Reconstruction: The Second American Revolution - The Sequel to Until Every Drop of Blood Is Paid
- Thread starter Red_Galiray
- Start date
Not dealing with the Sons & Daughters of the Confederacy in the post-war period is just simply music to my ears. Fuck those people.
The daughters of the confederacy ITTL are going north to become nannies to well-off Northern children.
Who knows, maybe we might see some plantation owner's daughters seeing diverse northern cities and having a change of heart.
Given how the Daughters of the Confederacy are unlikely to be formed, now I have a question: would this butterfly away Mount Rushmore? Because I might be wrong, but I think that the DotC hired someone to create something similar but with Jefferson Davis, Lee and many Confederate soldiers (a project that went nowhere) and then that same person was the one that did Mount Rushmore.
Maybe instead of OTL DOTC, we get a more inclusive Daughters of the South? It's made up of the descendants of Southern Unionists/Confederates/Freedman/etc.
Why not just put the sequel's tropes in the original's page, but on a different section? I've seen it done before.
Yeah, it's the best option.
Make two folders, one for the first part's tropes and another for the second.
When it becomes too unwieldy, we can then split it in two pages.
To pour cold water on the "UDC and Lost Cause go away forever" for abit: I actually do think a organization like it is very likely to be formed and continue on through the Post War era. The fact is, the Civil War was a profoundly meaningful event for the people who went through it, and many who participated will still want to do reunions, to preserve memories and Legacy and the like. Trying to suppress them with Government force, decades after the conflict, will just push them underground and spawn bad will. The trick is, to make these organizations less politically powerful and the narratives they spin around the conflict less harmful. The entire "Just Defending home and hearth unlike those bastord Planters/Firebreathers (Insert based on class allegiance).
To be clear, I didn't say those Narratives/Organizations WOULDN'T pop up, just that they are bound to never become anywhere near as prominent, widespread and nigh-universally accepted as they were in OTL.
In our timeline there were a reunion at Gettysburg on the 50th anniversary and still a few scattered Soldiers made it in 1938 for the 75th anniversary.
It seems that, even though the planter class is being destroyed, there would be some desire for a reunion just to show that it is one nation now, one nation that is pushing forward to eliminate every bit of that stigma that the planter class established.
Perhaps instead of Gettysburg, Union Mills will be that reunion place. A battle that saw blacks and whites fighting together in a common cause for the Union, and where Southern soldiers will join them to show they accept that the races can coexist. It will of course be just the poor, or those who were poor and lower class in the 1860s, but some sort of reunion to remember is human nature.
It seems that, even though the planter class is being destroyed, there would be some desire for a reunion just to show that it is one nation now, one nation that is pushing forward to eliminate every bit of that stigma that the planter class established.
Perhaps instead of Gettysburg, Union Mills will be that reunion place. A battle that saw blacks and whites fighting together in a common cause for the Union, and where Southern soldiers will join them to show they accept that the races can coexist. It will of course be just the poor, or those who were poor and lower class in the 1860s, but some sort of reunion to remember is human nature.
Eh, I think these narrative will always be very prominent in the White South, and to make true reconstruction, a part of which always entailed reconciliation with white southerners, a success you have to have at least some of that narrative be accepted. Best for the everyone for that part to be the “Firebreathers started everything, those who just fought for there homes are not to
be reproached.”. Is it all true? No. Is it better than OTL? I’d say so, as it keeps the door on racial reconciliation open.
Granted, though even with the OTL full reconciliation and lost cause on paper, the wounds between North and South layed open and deep for a long ass time. See not willingly electing a president from the South until nearly 100 years after the War ended. Perhaps, that stretches on even longer here (although granted, yes, Jim Crow played a big part in this)
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Yeah, a much more traumatizing Civil War is bound to cause much more widespread PTSD and then, hopefully, a greater understanding of the condition, how to treat it, and empathy for those who have it.You're welcome. Yeah, when people start wondering why certain groups of blacks want to separate for a while, that may cause further study into the idea of these imprints. Because even for me with a touch of Asperger's, especially when younger, such things were a little confusing. Because after all, they had to achieve what they wanted. And once it is explained it makes sense to me. It will definitely be Harder for someone who doesn't even have the concept of trauma.
This too might end up leading to a much greater understanding of trauma than the people had just a decade earlier.
(Theodor Meynert made some discoveries about the amygdala in 1867. From what I just found. And if Doctor Da Costa has not corresponded with him before. I'm sure he will now)
Yes, at the end they courted their own destruction. I think it was mentioned that the equivalent to the Milligan case was more radical and allowed for military tribunals in any State still in insurrection, and given the Southern conditions that clearly applies. In any case, however, these cases are probably going to be somewhat controversial for American jurisprudence, since they are bound to have their fair share of extralegality and arbitrariness.
Yeah, we're gonna get a good look at what those White Unionists are going through. One of the greatest failures of OTL Reconstruction is that White Unionist support was not carefully cultivated as it ought to have been. Experiences during Reconstruction and then later the Populist movements showed that there were real chances for bi-racial democracy, with Whites swallowing down their racism in exchange of meaningful reform.
