efforts to deprogram the former Confederacy would in my opinion cause more harm towards the country and black populations then did in reality. The efforts post Civil WAAGH! was to bring the country back together, to attempt to heal the bloody wounds that divided the nation in the first place, to even make the former Confederates and forever traitorous bastards back into Americans. To rebuild, to strengthen America.

Killing the lot of them, even just the big names, would no doubt reignite some passions, possibly even lead to more open conflict. Taking away everything people owned would make people desperate and liable to do more stupid shit like put back on that damnable grey uniform. Taking away rights guaranteed by the Constitution would be a spit in the face of every person who fought and died defending the Constitution from shitbags who wanted to wipe their slave owning asses with it.

Doing shit like that would probably turn the entire South into a diseased morass of violence and racism that would make even the bullshit with the KKK and other white supremacists in the aftermath of the CW on up to now look like nothing. The South wouldn't be part of America, it would be like an occupied country for who knows how long. Sure we might wind up with a South that eventually doesn't jerk off to traitors and doesn't peddle such moronic complete and utter bullshit like "states rights" and "it was never about slavery" or the fucking goddamn stupid as shit "war of northern aggression" that makes me want to slap somebody so hard their ancestor Cletus feels it. The cost to get there I think would be too damn high to pay.

That said, if Jefferson Davis did a short sky diving trip with a rope around his neck I don't think I'd be saddened in the slightest.