4 ms·

Feels like a story half-told without looking past the war to the failure of reconstruction policy post-Lincoln.

by akozak 5y ago

binarynate 5y ago
That's a good point. I look forward to learning more about reconstruction, which will be the next stop on my reading journey. Like the civil war, I remember very little of the details of reconstruction that were covered in school.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  One could easily argue that true reconstruction was not really tried in the Democrat-dominated South until well after the 20th-c. Civil Rights Era. It was only with radical Republicans' reform efforts culminating in the 1980s that the formerly backward, socially archaic "South" was turned into the free-wheeling and economically successful 'Sunbelt' of the present day. This is often overlooked by many political commentators who look at the otherwise unexplained, sudden popularity of Republicanism in the Sunbelt, and make up weird theories such as "the parties must have switched", or something. The reality is of course far subtler and more interesting than that!
- bradneuberg 5y ago
  I highly recommend Eric Foners book The Second Founding on the Reconstruction period.
mhink 5y ago
Well, for what it's worth, "Battle Cry of Freedom" is only the sixth volume in the Oxford History of the United States. The following volume, "The Republic for Which It Stands" by Richard White, covers the 30-year period following the war.
dylan604 5y ago
It's not like it was different from pretty much any modern post-war fuckups. Exit strategies never make it past any paper they were ever written. It's not like after hostilities the feelings, beliefs, etc of people on either side have suddenly changed. In fact, I would venture a guess that they feel even stronger. This is why I feel like the people were told to wipe out every man, woman, and child in stories from biblical times. If you're going to do it, do it. Otherwise, people are left with sentiments that will fester and eventually boil over again. However, even in the biblical stories, that doesn't happen, and the two sides are bitter ever since. Regardless, the only winning move (to any war) is not to play.
- lacker 5y ago
  Otherwise, people are left with sentiments that will fester and eventually boil over again. This does seem to very often be the pattern, which makes it pretty surprising to me in retrospect how smoothly Germany and Japan have adapted to the post-World-War-2 international order. They aren't completely nonexistent, but German Nazi groups and Japanese imperialist groups certainly have not dominated the post-war political scene, and democracy seems pretty firmly entrenched in both those countries. So, perhaps you don't need to wipe out every man, woman, and child a la Deuteronomy, and there is some sort of post-war intervention that can be successful in creating a lasting peace. I don't have a much stronger conclusion than "sometimes it is possible", though.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Don't forget about time. Those small groups become larger groups with time. WWII hasn't been that long ago relatively speaking. Since the Civil War, it seems, there has been enough time for certain ideas to have grown to a large enough numbers of people that we are where we are today. This is sounding dangerously close to me supporting wiping out entire swaths of people, which I'm absolutely not. It's understanding the reasonings for those that do isn't so illogical. It just doesn't sit well with anyone that feels differently.
  - krapp 5y ago
    >Germany and Japan have adapted to the post-World-War-2 international order. They aren't completely nonexistent, but German Nazi groups and Japanese imperialist groups certainly have not dominated the post-war political scene, and democracy seems pretty firmly entrenched in both those countries. Germany and Japan no longer romanticize and idolize revolutionary violence and nationalism, whereas the US very much still does in the mythology that its built around gun culture and the Founding Fathers - in no small part because the US suffered relatively little for its part in World War 2, and never actually learned the lessons the rest of the world did.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      > Germany and Japan no longer romanticize and idolize revolutionary violence and nationalism There's plenty of idolization of it in Germany still, with the prevalent myth of a "clean" Wermacht. Often the proponents of the myth end up unwittingly parroting transparent Nazi-era propaganda about the supposed heroic deeds of whatever random, obscure German military figure.
bradford 5y ago
Totally agree. I'm convinced that the failure of reconstruction explains the current state of US politics, perhaps better than an analysis of the civil war itself. The author mentions that: "Southerners adopted beliefs that justified slavery as a moral good, such as the view that slavery benefited slaves because it offered them a better life than they would otherwise have as freed people." The law was changed, but this belief was still held by the defeated southerner ruling class, who began using weasel tactics as a method of enforcement (example: Jim Crowe). These tactics were initially fought by federal power, but the political will to carry on this fight faded over time. I fret to think of the US that could have been, had this fight been given the attention it deserved.

