Posted on 11/06/2003 7:31:54 PM PST by republicanwizard
Perhaps you'd like to read the Wade-Davis Manifesto by two leading Radical Republicans (hint: they were not Democrats). This manifesto criticizes Lincoln (Manifesto against Lincoln). It says in part:
That judgment of Congress which the President defies was the exercise of an authority exclusively vested in Congress by the Constitution to determine what is the established Government in a State, and in its own nature and by the highest judicial authority binding on all other departments of the Government. .A more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the people has never been perpetrated.
...He has already exercised this dictatorial usurpation in Louisiana, and he defeated the bill to prevent its limitation. .
...the whole body of the Union men of Congress will not submit to be impeached by him of rash and unconstitutional legislation...
Which side are you on, the Radical's or the dictatorial usurper's?
I won't say that no one is ever convinced by these discussions. When I first came upon them, I was rather more sympathetic to the Confederates than to the Unionists. The evidence and arguments changed my mind. I suppose if I had stronger ties to the South or if I wanted to focus very narrowly on some things and exclude others, I wouldn't have been swayed. But given what I've found out and my way of looking at the world, it doesn't seem to me that secession was a good idea or that it could be have been a "right" under the Constitution, or that secession boded well for America.
Had things happened differently at mid century, it is likely that that later development would have been different. Perhaps fortunes -- and immiseration -- might have been less. I suppose it's possible that, like Canada, Australia or Iceland, we could have avoided the worst aspects of industrialism and piggybacked our way to modernity, letting others bear the greater costs of development. But it's by no means a certainty. And it is something that would have been harder for the South with its racial conflicts and other problems than the rest of the country. Had we taken a more Canadian path, there would still have been class conflicts and labor violence. It was unavoidable at the time. The price of taking a more human path might have been less development and more state social programs today.
You may want to separate out the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts from agrarian ruling classes as particularly brutal, but that's by no means a given either. Antebellum Southern planters and railroad builders who made use of slave labor, post-bellum Southern masters of mills and sharecroppers weren't soft touches by any means. "Mightn't Southern workers have happily escaped those deliberate humiliations" of time clocks and punching in? The short answer is no. Those who had would have been bypassed in favor of those who would put up with the indignities imposed on cheap labor: slaves, indentured workers or immigrants. Tight control over the labor force was a major feature of plantation economies and that wouldn't change.
It's hardly likely that we have time cards and punch in at work today because of a war long ago. Modernity is a global phenomenon. The Confederacy could hardly have escaped from it, though they might have shifted its burdens from some shoulders to others. Other countries which had nothing like our 1860s experience have adopted the modern office/factory work system.
I suppose it's possible that a victorious Confederacy might have been more "laid back" about its work habits -- at least for some people -- in the manner of other "tropical" or "Mediterranean" societies. But such laxness might well have meant less production and greater poverty and corruption. I suppose it might be nice to have more "European" society in some things, but it means taking "Europeanness" in other, and unpredicted things as well. To take Jefferson Davis to get Chirac or Jospin isn't a very appealing bargain, as few of us would want either Davis or Chirac or Jospin. It wasn't what people thought was at stake in 1860, nor was it the most likely outcome of the Civil War. So it looks a lot like slight of hand on your part.
I'd have to say: 1) what would have changed for the better would have been a marginal improvement, not unimportant, but less significant than you think and 2) what could have changed for the worse could have been very bad indeed. The system of "free labor" may look unfair or repressive or far from ideal, but had the other alternative -- slave labor -- suceeded things would have been worse. And while slavery might have been abolished at some point, it's less likely that Southern elites would easily give up the kind of control over their labor force that they'd come to expect.
You seem to have an overly rosy view of antebellum Southern life. It was no paradise. I'd be the first to concede, though, that the protectionist path followed after the war may well have been the wrong one. Perhaps Seymour or Tilden or Hancock would have made better Presidents than Grant or Hayes or Garfield. They may have had more dignity and rectitude. But they had their own blindnesses with respect to exploitation and brutality, and this was all the more true of 19th century Southern leaders.
