# 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:** 16
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2023, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/304 "2023-07-27T19:29:31Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > (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). I think that there is both a legal and philosophical difference between the government prohibiting the ownership of something previously legal to own and actual government seizure of property (punitively for engaging in the prior lawful acts) that remains legal to own. If we continued to view slaves as property (if, for example, the government seized the slaves and then put them to work, as slaves, building railroads or something), then I think that you would have a point. But the government hasn’t “taken” your property simply by making it illegal to own something. (I mean, we can go down the rabbit-hole of regulatory takings, but even there you still own the property and, as importantly, the property is still property). I think that this is a concept that would apply in much more straightforward applications that emancipation. ---
**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, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/305 "2023-07-27T19:30:37Z")
Well, as I’ve said, I think the redistribution of wealth would have been a crucial step towards creating a non-racist social order in the South. Executing a few thousand of the most egregious traitors wouldn’t have changed the basic social structure, and likely would have been counterproductive by creating martyrs. So I’m fine with a legal formulation that permits the former while barring the latter. ---
**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, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/306 "2023-07-27T19:43:22Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Slavery, around the world, has basically always been seen as a state to not find oneself in for most of human history. No doubt. Interestingly enough - if you read history, those old slaveholders also found themselves in an untenable situation, however on the other side of the equation. Is it your contention that were you a slaveholder - with say, 250 slaves, you would have done the right thing and freed them? ---
**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, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/307 "2023-07-27T19:50:42Z")
Yes, if slavery were legal somewhere in the world and I was informed I had just inherited 250 slaves in that place, I am quite certain I would immediately emancipate them without hesitation. If I were a member of the economic elite in the South in 1840…well, then I wouldn’t really be “me”, would I? I would have had an entirely different set of experiences, which likely would have led me to a very different way of thinking. On the other hand, a great many Americans in 1840 did believe that slavery was evil; it’s not like we’re talking about the Bronze Age. And I have no problem saying that the latter group of people were right, and the former were wrong. ---
**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, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/308 "2023-07-27T19:59:27Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > I would have had an entirely different set of experiences, which likely would have led me to a very different way of thinking. This is exactly why we can’t try to apply modern sensibilities to the past. We can criticize them, but it’s dirty pool to suggest “Well, I wouldn’t have done that”. Maybe. But . . . Maybe not. This is just silly stuff that used to be pointed out in grade school. Now it is routine for university history professors to make specious arguments like that. It is really quite remarkable how the discourse has degraded. ---
**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, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/309 "2023-07-27T20:01:14Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > This is exactly why we can’t try to apply modern sensibilities to the past. What part of “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.” are you still not understanding? ---
**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, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/310 "2023-07-27T20:03:14Z")
I understand it perfectly. I also understand why you didn’t answer the question. Good try, though! ---
**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, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/311 "2023-07-27T20:06:46Z")
Yes, because as Thing.Fish said if I owned 250 slaves I wouldn’t be me so it’s an impossible question to answer given the fact that I wouldn’t own people in the first place. ---
**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, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/312 "2023-07-27T20:07:39Z")
So would you feel comfortable describing Hitler as evil? Or would you describe that claim as a silly, specious argument because the person making it wasn’t alive at the same time Hitler was? How about 9/11? That was 22 years ago, are we really justified in judging those hijackers by today’s moral standards? ---
**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, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/313 "2023-07-27T20:10:24Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > Is it your contention that were you a slaveholder - with say, 250 slaves, you would have done the right thing and freed them? Why is that so outrageous a thing to contemplate? It’s not like it was unprecedented. Manumission happened. ---
**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, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/314 "2023-07-27T20:11:01Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > This is exactly why we can’t try to apply modern sensibilities to the past. I’m not doing that. As I said, there were a great many Americans in 1840 who knew that slavery was wrong (not even counting the enslaved people themselves). If I was saying that the Confederacy was evil because it didn’t allow same-sex marriage, that would be an example of applying modern sensibilities to the past. ---
**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, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/315 "2023-07-27T23:07:05Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > So would you feel comfortable describing Hitler as evil? Or would you describe that claim as a silly, specious argument because the person making it wasn’t alive at the same time Hitler was? Hey man, if you had Hitler’s unique combination of upbringing, education, and brain chemistry, you’d have probably committed a genocide too, so you’re in no place to judge! ---
**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, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/316 "2023-07-27T23:51:42Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > 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. I wholeheartedly disagree. The legally sound _and_ common sense position is that until such time as the US Constitution was either (a) amended or (b) defeated by force of arms leading to a collapse of the US government, southerners remained part of the United States and their citizenship status with respect to that was unchanged. The Confederacy did not earn the right to be considered a separate nation in its own time, and it would be truly revisionist to suggest otherwise today, particularly as we now have the benefit of a near-contemporary Supreme Court decision laying out the rationale for us. Plus, had the South in fact seceded, they would still be an independent nation today for the small matter of having never technically been admitted into the US via the constitutional process to admit new states to the Union. > [@Babale](#): > > 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. Exactly. This is the problem with the moral relativist position: it purports to be historical, but relies on a very selective reading of history. There were millions of Americans, both slaves in the south and no small amount of free people of all colors in the North (and even some in the South!) who abhorred slavery and recognized it as grossly immoral. Why anyone today would insist on privileging the historical moral evaluations _of the enslavers alone,_ contested as they were at the time, is beyond me. ---
**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, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/317 "2023-07-27T23:58:43Z")
OK, so if they were still citizens, then they were committing treason. If we’re allowed to execute traitors, surely we’re allowed to confiscate their property. ---
