Radical Republicanism?

[deLarge]

In my History 137 class, we are studying the reconstruction period following the American Civil War.

I was reading about Radical Republicalism, and found it pretty interesting. What do you think about them?

"Their main demand was harsh policies toward slavery and the Confederacy during the war, and toward ex-Confederates after the war, as well as support for equal rights for freedmen (the newly freed slaves). At all times they were vigorously opposed by the entire Democratic party, and also by numerous moderate Republicans."


And on Thaddeus:

"He defended and supported Native Americans, Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons, Jews, Chinese, and women. However, the defense of runaway or fugitive slaves gradually began to consume the greatest amount of his time, until the abolition of slavery became his primary political and personal focus. He was actively involved in the Underground Railroad, assisting runaway slaves in getting to Canada. An Underground Railroad site has been discovered under his office in Lancaster, PA. This office, along with Lydia Smith's home, is located next to the new conference center in the center of Lancaster. The office, along with Lydia Smith's home, may soon become a museum open to the public."

"Stevens dreamed of a socially just world, where unearned privilege did not exist. He believed from his personal experience that being different or having a different perspective can enrich society. He believed that differences among people should not be feared or oppressed but celebrated. In his will he left $50,000 to establish Stevens, a school for the relief and refuge of homeless, indigent orphans. "They shall be carefully educated in the various branches of English education and all industrial trades and pursuits. No preference shall be shown on account of race or color in their admission or treatment. Neither poor Germans, Irish or Mahometan, nor any others on account their race or religion of their parents, shall be excluded. They shall be fed at the same table." This original bequest has now evolved into Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology. The College continually strives to provide underprivileged individuals with opportunities and to create an environment in which individual differences are valued and nurtured."

[mikelepore]

Lincoln's response was most interesting. According to the book, the officials of the confederate government were all supposed to be hanged for treason. But both sides just got done killing 600,000 soldiers, so are they going to accept the south's surrender only to start the killing again? Lincoln decided it would be better to quicken what he thought would be a healing process. No more penalties.

I think that's what society should do with the capitalist class. Yes, it's true that they consciously decided to sell the people food that causes cancer, cars with exploding gas tanks, and baby pajamas designed to catch fire, and committed many more atrocities than we could possibly list. But if they surrender, there should be no more penalties.

----------------------------

EDIT:

Deleted multiple posts. I kept getting a message that posts can't be made right now, try again later. Then all four times times I clicked the button turned into separate posts.

[Pogue]

Lincoln's response was most interesting. According to the book, the officials of the confederate government were all supposed to be hanged for treason. But they just got done killing 600,000 soldiers, so are they going to accept the south's surrender only to start the killing again? Lincoln decided it would be better to quicken what he thought would be a healing process. No more penalties.

I think that's what society should do with the capitalist class. Yes, it's true that they consciously decided to sell the people food that causes cancer, car with exploding gas tanks, baby pajamas designed to catch fire, and many more atrocities than we could possibly list. But if they surrender, there should be no more penalties.





Lincoln's response was most interesting. According to the book, the officials of the confederate government were all supposed to be hanged for treason. But they just got done killing 600,000 soldiers, so are they going to accept the south's surrender only to start the killing again? Lincoln decided it would be better to quicken what he thought would be a healing process. No more penalties.

I think that's what society should do with the capitalist class. Yes, it's true that they consciously decided to sell the people food that causes cancer, car with exploding gas tanks, baby pajamas designed to catch fire, and many more atrocities than we could possibly list. But if they surrender, there should be no more penalties.




Lincoln's response was most interesting. According to the book, the officials of the confederate government were all supposed to be hanged for treason. But they just got done killing 600,000 soldiers, so are they going to accept the south's surrender only to start the killing again? Lincoln decided it would be better to quicken what he thought would be a healing process. No more penalties.

I think that's what society should do with the capitalist class. Yes, it's true that they consciously decided to sell the people food that causes cancer, car with exploding gas tanks, baby pajamas designed to catch fire, and many more atrocities than we could possibly list. But if they surrender, there should be no more penalties.




Lincoln's response was most interesting. According to the book, the officials of the confederate government were all supposed to be hanged for treason. But they just got done killing 600,000 soldiers, so are they going to accept the south's surrender only to start the killing again? Lincoln decided it would be better to quicken what he thought would be a healing process. No more penalties.

I think that's what society should do with the capitalist class. Yes, it's true that they consciously decided to sell the people food that causes cancer, car with exploding gas tanks, baby pajamas designed to catch fire, and many more atrocities than we could possibly list. But if they surrender, there should be no more penalties.


C-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-ombbbbbooooo brrreaaaakkeeeeerrrr!

[manic expression]

Wow.

Anyway, Thaddeus Stephens was a great fighter for equality and a hero to the cause of progress IMO. Marx was an enthusiastic supporter of the American abolitionists (of whom the Radical Republicans were some of the foremost leaders) himself. It's a real shame Reconstruction ended the way it did; we're still dealing with its ugly legacy today.

