Rethinking Sherman's March: A Kindler, Gentler Total War?

[Admiral Yi]

How hostile are they now?

[Razgovory]

How hostile are they now?

Exactly as hostile as they would be if they lost their land.  They are all dead now.  Dead people are very agreeable.   I am a bit curious as to where you are going with that question.  If they lost their land, they could be as hostile as they wanted.  Wouldn't do them any more good then the hostility of the Russian nobility had toward the Reds in the 1930's.

[Admiral Yi]

Done.

[jimmy olsen]

It's a terrible idea.  It would have guaranteed the permanent hostility of the governing class of the South.

There would be a new governing class if that was done.

[jimmy olsen]

Done.

I also don't get where you were going with this. 

[Eddie Teach]

There would be a new governing class if that was done.

Sure, carpetbaggers. Who would be even more distrusted by the commons than they were historically.

[Razgovory]

Done.

I also don't get where you were going with this. 

Presumably only the monied classes can keep the Peace that was the South. Even if the peace meant the murder of thousands of innocents, and the repression of millions.  And even if the monied class were traitors who made their fortunes on stolen labor.

[derspiess]

How hostile are they now?

Not nearly as hostile as Raz & co.  Sheesh.

[garbon]

How hostile are they now?

I don't know that hostility is the issue today, so much as the current (which is just a continuation of its historical standing) beleaguered status of the South. Maybe a more radical approach would have helped, who knows?

[The Minsky Moment]

The Union should have punished the Planter class by confiscating their land and redistributing it amongst poor whites and former slaves.

Yup. Not only would it be much more moral, it would be much more effective than mass executions.

The only problem is the tricky thing called the US constitution that guarantees property rights. So how would you pull that off for planters that did not take up arms in rebellion.

The comparison to the Reds in the 1930s (i.e. Stalin) highlights the problem. 

[Lettow77]

Planters that did not take up arms in the rebellion? What, both of them?

[Razgovory]

The Union should have punished the Planter class by confiscating their land and redistributing it amongst poor whites and former slaves.

Yup. Not only would it be much more moral, it would be much more effective than mass executions.

The only problem is the tricky thing called the US constitution that guarantees property rights. So how would you pull that off for planters that did not take up arms in rebellion.

The comparison to the Reds in the 1930s (i.e. Stalin) highlights the problem.

The US had already superseded property rights of slave holders when it freed slaves (or destroyed property during the war).  Keep the states under military law till you have made the necessary changes.  Or you could require that slave holder reimburse all slaves back pay for their service.  That should be enough to bankrupt the planter class, and force them to sell the land to the government at very low rates.  The problems of the 1930's was not rebellious nobles, which is the point.

[viper37]

Or you could require that slave holder reimburse all slaves back pay for their service. 

Not that I'm a lawyer, but I fail to see how this would have worked.

Slavery was legal until 1863.  Only on 1st January of this year was it made officially illegal.
The war ended in 1865.  So that's 2 year back pay.  I doubt very much that black citizens of the North earn the exact same pay as the white male at the time, so you'd have to make it, realistically, at half the pay of a white worker at the time.
That means roughtly 1 year of service owed by plantation owners who employed slaves.
From that, you deduce the cost of living: food&shelter offered to paid workers, cost of doctors&medicine.  Another half of the pay.  You got 6 months wages, realistically, and by the end of the war, 64-65, many slaves would most likely either have been freed or deserted their plantation by themselves due to the lack of an organized militia/army/police force to hunt them down.

So, on average, for all of the US southern states slaves, you got maybe 3 months pay that wasn't paid.  Hardly enough to break the system and make it fair&square to the slaves.

[garbon]

From that, you deduce the cost of living: food&shelter offered to paid workers, cost of doctors&medicine.  Another half of the pay.  You got 6 months wages, realistically, and by the end of the war, 64-65, many slaves would most likely either have been freed or deserted their plantation by themselves due to the lack of an organized militia/army/police force to hunt them down.

So, on average, for all of the US southern states slaves, you got maybe 3 months pay that wasn't paid.  Hardly enough to break the system and make it fair&square to the slaves.

I don't really see why one would have to factor in any of that.

[Razgovory]

Make it retroactive from the time the slave was born.  Or because the government is making the demands, they can consider what ever price the want as fair.  I imagine the price of murder, theft and rape is quite high.  There are of course lots of other ways to break the southern aristocracy.  They could be fined for every member of the family that fought against the Union, fined for failure to appear before Union draft boards, forced to pay back taxes, etc.  The goal is to destroy the Slave Power.  That's the way to true reconciliation.  Allowing the local elites to terrorize and tyrannize the black population is undesirable.