# 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:** 2
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/21 "2023-07-09T02:07:09Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > The OP has simply created an entire class of martyrs for a lost cause. Agreed. Executing your defeated enemies is illiberal. And the [far right is on the rise in Germany today.](https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230625-germany-s-far-right-afd-party-wins-historic-victory-in-local-election) I think that there is one easier-to-imagine historical counterfactual that would have done some good. Andrew Johnson was arguably impeached for trying to change the result of the civil war. And he was acquitted in the Senate by just one vote. If he had been removed, his replacement would have been radical Republican Benjamin Wade. This would I presume have been good for civil rights. You might even think the precedent of removing the president would have made a repeat removal more likely. However, I’m not really seeing why it would have reduced divisiveness 155 years later. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/22 "2023-07-09T02:29:37Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > we were good men led astray”, which is a far better outcome than “ours was a just cause, and we shall one day rise again” To me, both sentences are the same excuse and are of no difference in intent or practice. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/23 "2023-07-09T02:46:14Z")
This is eye-blinking absurdity. After four years of total war, a starving south bred generation after generation with a burning hatred of the north, abolitionism, and federal rule, with their fields destroyed, their industry and transportation leveled, their field hands scattered, and the great part of a generation of men injured, maimed, or killed would just simply sit back and watch their leaders hanged only to go, well, they deserved it. No problemo. The proper analogy is what happened in Germany after WWI, not WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/24 "2023-07-09T03:14:20Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > If, following the end of the Civil War, the United States had identified the Confederate politicians and military officers as having committed treason This would violate the express terms of surrender, so no, I think it would have been a nonstarter to try and execute the rebel officers after the war. Remember that Lincoln was assassinated before Johnston surrendered. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/25 "2023-07-09T03:15:43Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Please explain. You take a population that fought four years for what they were told was a just cause, defeat them, and then hang the people who led them (and make their hangings “a famous picture”) Do you expect that to calm a defeated population? To create some sort of reconciliation between North and South? Do you think the photos of Black men who were lynched killed the Civil Rights movement? > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The proper analogy is what happened in Germany after WWI, not WWII. That says it better than I can. The OP is advocating vengeance, not justice. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/26 "2023-07-09T03:16:14Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > The OP has simply created an entire class of martyrs for a lost cause. Another vote of agreement. Hanging Confederate leaders would have made the south far more hostile than it historically was. They almost certainly would have been more attacks against blacks and northerners. And the American government would have had to treat the southern states as occupied enemy territory and maintained a standing army. And I don’t feel the justification was there. Slavery may be abhorrent to us but we have to recognize it was legal in 1861. Executing people for carrying out legal acts is wrong even if you retroactively declare them illegal. And normal acts of war should be covered by the normal rules of war; not be used as justification for punishment or executions. And as Americans we’d have a hard time arguing against the principle of rebellion. Basically the Confederate secessionists lost the war; they should have been treated no worse than any other defeated enemy. (I have no problem with trying and punishing individuals who committed specific war crimes.) As for the “redemption” movement - yes, that was wrong. But I don’t feel we can put all the blame for that on southerners. The southerners wouldn’t have been able to get away with taking away black civil rights if northerners had been willing to stand up for those rights. I’d accept an argument that we should have continued the reconstruction longer than the twelve years we historically did. But I don’t agree that executions would have helped reconstruction. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/27 "2023-07-09T03:43:21Z")
I’m going to buck the trend, and try to not fight the hypothetical… fully. Rather than executing all the Confederate leaders, it might have been worthwhile if one, very possibly Lee, or one of the other ‘honorable Southern Gentlemen’ (scare quotes for what I _really_ think of that term) could be convinced to be executed, after appropriate _public_ contrition, as the semi-literal scapegoat for the others. Killing all of them, as suggested upthread by many other posters, would have just enraged those who respected the leaders, and invited retaliation. Showing that someone at the top instead had to take responsibility, might (very much MIGHT) have created a better version of the Lost Cause, with emphasis on that responsibility. But honestly IMHO, not even the North was really ready for full equality, much less the south, and with the emphasis on cutting costs inherent in the Military reduction, I don’t think there was a willingness under any circumstances for _sustained_ social engineering. ---