[Holden Caulfield]

I think the great irony is that people such as Thaddeus Stephens and Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine would most probably be called 'communists' and scorned by modern America

[Demogorgon]

I think that's what society should do with the capitalist class. Yes, it's true that they consciously decided to sell the people food that causes cancer, cars with exploding gas tanks, and baby pajamas designed to catch fire, and committed many more atrocities than we could possibly list. But if they surrender, there should be no more penalties.
this maybe wasn't worth saying four times, but I certainly agree with it. ;)

[Cheung Mo]

I think the great irony is that people such as Thaddeus Stephens and Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine would most probably be called 'communists' and scorned by modern America

Jefferson is a classical liberal and a man who had little trouble with slavery.

[deLarge]

I think the great irony is that people such as Thaddeus Stephens and Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine would most probably be called 'communists' and scorned by modern America


While Jefferson railed against slavery, he did, in fact, own slaves until the day he died.

[PRC-UTE]

Lincoln's response was most interesting. According to the book, the officials of the confederate government were all supposed to be hanged for treason. But both sides just got done killing 600,000 soldiers, so are they going to accept the south's surrender only to start the killing again? Lincoln decided it would be better to quicken what he thought would be a healing process. No more penalties.

I think that's what society should do with the capitalist class. Yes, it's true that they consciously decided to sell the people food that causes cancer, cars with exploding gas tanks, and baby pajamas designed to catch fire, and committed many more atrocities than we could possibly list. But if they surrender, there should be no more penalties.

Some of the Confederates went on to later become the Redeemers, a reactionary bunch of terrorists who went on to restore white supremacy and turn back the gains won for blacks during the Civil War. So maybe not the best example to illustrate your point.

[davidasearles]

While Jefferson railed against slavery, he did, in fact, own slaves until the day he died.

Classic example of property owning the owner. He couldn't free them because they and the goods that they produced were essentially mortgaged, and he dare not sell them for fear of their even worse treatment as someone else's property.

[davidasearles]

Some of the Confederates went on to later become the Redeemers, a reactionary bunch of terrorists who went on to restore white supremacy and turn back the gains won for blacks during the Civil War. So maybe not the best example to illustrate your point.

Some in the south were definity racist. Some in the north were definitly racist.

It would have probably been better had Lincoln preserved the Union and also ended ended the entire legal basis of chattel AND wage slavery, but alas John Wilkes Booth had another idea. (This of course is written tounge in cheek.) But whatever measures are ever contemplated in the future, Lincoln's "government of the people, by the people and for the people" and the entirety of the second inauguaral address (the idea of the possibility of a collectively deserved punishment from God aside) ought to serve for at least centuries as guides as to what should be considered just and humane.

*******************

Fellow-Countrymen:

AT this second appearing
to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion
for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement
somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper.
Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations
have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the
great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses
the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented.
The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is
as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably
satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no
prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to
this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending
civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address
was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the
Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it
without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by
negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make
war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war
rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole
population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union,
but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a
peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow
the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this
interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union
even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to
restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the
war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither
anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even
before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph,
and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible
and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It
may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's
assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces,
but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could
not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty
has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it
must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the
offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of
those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but
which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to
remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as
the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern
therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in
a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we
pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two
hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every
drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the
sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice
toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives
us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind
up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle
and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish
a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

[Revy]

In my History 137 class, we are studying the reconstruction period following the American Civil War.

I was reading about Radical Republicalism, and found it pretty interesting. What do you think about them?

"Their main demand was harsh policies toward slavery and the Confederacy during the war, and toward ex-Confederates after the war, as well as support for equal rights for freedmen (the newly freed slaves). At all times they were vigorously opposed by the entire Democratic party, and also by numerous moderate Republicans."


And on Thaddeus:

"He defended and supported Native Americans, Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons, Jews, Chinese, and women. However, the defense of runaway or fugitive slaves gradually began to consume the greatest amount of his time, until the abolition of slavery became his primary political and personal focus. He was actively involved in the Underground Railroad, assisting runaway slaves in getting to Canada. An Underground Railroad site has been discovered under his office in Lancaster, PA. This office, along with Lydia Smith's home, is located next to the new conference center in the center of Lancaster. The office, along with Lydia Smith's home, may soon become a museum open to the public."

"Stevens dreamed of a socially just world, where unearned privilege did not exist. He believed from his personal experience that being different or having a different perspective can enrich society. He believed that differences among people should not be feared or oppressed but celebrated. In his will he left $50,000 to establish Stevens, a school for the relief and refuge of homeless, indigent orphans. "They shall be carefully educated in the various branches of English education and all industrial trades and pursuits. No preference shall be shown on account of race or color in their admission or treatment. Neither poor Germans, Irish or Mahometan, nor any others on account their race or religion of their parents, shall be excluded. They shall be fed at the same table." This original bequest has now evolved into Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology. The College continually strives to provide underprivileged individuals with opportunities and to create an environment in which individual differences are valued and nurtured."

Thaddeus Stevens was a great person. It's too bad he didn't become President instead of Lincoln. Lincoln's biggest mistake was making Andrew Johnson (who was very racist) his Vice President.

[Cumannach]

But if they surrender, there should be no more penalties.



Why on earth should murderers not have to pay the price for what they've done and would do again?

[mikelepore]

Why on earth should murderers not have to pay the price for what they've done and would do again?

A partial answer to that might be that an ex posto facto law (a law which applies or increases a penalty after an act has already been committed) is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 9. The remainder of the answer could be the reasons why that section was included in the first place, which aren't difficult to imagine.