Jefferson's view of liberty was influenced by the frontier experience. Those who were self-sufficient could be more truly free than those who were in any way dependent on others. There were also feudal elements in Jefferson's vision: for those who could command the obedience and unpaid labor of others could also have greater freedom that those who worked for wages or had to hire wage labor. So it doesn't seem to me that his ideal could have been realized. At best it would have become impossible as the country grew more crowded and people became more interdependent. At worst it would have saddled the country with a monstrous feudalism that countenanced the absolute bondage of many for the freedom of some. It might help if instead of looking at our condition as "half empty" you considered the ways in which it is "half full" and our real freedom has been enhanced over the centuries. Certainly it's doubtful that our fellow citizens would prefer frontier to suburban freedom.
You do raise some interesting questions, but for me, the return on effort expended has already begun to diminish, both on the agrarian question and other Civil War topics.
What "thing" did I make up? I won't touch the "ignornnt people" comment.
Apparently you are losing the argument, so you attempt to declare victory and run.
Your Democrat buddy Andrew Johnson was the one who had been clamoring for executions.
He's not my "Democrat buddy". I just don't like to see history misrepresented.
My Republican roots are pretty strong, thanks. My father was a Republican County chairman in two states. A brother was minority (Republican) counsel for a Senate committee in Washington DC. A sister-in-law worked for the Republican National Committee. Another brother was a state chairman of college Republicans, and a sister worked on a Republican Congressman's staff in Washington DC. Me? I've gone to county and state Republican conventions, worked as a Republican official at the polls, and walked door-to-door handing out flyers for Republicans.
1) The Radical Republicans were not hateful or vindictive toward "the South"...
Take it up with Welles, a founder of the Republican Party. Welles attributed to Lincoln words to the effect that 'There were men in Congress who, if their motives were good, were nevertheless impracticable, and who possessed feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which he did not sympathize and could not participate.' Welles was there; you were not.
2) Your mention of Congress "intervening" attests to your distain for democracy. Since when is Congress "intervening" by exercising its legislative function?
It was Radical Republicans Wade and Davis who protested Lincoln's interfering with what Congress wanted to do. Is that what you are referring to?
Lincoln had the constitutional right to pocket veto this bill. Radicals Wade and Davis apparently called Lincoln's action unconstitutional and Lincoln a dictatorial usurper.
I prefer a representative republic that obeys its constitution over a democracy or a representative republic that does not obey its constitution.
3) Lincoln did indeed want to overseee Reconstruction without congressional input, but such arogation of power was completely unprecendented in U.S. history. Lincoln doing things himself would have made Stanton's miliatary government approach even easier to carry out.
You are right about Lincoln's arrogation of power. It is one of the things we Southerners complain about on these threads. Apparently though, Lincoln was in favor of civilian governments for the South according to Welles. Military rule would have had to be short term in nature to satisfy Lincoln's desire for quick return to civil state governments.
3) Not allowing rebels to sit in Congress, even before Reconstruction had been completed was not "punishing the South."
Wasn't freedom, that's for sure.
If the South never left the Union as Lincoln argued, it was thus was entitled to its place in Congress as long as it obeyed the laws of the country and the Constitution.
Congress and the Radicals then imposed conditions like passing the unratified 14th Amendment as a requirement for being seated. The only Constitutional requirement for a state was that they have a republican form of government. That's small "r" republican, not capital "R" Republican. Political conditions were being forced on the South, not Constitutional ones.
4) The Wade-Davis bill was passed almost unanimously by Republicans in Congress; labelling the will of Congress and of the Republican Party as a Radical scheme is a lie.
It passed 73 to 59 in the House and 18 to 14 in the Senate. Lincoln's pocket veto of the bill stood.
Where did I characterize the Wade-Davis bill as a Radical scheme? All I noted was that Wade and Davis were Radical Republicans. Was I incorrect?
5) The other sourse you cite states: "a faction of Johnson’s own party, the Republicans" thus discrediting the author and you for citing her as an authority. Though elected as Lincoln's 1864 running mate, Andrew Johnson was a D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T
Yes, I noticed that too. She would have been more correct to label them allies, even though they often disagreed. But, of course, as you know, Johnson was not elected Vice President on a Democrat ticket or a Republican one. He was elected on the same 'National Union Party' ticket as Lincoln.
Have you a source that says there was not disagreement between Lincoln and the Radicals on how to achieve reconstruction?
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