**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 28, 2023, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/318 "2023-07-28T00:02:22Z")
Half right. With respect to them having committed of treason, yes, it really is as simple as that: they were US citizens who levied war against the United States of America. Treason. But, curiously, the US Constitution actually has something to say about confiscating the property of those convicted of treason: > The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. In short, they could have only confiscated their property for their own lifetime. On death, the property would still have been subject to a claim by their descendants or named beneficiaries. Hence the need for section 6 of the 14th amendment (again, don’t look it up, it doesn’t exist, although maybe it should). ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2023, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/319 "2023-07-28T00:43:34Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > > The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. > > In short, they could have only confiscated their property for their own lifetime. On death, the property would still have been subject to a claim by their descendants or named beneficiaries. Hmmm, I am certainly no lawyer, but this made me curious about what would/did happen to property confiscated during their lifetime were it to be confiscated and sold during the war and their previous owner’s lifetime. I don’t have an answer to my own question, but did quickly dig up this in the [Confiscation Act of 1862](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confiscation_Act_of_1862): > Section 6 > > And be it further enacted, That if any person within any State or Territory of the United States, other than those named as aforesaid, after the passage of this act, being engaged in armed rebellion against the government of the United States, or aiding or abetting such rebellion, shall not, within sixty days after public warning and proclamation duly given and made by the President of the United States, cease to aid, countenance, and abet such rebellion, and return to his allegiance to the United States, all the estate and property, moneys, stocks, and credits of such person shall be liable to seizure as aforesaid, and it shall be the duty of the President to seize and use them as aforesaid or the proceeds thereof. And all sales, transfers, or conveyances, of any such property after the expiration of the said sixty days from the date of such warning and proclamation shall be null and void; and it shall be a sufficient bar to any suit brought by such person for the possession or the use of such property, or any of it, to allege and prove that he is one of the persons described in this section. > > Section 7 > > And be it further enacted, That to secure the condemnation and sale of any of such property, after the same shall have been seized, so that it may be made available for the purpose aforesaid, proceedings in rem shall be instituted in the name of the United States in any district court thereof, or in any territorial court, or in the United States district court for the District of Columbia, within which the property above described, or any part thereof, may be found, or into which the same, if movable, may first be brought, which proceedings shall conform as nearly as may be to proceedings in admiralty or revenue cases, and if said property, whether real or personal, shall be found to have belonged to a person engaged in rebellion, or who has given aid or comfort thereto, the same shall be condemned as enemies’ property and become the property of the United States, and may be disposed of as the court shall decree and the proceeds thereof paid into the treasury of the United States for the purposes aforesaid. I don’t know what was confiscated under this act, if the act was challenged, or what right descendants had to compensation for real or personal property of their ancestors seized and then sold to support putting down the rebellion. I’d gladly hear from anyone more knowledgeable on the subject than me, and of course this act doesn’t make the seizure and sale of property for even anyone convicted to treason legal after the rebellion had been put down in 1865. ---
**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 28, 2023, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/320 "2023-07-28T00:54:21Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > In short, they could have only confiscated their property for their own lifetime. On death, the property would still have been subject to a claim by their descendants or named beneficiaries. Maybe they could have just used Civil Asset Forfeiture! Just allege that the slavers’ property was used in the rebellion - you don’t even need to prove that it’s true! before I’m accused of applying today’s legal standards to the 19th century, I am being sarcastic! ---
**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 28, 2023, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/321 "2023-07-28T01:07:48Z")
According to footnote 2 of the following, Congress actually passed a joint resolution making clear the forfeiture was of a life estate (for the life of the rebel whose property was confiscated): [https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S3-C2-1/ALDE\_00001227/](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S3-C2-1/ALDE_00001227/) > [@Babale](#): > > Maybe they could have just used Civil Asset Forfeiture! Just allege that the slavers’ property was used in the rebellion - you don’t even need to prove that it’s true! Sarcastic or not, you could be onto something. Civil asset forfeiture predates the US and was endorsed early on by the Founders. It would not have been out of place in the 1860s. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2023, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/322 "2023-07-28T01:12:45Z")
Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2023, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/323 "2023-07-28T08:07:45Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > This is exactly why we can’t try to apply modern sensibilities to the past. Abolition of slavery isn’t a modern sensibility, though. There were a lot of people at the time who thought slavery was an abomination, and I’m not talking about the actual slaves. Nations that banned slavery before the US: Russia United Kingdom Wallachia Moldavia Venezuela Peru Argentina Lagos Ecuador New Granada Denmark Saint Barthélemy Tunisia Paraguay Bolivia Chile Mexico Uruguay Venezuela The Vatican France Denmark Serbia Chatham Islands Greece Haiti To say nothing, of course, of California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, or Wisconsin. So, when I say slave owners were shitty evil people, I’m not applying a modern lens to the past, I’m judging them the same way they were judged by millions and millions of their contemporaries and social equals, [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=15) [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=17)