Feels like a story half-told without looking past the war to the failure of reconstruction policy post-Lincoln.

by akozak 5y ago

Feels like a story half-told without looking past the war to the failure of reconstruction policy post-Lincoln.

That's a good point. I look forward to learning more about reconstruction, which will be the next stop on my reading journey. Like the civil war, I remember very little of the details of reconstruction that were covered in school.

zozbot234 5y ago
One could easily argue that true reconstruction was not really tried in the Democrat-dominated South until well after the 20th-c. Civil Rights Era. It was only with radical Republicans' reform efforts culminating in the 1980s that the formerly backward, socially archaic "South" was turned into the free-wheeling and economically successful 'Sunbelt' of the present day. This is often overlooked by many political commentators who look at the otherwise unexplained, sudden popularity of Republicanism in the Sunbelt, and make up weird theories such as "the parties must have switched", or something. The reality is of course far subtler and more interesting than that!
bradneuberg 5y ago
I highly recommend Eric Foners book The Second Founding on the Reconstruction period.

mhink 5y ago

Well, for what it's worth, "Battle Cry of Freedom" is only the sixth volume in the Oxford History of the United States. The following volume, "The Republic for Which It Stands" by Richard White, covers the 30-year period following the war.

dylan604 5y ago

It's not like it was different from pretty much any modern post-war fuckups. Exit strategies never make it past any paper they were ever written. It's not like after hostilities the feelings, beliefs, etc of people on either side have suddenly changed. In fact, I would venture a guess that they feel even stronger. This is why I feel like the people were told to wipe out every man, woman, and child in stories from biblical times. If you're going to do it, do it. Otherwise, people are left with sentiments that will fester and eventually boil over again. However, even in the biblical stories, that doesn't happen, and the two sides are bitter ever since. Regardless, the only winning move (to any war) is not to play.

lacker 5y ago
Otherwise, people are left with sentiments that will fester and eventually boil over again. This does seem to very often be the pattern, which makes it pretty surprising to me in retrospect how smoothly Germany and Japan have adapted to the post-World-War-2 international order. They aren't completely nonexistent, but German Nazi groups and Japanese imperialist groups certainly have not dominated the post-war political scene, and democracy seems pretty firmly entrenched in both those countries. So, perhaps you don't need to wipe out every man, woman, and child a la Deuteronomy, and there is some sort of post-war intervention that can be successful in creating a lasting peace. I don't have a much stronger conclusion than "sometimes it is possible", though.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Don't forget about time. Those small groups become larger groups with time. WWII hasn't been that long ago relatively speaking. Since the Civil War, it seems, there has been enough time for certain ideas to have grown to a large enough numbers of people that we are where we are today. This is sounding dangerously close to me supporting wiping out entire swaths of people, which I'm absolutely not. It's understanding the reasonings for those that do isn't so illogical. It just doesn't sit well with anyone that feels differently.
- krapp 5y ago
  >Germany and Japan have adapted to the post-World-War-2 international order. They aren't completely nonexistent, but German Nazi groups and Japanese imperialist groups certainly have not dominated the post-war political scene, and democracy seems pretty firmly entrenched in both those countries. Germany and Japan no longer romanticize and idolize revolutionary violence and nationalism, whereas the US very much still does in the mythology that its built around gun culture and the Founding Fathers - in no small part because the US suffered relatively little for its part in World War 2, and never actually learned the lessons the rest of the world did.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    > Germany and Japan no longer romanticize and idolize revolutionary violence and nationalism There's plenty of idolization of it in Germany still, with the prevalent myth of a "clean" Wermacht. Often the proponents of the myth end up unwittingly parroting transparent Nazi-era propaganda about the supposed heroic deeds of whatever random, obscure German military figure.

bradford 5y ago

Totally agree. I'm convinced that the failure of reconstruction explains the current state of US politics, perhaps better than an analysis of the civil war itself. The author mentions that: "Southerners adopted beliefs that justified slavery as a moral good, such as the view that slavery benefited slaves because it offered them a better life than they would otherwise have as freed people." The law was changed, but this belief was still held by the defeated southerner ruling class, who began using weasel tactics as a method of enforcement (example: Jim Crowe). These tactics were initially fought by federal power, but the political will to carry on this fight faded over time. I fret to think of the US that could have been, had this fight been given the attention it deserved.