# 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:** 15
**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, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/284 "2023-07-27T16:27:39Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > 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. Generally speaking, when interpreting the past, modern historians do their best to take into account multiple perspectives. So, sure, include the perspectives of formerly ensalved persons, former slavers, Notherners, Southerners, etc., etc. as best you can. Now put yourself in the shoes of a Northerner who was a devout Abolitionist who sympathized with John Brown and thinks it would be great to seize the lands of slavers and distribute them to poor whites and blacks. Put yourself in the shoes of a former enslaved person who thinks this would be a great idea. How would they accomplish this? I think a lot of people in this thread aren’t arguing from the point of view of what was realistically possible at the time, but rather from a moral point of view of what they think would have been the right thing to do. Could the North have shoved an Amendment taking the property of slave owners to redistribute to others? Maybe. Would have have been a realistic proposal at the time? I doubt it. Would doing so have led to a less divisive American today? I don’t see any evidence that it would have. ---
**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, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/285 "2023-07-27T17:02:12Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I think a lot of people in this thread aren’t arguing from the point of view of what was realistically possible at the time, but rather from a moral point of view of what they think would have been the right thing to do I think that most of the people in the thread are perfectly clear about the framework they’re posting under. I find it odd that you keep making this point as if it is relevant to anything that anyone else has said in this thread. ---
**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, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/286 "2023-07-27T17:02:48Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I think that most of the people in the thread are perfectly clear about the framework they’re posting under. I find it odd that you keep making this point as if it is relevant to anything that anyone else has said in this thread. You know what? You’re right. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/287 "2023-07-27T17:03:14Z")
Slavery was immoral but it was legal. There no way to legally punish people retroactively for what were legal acts at the time, at least there isn’t in any society I want to be a part of. ---
**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, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/288 "2023-07-27T17:03:25Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Would have have been a realistic proposal at the time? I doubt it. White Americans back then were massively racist, so yeah. They should have been less racist. They should have executed the traitors. They should have redistributed slaver property. > [@Odesio](#): > > Through what legal mechanism would the federal government seize property and offer no compensation? They _could_ have done it if they weren’t racists who absolutely didn’t GAF what happened to the freed slaves. We all know if the South didn’t start the war, the North would have let them have slaves for decades longer. What they should have done and could have done is not the same as what they actually had interest in doing. ---
**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, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/289 "2023-07-27T17:07:19Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Slavery was immoral but it was legal. There no way to legally punish people retroactively for what were legal acts at the time, at least there isn’t in any society I want to be a part of. I’d rather live in a society that retroactively punishes slavery than a society that allows slavery. A society whose legal framework enshrines and protects slavery is **not** a society that I want to be a part of - YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/290 "2023-07-27T17:09:03Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I’d rather live in a society that retroactively punishes slavery than a society that allows slavery. A society whose legal framework enshrines and protects slavery is **not** a society that I want to be a part of - YMMV. Anything can be retroactively punished. Like people getting abortions. ---
**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, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/291 "2023-07-27T17:10:32Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Slavery was immoral but it was legal. There no way to legally punish people retroactively for what were legal acts at the time, at least there isn’t in any society I want to be a part of. But, from the slaver’s point of view, he _was_ punished for slavery, in that he lost the value of his slaves. The government “took his property” but didn’t pay “just compensation”. Are you saying they should have done so? Because, otherwise, I’m guessing that you are ok that the government imposed economic deprivation as a retroactive form of legal punishment. ---
**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, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/292 "2023-07-27T17:11:20Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Anything can be retroactively punished. Like people getting abortions. Cool. A society that allows slavery is not a society, it’s a barbaric abomination that must be destoyed. For some perspective, if black slaves in 1860 rose up, massacared plantation owners and burned the South to the ground - I’d consider them fully justified in doing so. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/293 "2023-07-27T17:30:16Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Cool. A society that allows slavery is not a society, it’s a barbaric abomination that must be destoyed. > > For some perspective, if black slaves in 1860 rose up, massacared plantation owners and burned the South to the ground - I’d consider them fully justified in doing so. I agree with you. But they didn’t. They needed help to be freed. That fact definitely changed the outcome. They needed help from the existing government. If they revolted and took over the land, they could have written their own rules up, as happened during the American Revolution. But they didn’t. Same would be Nazi Germany. The Jews would have been justified in killing Hitler and taking over the country. But that didn’t happen. The Nazis were ousted post war. But the rank and file Germans that survived mostly got to stay in place. Except for East Germany, which was a different issue altogether. Some of the Jews went to Israel to have their own say there. Which impacted the people that were already there. