# Resolved; America would be less divisive today if we had executed Confederate leaders for treason **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 8, 2023, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789 "2023-07-08T21:44:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/264 "2023-07-22T15:30:50Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > OP, have you looked at what happened to your idea historically? They had Jefferson Davis in prison and they intended to put him on trial for treason in Richmond. Ultimately the prosecutors decided they weren’t sure they could get a conviction, and a possible acquittal might have implied secession was constitutional, which would have been a worse outcome than no trial. So they had to drop the charges and let him go. Well, his trial was dismissed just a few months after President Andrew Johnson issued a blanket pardon of Confederates, on Christmas Day of 1868. Prior to that, Davis had sat in jail for almost _two years_ without trial. Political machinations (among them, Johnson’s impeachment) had delayed the case. If I’m offering up an alternate timeline, I’m also offering up swift Justice. I don’t think the concern about a jury is that big; former confederates weren’t going to be allowed to serve, so I think Davis would be convicted (as you note, he ran away from America once bailed out. Prior to that, as I alluded to in my OP, he had been arrested wearing, perhaps apocryphally, his wife’s shawl and bonnet. It’s a shame that isn’t more widely remembered). > **[Was Jefferson Davis Captured In A Dress?](https://www.americanheritage.com/was-jefferson-davis-captured-dress)** > > A story that the Confederate president donned a petticoat to evade capture emerged right after Union cavalrymen apprehended him in Georgia at war’s end. But is it true? ---
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/265 "2023-07-22T17:17:34Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > I don’t think the concern about a jury is that big; former confederates weren’t going to be allowed to serve, so I think Davis would be convicted While you could exclude potential jurors who held civil or military office in the confederacy, it would be impossible to categorically exclude all confederate sympathizers from the jury. You could try to do it during voir dire, but that assumes that the potential juror would provide that information. And, of course, if the goal is to reduce later division by subjecting Davis (and/or others) to an impartial jury trial and conviction for a historically-accepted crime, the optics of a jury comprised of Unionists, who lived in a confederate state during the way (and newly-freed blacks? I don’t know if they were eligible for jury service at the time) seems like it would threaten that goal. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2023, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/266 "2023-07-22T17:24:01Z")
> [@Falchion](#): > > …the optics of a jury comprised of Unionists, who lived in a confederate state during the way (and newly-freed blacks? I don’t know if they were eligible for jury service at the time) seems like it would threaten that goal. There’s a picture that purports to be some of the 24 men (no women yet) who comprised the jury pool for that session of the Virginia federal circuit court. [![](https://encyclopediavirginia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/7230hpr_6b827c7b46753e4-scaled.jpg) ](https://encyclopediavirginia.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/7230hpr_6b827c7b46753e4-scaled.jpg) So, yeah, it would have probably included freedmen. > **[Potential Jurors for Jefferson Davis Trial (1) - Encyclopedia Virginia](https://encyclopediavirginia.org/7230hpr-6b827c7b46753e4/)** > > One of two group portraits made by David H. Anderson shows eleven of a pool of twenty-four potential petit, or trial, jurors appointed by the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Virginia in 1867 as part of proceedings against former Confederate... I wish we had that historical record. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2023, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/267 "2023-07-26T03:29:35Z")
Mass executions are generally a bad idea on many levels. What the North _should_ have done was to confiscate all property from slaveholders and prominent Confederate leaders and redistribute it among both black and poor white Southerners who were willing to pledge loyalty to the Union. That would have created a large class of white people who owed their prosperity to the Federal government and its anti-racist ideology, and would have seen the Lost Cause type as their enemies. As it was, the largest segment of the Southern population – poor white people – suffered through the war and got no benefit from the Northern victory, and not surprisingly were easy marks for Lost Cause propagandists. But, as many others have pointed out, that would have required that the Federal government actually _had_ an anti-racist ideology at a time when the vast majority of voters on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line were virulently racist. We can and should honor the Radical Republicans for fighting the good fight, but their cause was probably, well, lost from the start. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/268 "2023-07-27T13:14:10Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > What the North _should_ have done was to confiscate all property from slaveholders and prominent Confederate leaders and redistribute it among both black and poor white Southerners who were willing to pledge loyalty to the Union. Through what legal mechanism would the federal government seize property and offer no compensation? The government seized the Arlington Estate to make what is now Arlington National Cemetery and later lost a Supreme Court case for seizing it without due process and the land was returned. And then Custis-Lee sold it back because what are you going to do with land that’s been turned into a cemetery? Remember, those Southerners who participated in the rebellion were American citizens. They had rights. