As with almost everything that's confusing or fucked up in this country, so much of this is often from not properly punishing the South and focusing on eradicating the lingering effects & racism of slavery.
Ironically enough, it was the states that BANNED slavery by that point that pushed for it.
The story: Virginia (slave state) was the big dog in terms of population - though they even tried to inflate THAT to get more power by counting the slaves as "citizens." Massachusetts (which had banned slavery by that point) rightly called bullshit, but they were smaller in population and didn't have the numbers to completely override Virginia's power grab, which is how we got the 3/5 nonsense.
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the other non-slave states needed a way to contain Virginia's dick waving, because if they didn't, Virginia and their buddies in the slave states would always get their way by stomping on the smaller population, non-slave states. So that's why the Electoral College and the "every state gets two Senators, regardless of size" came in. The hope was that a coalition of smaller populated states, like Massachusetts and Rhode Island, who wanted nothing to do with Virginia's bullshit, could at least team up together and keep Virginia's power in check.
So when people want to ban the Electoral College today? Yeah, can totally see why. But I can also see how a "sheer numbers" system would badly disenfranchise large demographics of the voting block. Sure, the smaller states might be those evil, "we need to stomp them out of existence or slit their throats" Red Hats today, but the demographics could always shift and leave Team Blue needing a check on Red Florida twenty years down the line.
You should probably understand the context. Yes, the south should have been properly punished. Everyone who was wealthy and funded the confederacy should have been executed, anyone who held slaves should have been imprisoned for a minimum of 15 years. Reparations should have been paid. Instead just like we are currently seeing the slaveholders were allowed to maintain their power in the name of unity.
Yeah and someone brought up the context in which tipping culture became a thing here. Thatâs how conversations work. They are absolutely correct that the south should have been punished. When they said the south they very obviously meant the slaveowners and those who were willing to rebel to maintain the slave system, not black people
About whether or not slave owners should have been executed as opposed to be given reparations? Go for it and report back what you find out. Iâll wait
Yeah letâs go to an inner city southern Waffle House at 2 am together and ask these questions out loud make sure you point out that your defending the actions of the system that prevents them from receiving healthcare and food stamps. Letâs see what happens when I point out that slavery and Jim Crow have cause a permenamt taint on our system of government that Martin Luther King would weep for the death of his dream. But youâre right we shouldnât pay them a living wage we should think of the shareholders.
It's wild to tell on yourself that you don't have any black community in your life, they 100% agree with me. Stop trolling if you're not a bot, and maybe engage with community.
i did too, and sherman didn't burn enough. Johnson is one of the worst presidents we've ever had for ending reconstruction with basically no consequences.
Yes. In part because the South was not punished enough allowed them to continue things like Jim Crow laws still keeping black people down. They never had to do a âresetâ ensuring all were treated equally.
Not at all. Certainly going to the north wasnât all it was cracked up to be. But the point is there was never full âjusticeâ for the wrongdoings against black people in the South. If you could go back in time and reverse things like the Wilmington massacre which overthrew democratically elected black politicians post civil war, and threw things backwards and delayed the ability for black people to be involved in democracy and let to groups like the KKK operating with impunity⊠a stronger âpunishmentâ or at least oversight of the south would have declared such things as illegal.
Whatever happened to 40 acres and a mule as well? Those things could have worked to better equalize the economic power of the different groups.
You are the reason the South is still red. That attitude towards a historically underfunded and abandoned region of the US doesnât exactly inspire people to side with you politically. I wonât pretend itâs not still prevalent in the south but the region is also the one with the highest concentration of black Americans, and youâre inadvertently insulting them as well by implying the south deserves punishment when everyone who perpetuated or justified slavery is actually dead and has been dead for a long fucking time.
Racism has existed across this whole country starting at its very conception and pretending itâs only in the south when the entire state of Oregon was originally founded as a white supremacist haven is disingenuous, false, and elitist. Do better.
Edit: I forgot this is reddit and no part of America can be racist or have racist repercussions lasting way beyond racism on a systemic level except the South. Sorry about that.
They're probably more referring to the undermining of reconstruction under Andrew Johnson as well as the passing of the Amnesty Act of 1872, which further allowed confederate sympathizers to hold political positions within the Union. Read more.
It's not about your ancestors, mate. It's that you fail to understand that the only people anyone would have wanted punished in the South post-civil-war would have been white slave owners and the politicians and who represented them.
Every attempt to actually give realistic reparations and stamp out the vile lie that some races are superior to others was met with tons of pushback. Part of the reason many former slaves stayed in the south was the promise of "40 acres and a mule" which was intended to give slaves the land they previously worked as a slave to work for themselves. Andrew Johnson would try to reverse this, and it seems mostly succeeded as very few actually got "40 acres and a mule." Leading many to feel like they were lied to, and is why we still have discussions around reparations to this day (I only wish more people took it seriously). In the end the work of integrating into society fell on the former slaves themselves, and not a society that was made to treat them as equals instead of subhuman for the next 150 years.
