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It has never occurred to me that the USA fought a civil war to end slavery. I had only considered that we fought a civil war to keep slavery. I guess that’s jus

It has never occurred to me that the USA fought a civil war to end slavery. I had only considered that we fought a civil war to keep slavery. I guess that’s just my southern born and raised pov. Thanks for giving me a more positive view of my country.

irishcoffee 9y ago
Reading your comment makes me curious how prevent this train of thought is for people in the south. Certainly not a dig towards you.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
Another thing to feel good about: The way the end of the US Civil War went down was remarkably enlightened and created a new template for putting conflicts to rest which is likely partly responsible for the fact that WW2 has not (yet?) fostered a WW3. Historically, people who surrendered paid war reparations to the winning side and it was generally pretty ugly. This is part of why General Lee was very reluctant to surrender. It was considered to be a fate worse than death. But there were only three conditions of his surrender at Appomattox. One of them was that the North would come in and help them rebuild. This was an unprecedented break with human history. It is rare for a nation to only have a single civil war. Typically, the end of one plants the bitter seeds of the next. Rinse and repeat. It is remarkable the US has only seen one. The end of WW1 also planted the bitter seeds of WW2. When WW2 ended, the US went in to both Germany and Japan and helped them rebuild. The world also created a number of institutions aimed at preventing another global conflict. These are mostly financial organizations, like The World Bank. It was widely recognized that the global depression was a major root cause of WW2. Some world leaders vowed "Never again" and did what they could to make that vow a commitment the world could bank on. Edit: FWIW, I was born and raised in Georgia, though daddy was a Hoosier and mom is a German immigrant, so no one ever saw me as "Southern" until I moved to the West Coast.
- TheCoelacanth 9y ago
  In some ways it was probably too "enlightened". Far too little was done to help the newly freed slaves and far too much was done to coddle their former owners. The "forty acres and a mule" promise was abandoned almost immediately and the freed slaves received no compensation whatsoever for their years of work, leading directly to the astronomical poverty rates that persist to the present day. The right to vote for the former slaves lasted barely more than a decade before the southern states started to disenfranchise them. The first two black senators were elected within a decade of the end of the Civil War. The third wasn't elected until more than a century after it ended.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    In some ways it was probably too "enlightened". I would call that not enlightened enough. Real progress is quite hard. A lot of discussions about ideals fail to recognize that there are pragmatic limits. Any mention of pragmatic limits is attacked as an excuse for continued bad behavior. As a current example, I am not for UBI. I don't think it really works in practical terms. It sounds like a nice ideal, but when you dig into the details, I think it simply doesn't work. It is really, really common for new initiatives to wind up falling far short of their stated goals. It would be nice if the North had done more for the freed slaves. But I don't think that failure really suggests that it would have been better if the handling of the end of the Civil War had sowed the seeds of the next American civil war. I can't say that I really believe that Black Americans would be better off if the country were locked in a vicious cycle of civil wars. I am finding myself deeply disturbed by the things I am learning here lately about the history of how Blacks have been treated. I am newly off the street and back in housing and I am seriously medically handicapped, so there is significant limits on what I, personally, can do about anything beyond just coping with my own survival. But perhaps my upset over these injustices will stay with me and perhaps that will lead to something constructive happening, at some point. I have a tendency to try to light one small candle rather than the curse the darkness. Although it seems to have so far failed to establish any kind of reputation of a sort where I can use it for purposes of being a resume or making money or having serious influence, I have a track record of making a difference. Though a tree falls and makes no sound, still, it falls.

irishcoffee 9y ago

Reading your comment makes me curious how prevent this train of thought is for people in the south. Certainly not a dig towards you.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

Another thing to feel good about: The way the end of the US Civil War went down was remarkably enlightened and created a new template for putting conflicts to rest which is likely partly responsible for the fact that WW2 has not (yet?) fostered a WW3. Historically, people who surrendered paid war reparations to the winning side and it was generally pretty ugly. This is part of why General Lee was very reluctant to surrender. It was considered to be a fate worse than death. But there were only three conditions of his surrender at Appomattox. One of them was that the North would come in and help them rebuild. This was an unprecedented break with human history. It is rare for a nation to only have a single civil war. Typically, the end of one plants the bitter seeds of the next. Rinse and repeat. It is remarkable the US has only seen one. The end of WW1 also planted the bitter seeds of WW2. When WW2 ended, the US went in to both Germany and Japan and helped them rebuild. The world also created a number of institutions aimed at preventing another global conflict. These are mostly financial organizations, like The World Bank. It was widely recognized that the global depression was a major root cause of WW2. Some world leaders vowed "Never again" and did what they could to make that vow a commitment the world could bank on. Edit: FWIW, I was born and raised in Georgia, though daddy was a Hoosier and mom is a German immigrant, so no one ever saw me as "Southern" until I moved to the West Coast.

TheCoelacanth 9y ago
In some ways it was probably too "enlightened". Far too little was done to help the newly freed slaves and far too much was done to coddle their former owners. The "forty acres and a mule" promise was abandoned almost immediately and the freed slaves received no compensation whatsoever for their years of work, leading directly to the astronomical poverty rates that persist to the present day. The right to vote for the former slaves lasted barely more than a decade before the southern states started to disenfranchise them. The first two black senators were elected within a decade of the end of the Civil War. The third wasn't elected until more than a century after it ended.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  In some ways it was probably too "enlightened". I would call that not enlightened enough. Real progress is quite hard. A lot of discussions about ideals fail to recognize that there are pragmatic limits. Any mention of pragmatic limits is attacked as an excuse for continued bad behavior. As a current example, I am not for UBI. I don't think it really works in practical terms. It sounds like a nice ideal, but when you dig into the details, I think it simply doesn't work. It is really, really common for new initiatives to wind up falling far short of their stated goals. It would be nice if the North had done more for the freed slaves. But I don't think that failure really suggests that it would have been better if the handling of the end of the Civil War had sowed the seeds of the next American civil war. I can't say that I really believe that Black Americans would be better off if the country were locked in a vicious cycle of civil wars. I am finding myself deeply disturbed by the things I am learning here lately about the history of how Blacks have been treated. I am newly off the street and back in housing and I am seriously medically handicapped, so there is significant limits on what I, personally, can do about anything beyond just coping with my own survival. But perhaps my upset over these injustices will stay with me and perhaps that will lead to something constructive happening, at some point. I have a tendency to try to light one small candle rather than the curse the darkness. Although it seems to have so far failed to establish any kind of reputation of a sort where I can use it for purposes of being a resume or making money or having serious influence, I have a track record of making a difference. Though a tree falls and makes no sound, still, it falls.