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/269 "2023-07-27T13:19:12Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Through what legal mechanism would the federal government seize property and offer no compensation? Section 6 of the 14th amendment, of course (don’t look it up, it doesn’t exists, but it could have at the stroke of a pen). ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/270 "2023-07-27T13:24:38Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Remember, those Southerners who participated in the rebellion were American citizens. They had rights. A more accurrate way to put it is, remember - those slavers had a major hand in wroting the constitution, and they wrote it to protect themselves, especially their property rights - including the abominable “right” to own other human beings. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/271 "2023-07-27T13:28:01Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > A more accurrate way to put it is, remember - those slavers had a major hand in wroting the constitution, and they wrote it to protect themselves, especially their property rights - including the abominable “right” to own other human beings. How many slavers in 1860 do you think took any part in writing the US Constitution? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/272 "2023-07-27T13:30:03Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Section 6 of the 14th amendment, of course (don’t look it up, it doesn’t exists, but it could have at the stroke of a pen). That stroke of the pen would require the people in power in the United States to actually give a damn about abolition, about the soon to be freed blacks, or about reconstruction. The title of this thread is, I think, misleading. America would be less devisive today if _reconstruction_ (with teeth) had been carried out. And certainly the sorts of people who would carry out a toothy reconstruction would almost certainly have executed the Confederate traitors. But the division today wouldn’t be lessened as a result of the executions themselves; the fact that the Confederate leadership wasn’t executed is a SYMPTOM of the rot that caused reconstruction to fail. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/273 "2023-07-27T13:31:51Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > How many slavers in 1860 do you think took any part in writing the US Constitution? About the same number as the number of slavers in 1860 who took part in capturing Africans and shipping them to the Americas. Luckily for them, they didn’t need to do either of those things themselves, because their loathsome ancestors both established a self sustaining population of slaves in the South as well as entranched slavery within the law. And they certainly had a hand in making the legal system even MORE pro-slavery, such as when they ignored these so-called “State’s Rights” that were allegedly so important to them by pushing through the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/274 "2023-07-27T13:36:01Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > And they certainly had a hand in making the legal system even MORE pro-slavery, such as when they ignored these so-called “State’s Rights” that were allegedly so important to them by pushing through the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. What does any of this have to do with the fact that they were still American citizens with rights? ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/275 "2023-07-27T13:36:38Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > That stroke of the pen would require the people in power in the United States to actually give a damn about abolition, about the soon to be freed blacks, or about reconstruction. The 14th and 15th amendment by themselves are strong evidence that they cared enough about abolition to keep on thinking about it for several years after the war ended. I think the _real_ issue is that they either (a) did not grasp the significance of generational wealth accumulation, or (b) didn’t care at all about economic equality, not seeing life-long poverty and wage labor as oppressive in ways that may emulate enslavement. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/276 "2023-07-27T13:39:07Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > What does any of this have to do with the fact that they were still American citizens with rights?. The fact that they got to be American citizens with rights but black people got to be their property isn’t the natural state of the universe. It is the result of the ancestors of the slavers setting up a system specifically to protect their right to go around enslaving people. So you saying “But this legal framework that slavers built says that we can’t take their slaves or the things their slaves produced away!” doesn’t hold any weight. Well, no shit - that framework was specifically written, by slaveholders, to do exactly that - protect their ill gotten gains. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/277 "2023-07-27T13:44:16Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > The fact that they got to be American citizens with rights but black people got to be their property isn’t the natural state of the universe. It is the result of the ancestors of the slavers setting up a system specifically to protect their right to go around enslaving people. So you saying “But this legal framework that slavers built says that we can’t take their slaves or the things their slaves produced away!” doesn’t hold any weight. Well, no shit - that framework was specifically written, by slaveholders, to do exactly that - protect their ill gotten gains. It’s 1868 and you want to redistribute the land of slavers who poor whites, blacks, and others. What legal mechanism do you use to accomplish that? Like I said, they were American citizens with rights, it’s not just a simple matter to take their land without due process. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/278 "2023-07-27T13:46:17Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > It’s 1868 and you want to redistribute the land of slavers who poor whites, blacks, and others. What legal mechanism do you use to accomplish that? Like I said, they were American citizens with rights, it’s not just a simple matter to take their land without due process What legal mechanism was used to free the slaves or grant them citizenship? Remember, the enslavers are AmErIcAn CiTiZeNs with rIgHtS, and the slaves are not. I guess it’s impossible, and that’s why slaves exist to this day. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/279 "2023-07-27T13:47:38Z")