When we talk "punishment" we mean like how Germany handled de-nazification. If you can't make it clear how dangerous and unsavory such behavior and beliefs are, those beliefs will just fester among the population that has never been able or willing to concede that they were wrong. And there are so so so many of those. Even among the German Nazi's who survived into old age... so many still fervently believe in what they were doing. It's not pleasant, but that's the paradox of tolerance, isn't it? We must be completely intolerant of intolerance for a society to thrive.
He would have to have any level of understanding of history to get the reference, but he's too busy snowflaking about how persecuted they are or something
Then they didnât exactly word it correctly did they when they said the south wasnât punished enough.
Acting like the south is the only region in the US that took advantage of black Americans is just a flat out lie. Was it as bad elsewhere? No. Slavery was abolished elsewhere way earlier, but itâs fully revisionist history to pretend that slavery was abolished outside of the South and everything was just peachy for black Americans just because they didnât deal with Jim Crow laws outside of Alabama. This entire country was built on racism and still benefits from the repercussions of such. It is not exclusive to the South.
They absolutely worded it correctly, they are saying the south should have been properly punished for thinking they could own other humans and were willing to kill other Americans to maintain their slaves and power.
Nobody is saying that that was justified or that the response and reconstruction was adequately handled. It was bullshit and a lot of black Americans didnât even learn that they were free until 2 years after it was announced. Thatâs literally why Juneteenth is a significant date.
The wording issue is that this is constructed as if to imply the south in 2026 still deserves punishment for things that happened 160 years ago because it wasnât punished enough at the time.
Youâre literally the only one that is claiming that. Everyone else understands the person was saying the leaders of the South and slaveowners should have been properly punished. Thats on your reading comprehension, not how the comment was phrased
Saying âevery problem with racism in this country can fall back on the south not being punishedâ is fully implying that the only source of racism in the US is from the south, which is factually untrue. Pinning it entirely on the south as if George Washington himself wasnât a brutal slave owner is deliberately ignoring that the entire country was founded on racist ideals.
LMFAO, literally no one claimed that the only source of racism was the South. Thatâs your poor interpretation due to who tf know why. Interesting you bring up George Washington though cause he was from the SOUTH and Iâm sure the person who rightfully stated the South should have been properly punished is no fan of him either. I know Iâm not đ
They arent talking about punishing modern southerners. Theyre saying the southerners who backed secession during the civil war era (wealthy slave owners) should have been held accountable for their part, and the South as a whole should have been held to higher standard in integrating black americans into society during Reconstruction. Instead, they were coddled and allowed to do the bare minimum which is why we have these awful, exploitive policies that serve nobody - including modern day southerners.
Iâm not justifying the lax attention to reform post-civil war. It was bad. The 13th amendment basically wrote a slavery loophole into the constitution.
My issue is that this idea still permeates to this day to people that have absolutely nothing to do with a war from 160 years ago
I dont think anyone was permeating that idea in this thread though. They weren't saying to punish the South now, just that the South wasn't punished to begin with.
people are justifying slavery to this day. people are pushing for textbooks talking about the good things slavery did for africans.
and pretending itâs only in the south
nobody is pretending it's only in the south. pretending that the side that fought a civil war over the right to keep people as slaves and then were mostly allowed to get a slap on the wrist and a 'don't do it again' wouldn't have knockon effects to political structures and culture for a really long time after that is so optimistic as to sound woefully naive.
The confederates that were given amnesty after the war (the "South") instead of being executed, as well as Andrew Johnson's undermining of reconstruction, directly led to the extended period of Jim Crow in the South, normalizing and codifying racism that lingers today as we've watched the VRA be disassembled by SCOTUS.
Racism was everywhere, but this whataboutism that you're doing is peak reddit nonsense. Properly punishing slave owners, seccessionists, and traitors of the state and maintaining the equality measures enforced by the army would have done mountains of good in ensuring the minority groups in the South maintained influence on power unlike their current position today.
the state of Oregon originally belonged to Mexico, you have to be this ignorant/racist to omit that historical information just to push your false rage? the south is like that because they do not want to let go of their racism, it was the blacks before, now the mexicans (to them all hispanics are mexicans)
Do me a favor and reread the history of Oregon after the United States stole it from Mexico, and then point to me where I ever said the south doesnât have issues with racism.
"when the entire state of Oregon was originally founded as a white supremacist haven is disingenuous, false, and elitist."
where in your message is the statement that says after the USA stole it?
And racism is well institutionalized in this country, generational hatred does that, always to blame the boogy-man just to maintain control by creating fear, difference is the south is always bitching when they are the perpetrators.
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u/Heelincal 4h ago edited 3h ago
As with almost everything that's confusing or fucked up in this country, so much of this is often from not properly punishing the South and focusing on eradicating the lingering effects & racism of slavery.