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/294 "2023-07-27T17:45:02Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > But, from the slaver’s point of view, he _was_ punished for slavery, in that he lost the value of his slaves. The government “took his property” but didn’t pay “just compensation”. > > Are you saying they should have done so? > > Because, otherwise, I’m guessing that you are ok that the government imposed economic deprivation as a retroactive form of legal punishment. Compensating the slaveholders would have sent the wrong message. Despite being legal, those against slavery felt rightly that is was morally wrong, and compensation would have weakened that argument. Jailing, executing people for having been slaveholders is another matter. ---
**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, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/295 "2023-07-27T17:46:52Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > If they revolted and took over the land, they could have written their own rules up, as happened during the American Revolution. Or Haiti. Except Haiti is impoverished. But why is that? Oh, right, because the slave owners who lost their “property” demanded just compensation for their loss. > **[Haiti Independence Debt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_indemnity_controversy)** > > The Haiti indemnity controversy involves an 1825 agreement between Haiti and France that included France demanding a indemnity of 150 million francs to be paid by Haiti in claims over property – including Haitian slaves – that was lost through the Haitian Revolution in return for diplomatic recognition, with the debt removing $21 billion from the Haitian economy. The first annual payment alone was six times Haiti's annual revenue. The payment was later reduced to 90 million francs in 183 France's... > [@Jay\_Z](#): > > those against slavery felt rightly that is was morally wrong, and compensation would have weakened that argument. But I thought the argument was a legalistic one : it would be unfair to impose punishment on people for doing something that, at the time, was legal. Compensation would have shown fealty (misguided, in my opinion) to the law. (The counter argument, which I endorse, is that it would have been perfectly fine to seize plantations, _via a stroke of the pen_, just as it was perfectly fine to free slaves without worrying about paying the slavers). > [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Jailing, executing people for having been slaveholders is another matter. Who suggested that? This thread started as (my) discussion about TREASON. How did you miss that? ---
**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, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/296 "2023-07-27T18:45:06Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > Compensating the slaveholders would have sent the wrong message. Despite being legal, those against slavery felt rightly that is was morally wrong, and compensation would have weakened that argument. Jailing, executing people for having been slaveholders is another matter. Nobody is calling for slavers to have been executed for having slaves. Traitors and rebel leadership should have been executed for treason, regardless of whether or not they owned slaves; and separately from that, the property of enslavers should have been confiscated as reperations for slavery. Two separate things. Now, certainly, some confederate higher ups would both have been executed for treason as well as had their slave-gotten gains seized. But these are two separate actions with two separate consequences. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/297 "2023-07-27T19:01:38Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I’d rather live in a society that retroactively punishes slavery than a society that allows slavery. Well, sure. This is the problem inherent with trying to apply modern morality to historical figures in the past, generally. Slavery around the world bas basically been the default for most of human history. That was the problem they had in 1776, they had to deal with the political realities of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/298 "2023-07-27T19:04:02Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > 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, Just a parenthetical note, but they was still a very brisk illegal trade smuggling freshly acquired slaves into the 1860’s. The last importation into the U.S. was in fact [in 1860](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clotilda_(slave_ship)), right up to the brink of the Civil War. Much of this was [organized from New York](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-new-york-became-americas-last-slave-trading-port-cuban-spy-tried-stop-it-180977178/) 😑. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/299 "2023-07-27T19:08:10Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > This is the problem inherent with trying to apply modern morality to historical figures in the past, generally. > > Slavery around the world bas basically been the default for most of human history. This is the problem inherent with not applying historical morality to historical figures in the past, generally. Slavery, around the world, has basically always been seen as a state to not find oneself in for most of human history. ---
**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 27, 2023, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/300 "2023-07-27T19:17:20Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Remember, those Southerners who participated in the rebellion were American citizens. They had rights. Why? They seceded from the United States and formed their own country. At that point they were no longer American citizens, and once the US defeated their army and occupied their lands, they didn’t somehow magically become American citizens again, any more than everybody in Germany and Japan became American citizens in 1945. Lincoln chose, for political purposes, to take the position that since secession was invalid, they never actually stopped being American citizens. But he certainly _could_ have taken the opposing position, which IMO seems much more in alignment with common sense. ---
**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 27, 2023, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/301 "2023-07-27T19:19:39Z")
So we conclude that most people, for most of human history, behaved in grossly immoral ways. What exactly is the “problem” there? ---
**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, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/302 "2023-07-27T19:20:57Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > This is the problem inherent with not applying historical morality to historical figures in the past, generally. > Slavery, around the world, has basically always been seen as a state to not find oneself in for most of human history Yep. I can think of about 2.5 million people in the soon-to-be-United States who’d have had no trouble telling you that slavery was wrong in 1775, for example. Just because the majority of powerful people didn’t consider them to be humans whose opinions on morality matter doesn’t mean that we have to make the same mistake. ---
**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, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/303 "2023-07-27T19:21:29Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > At that point they were no longer American citizens, and once the US defeated their army and occupied their lands, they didn’t somehow magically become American citizens again, any more than everybody in Germany and Japan became American citizens in 1945. Under that theory (which is potentially valid, depending on your inclination), treason wouldn’t be appropriate. Instead, as noted upthread, they’d be a foreign nation waging war on the U.S. And so their leaders would just be the leaders of another country. Of course, in the 1860s, there was no notion of international law, and so it the US had decided to kill those people, or confiscate their lands, or even redraw the lines of their borders, they could have done so. I suspect that this way leads to chaos. Nevertheless, people (radical people, mainly) did consider it as an option. [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=14) [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=16)