Or as @ASL_v2.0 said: > [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Section 6 of the 14th amendment, of course (don’t look it up, it doesn’t exists, but it could have at the stroke of a pen). ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/280 "2023-07-27T13:57:44Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > What legal mechanism was used to free the slaves or grant them citizenship? Remember, the enslavers are AmErIcAn CiTiZeNs with rIgHtS, and the slaves are not. I guess it’s impossible, and that’s why slaves exist to this day. They rammed some Constitutional Amendmends down the throats of Southern states, which, for the record, I’m completely fine with. But put on your little historian hat and try to see things from the perspective of people living at the time. Are you going to ram another Constitutional Amendment down their throats allowing the feds to seize land without due process or compensation? Do you believe Republicans in the north would support such action? It’s all well and good to look at the past and wonder why they did X or why they didn’t do Y. But to petulantly stamp your feet on the ground and insist they could have doesn’t really add anything meaningful to the conversation. Yeah, the slavers were bad guys, and? Like it or not, they were still American citizens with rights. And taking them away wasn’t necessarily an easy task or even desirable at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/281 "2023-07-27T14:03:14Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Are you going to ram another Constitutional Amendment down their throats allowing the feds to seize land without due process or compensation? Prior to the war, there was sincere debate about whether it was possible to buy the slaves from the slavers; after the war, there was no concern about compensating the slavers for the value of their lost equity in human bondage. Nor was there some sort of legal process other than the passage of amendments. So it’s not _that_ far a leap to say, “in addition to taking your slaves without due compensation, we are also confiscating your land under the same terms.” ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/282 "2023-07-27T14:19:42Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > They rammed some Constitutional Amendmends down the throats of Southern states, which, for the record, I’m completely fine with. But put on your little historian hat and try to see things from the perspective of people living at the time. Are you going to ram another Constitutional Amendment down their throats allowing the feds to seize land without due process or compensation? Yes, absolutely. What are they gonna do about it - secede? > [@Odesio](#): > > Do you believe Republicans in the north would support such action? Of course not - the Northerners (at least, the movers and shakers among them) weren’t doing any of this for ideological reasons. They had no interest in antagonizing the South further, they just wanted the dollars to flow. As a group they simply weren’t interested in the well-being of the freedmen or in preventing the planter class from re-seizing control of the South. I acknowledge all that, and the idea that reconstruction would be carried out by people with hindsight and very long-term goals for the betterment of the nation is obviously counterfactual. > [@Odesio](#): > > But to petulantly stamp your feet on the ground and insist they could have doesn’t really add anything meaningful to the conversation. It’s a good thing no one is doing that, then. Did America tackle reconstruction the way it would have needed to be tackled in order to recover from our legacy of slavery? Very obviously not. What _would_ a proper reconstruction have looked like? Well, you’d have needed to dismantle the concentrations of wealth created by slavery, and you’d need to give freedmen some kind of boost to help them catch up; luckily those two things tie very well together, at least in theory (see: 40 acres and a mule). Why was nothing like this done? Many reasons. As noted, the slavers were thoroughly intertwined with the creation of America’s legal framework to begin with, they were still the wealthiest Southerners around even after the war and the loss of their slaves, and it’s not like the Northerners were very invested in either helping freed blacks or in dismantling the southern aristocracy. What happened, what _should_ have happened, what _could possibly_ have happened, and _why_ what happened happened instead of what could or should have happened? Each of these is a separate question that can be considered on its own. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/283 "2023-07-27T15:15:29Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > But put on your little historian hat and try to see things from the perspective of people living at the time. Which people? I mean the people who were in power probably wouldn’t like the idea at all, there were probably a few million other people who would have liked it just fine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789.md?page=15)