It's interesting, but I think we could enter a period of weakness for the Supreme Court. Republicans showed they were fully willing to just strip the Court's jurisdiction to protect Reconstruction, and with them having the Executive in their side I could see them just pressuring the SCOTUS into not messing with them and their power over the South and the nation.
Indeed. Most trials will actually be conducted by ad-hoc military commissions integrated in that moment, instead of a national bureaucracy.
Thanks
I've tried really hard to show the agency of Black people as players in the Reconstruction process, since so often they are reduced to passive factors in many timelines. I think with this we've set them up for greater success.Probably two main lines of defense: first, they couldn't have committed treason, since they surrendered their American citizenship and owed allegiance only to their States; and, second, that they are not guilty of war crimes and that the Yankees are worse criminals in any case.
Probably that as well. I can see many harping on how, if they are indeed Americans and thus can be trailed by their courts, they should receive the same constitutional protections; if they don't receive those protections because they have forfeited their citizenship, then they aren't Americans and can't be trialed by their courts.
I'll certainly adopt your suggestions regarding the Freedman and Southern Unionist Banks!
I think the most likely approach is just to bypass the question of secession's constitutionality by focusing instead on war crimes for many offenders. Even those who did not commit them directly could be hanged by association, saying that they supported a criminal government (the Junta) ergo they are criminals. I can also see some simply refusing to engage with the question, but that would give some credence to the idea that these were mere kangaroo courts that wished to hang rebels without real regard for legality or justice.
Thanks! It was not a conscious reference, I'm afraid, but in hindsight it works perfectly as one
Exactly! That was one of my main reasonings regarding the Coup: divide and conquer. With many Southerners more focused on blaming each other over their defeat and who exactly caused their suffering, it'd be much harder for a narrative akin to the OTL Lost Cause to take hold. Likewise, it gives the Union an opening to poor Whites, by blaming the planters for the war, the defeat, and then the calamitous post-war.
Huzzah
Hey, I'm really glad you enjoyed it so much! To the point of reading such a long timeline and reading it until the dawn, that's great that I was able to hold your attention like that. Thanks for your comment
Actually I wouldn't mind butterflying Mount Rushmore. As iconic as it is, I don't like how it's built on stolen land.
I could see something like that! Maybe a filial of the Grand Army of the Republic dedicated explicitly to Union soldiers who came from the Southern States. With a Statue of George Thomas, of course.
That's probably the most sensible option for now.
I do think we'll see competing organizations and narratives for a few decades, with some people insisting nonetheless than the Confederacy was right and their cause was just. The thing is, defining what the Confederate cause and legacy even are will be harder. I can't see organizations praising Breckinridge and praising the Junta getting along, to say the least. Eventually, the idea that most Confederates were forced by the planters to fight in an unnecesary war, but that they nonetheless fought with valor and honor, will win out. Until around the modern day that narrative, too, is challenged.
The mythic Gettysburg reunion, though known nowadays as an example of reconciliation, actually was a quite terse meeting. Bitterness had evidently remained, a few fistfights broke out, and many veterans openly insulted or refused to associate with the "enemy." I could see a Union Mills reunion resulting in similar incidents. Surely, a survivor of the Stonewall Brigade wouldn't be happy to see a Black veteran of the 54th Massachusetts there.
Yes, at the end of the day we need a measure of "charity for all" - or at the very least charity for the poor Whites. Conciliating them by blaming the planters for everything is still better than by saying that no one, neither planters nor yeomen, were to blame.
On that note, trying civilian politicians via military tribunal could be something that draws some controversy even from those who support tribunals for Confederate military leaders on grounds that, while they deserve their day in court for their crimes, the "normal" court system should have been used to prosecute them with the possibility that the question of whether civilian politicians, as opposed to military officers, being tried that way was even legal going to the Supreme Court.
speaking of alaska alaska was not a name set in stone
Mount Rushmore was built for the proximate reason of attracting tourists to the Black Hills, after the area's economy declined following the gold rush there. It's sadly quite unlikely this butterflies away the Black Hills Gold Rush and the war and land-thefts that followed - but I do wonder if, with a larger "carpetbagger" migration taking people who would otherwise move west southwards, and the costs of keeping the military in the South coming at the expense of western deployments, western settlement, including that of the Black Hills, would be weaker, or at least delayed.
This is an obvious enough idea - but it would be both fun and plausible for the Mount Rushmore analogue to be at Stone Mountain.
This is an obvious enough idea - but it would be both fun and plausible for the Mount Rushmore analogue to be at Stone Mountain.
How did I miss this. This is almost as bad when i accidentally hit ignore on the old thread for months.
I saw early you said that a land value tax is probably happening do think Georgeism is going to be stronger this timeline with more staying power? Also I can see some left wing people in the United states jumping on Georgism as a way to divide land owners and capitalists event they often are the same
I saw early you said that a land value tax is probably happening do think Georgeism is going to be stronger this timeline with more staying power? Also I can see some left wing people in the United states jumping on Georgism as a way to divide land owners and capitalists event they often are the same
Even if the reality that the richer yeomen, the "small slaveholders" who aspired to be planters one day and arguably stood more to lose than the planters from Lincoln winning, were the class most "guilty" of secession would need to be papered over.
That sounds like an interesting idea, though the question is whose faces would be there aside from Washington and Lincoln as Jefferson’s reputation might be lower ITTL.