**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 9, 2023, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/28 "2023-07-09T03:48:56Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > You take a population that fought four years for what they were told was a just cause, defeat them, and then hang the people who led them (and make their hangings “a famous picture”) > > Do you expect that to calm a defeated population? To create some sort of reconciliation between North and South? Do you think the photos of Black men who were lynched killed the Civil Rights movement? Reconciliation… is that what happened after the Civil War? Between white people, perhaps, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t go down like that for all Americans. For the record, I don’t think hanging was necessary, but I recognize it as a likely consequence of a conviction for treason at the time. Just the same, I suspect the bulk of those convicted would have seen their sentences commuted after a time, not unlike those Lincoln conspirators who weren’t hanged outright. Balance that–the possibility of maybe hanging a couple Confederate leaders who perhaps didn’t _need_ to be hanged but whose crimes were certainly hanging offenses for the time–against allowing Southerners to imagine the underlying virtue of their cause is what spared them, not the mercy of the righteous victors, and I think things might just be better now. Because as it stands, men like Davis, Lee, and Jackson (who was too far gone for hanging in any event) are already treated as martyrs of a kind. Someone mentioned the Nazis who were hanged at Nuremberg as an example of what a terrible thing can happen when leaders are hanged, but frankly I don’t see how you can necessarily conclude that things would be better today if they hadn’t been hanged. Does anyone honestly believe that the reason the alt-right is on the rise today, in Germany or anywhere, is because a bunch of Nazi war criminals were hanged? That it wouldn’t still be on the rise, only worse worse, as the Nazis’ spiritual successors imagine, like too many Americans on the alt-right today, that the fact the Nazis (or the Confederates) were not punished commensurate with their crimes is evidence that they must not have done anything worthy of punishment? > [@ParallelLines](#): > > Rather than executing all the Confederate leaders, it might have been worthwhile if one, very possibly Lee, or one of the other ‘honorable Southern Gentlemen’ (scare quotes for what I _really_ think of that term) could be convinced to be executed, after appropriate _public_ contrition, as the semi-literal scapegoat for the others. Lee would have been a good poetic choice, seeing as he had played such a prominent role in the martyrdom of John Brown. It’s funny how history works, isn’t it? The guy who led a half-baked but well-meaning rebellion to free the slaves gets hanged, while the guy who presided over his execution and then waged the bloodiest war in American history against his own countrymen gets a full pardon and a comfortable semi-retirement. ETA: Oh, and how can I forget the rebel Pickett, whose war crimes I have blogged about before: > **[They Fought for Their Rights](https://songsofbabylon.com/2021/02/15/they-fought-for-their-rights/)** > > They fought for their rights… and the Confederate Army hanged them for it. Funny how those Confederates didn’t have any qualms about hanging men as traitors, isn’t it? But then came sniveling back after the war accepting pardons for their own crimes? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/29 "2023-07-09T03:52:12Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > Rather than executing all the Confederate leaders, it might have been worthwhile if one, very possibly Lee, or one of the other ‘honorable Southern Gentlemen’ (scare quotes for what I _really_ think of that term) could be convinced to be executed, after appropriate _public_ contrition, as the semi-literal scapegoat for the others. Gen. Lee gave his parole and in return gained immunity. Those were the terms of surrender; change the terms and you might not have _had_ a surrender. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![DeadTreasSecretaries](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deadtreassecretaries/32/4817_2.png) [@DeadTreasSecretaries](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadTreasSecretaries)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/30 "2023-07-09T04:02:33Z")
They could still be fighting to this day! ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/31 "2023-07-09T04:02:51Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > > [@Stratocaster](#): > > > > The Nazis were shown to be the unambiguously evil bad guys. Their self-created humiliation was complete. And Germany subsequently has no time for any neo-Nazi nonsense. I do wonder if the OP’s premise holds water. > > Thank you for seeing my point - there needs to be some _pain_ associated with losing that war, a flash point in history to point to whenever that sort of mindset rears its head again. The thing is, there was pain associated with losing the Civil War, and it is a flashpoint to whenever that sort of mindset rears its head again. It has ever since settled the question of ‘can states secede from the Union’ with a very decisive no. It also settled the question of whether slavery was going to continue to be legal in the Union with a decisive no, and while Lost Cause apologists can say the war wasn’t about slavery but was about state’s rights while ignoring that the only state rights they were fighting for was the right to own slaves, the North didn’t fight the war to free the slaves, it fought it to preserve the Union. To quote what Lincoln [famously wrote](https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.4233400/?st=text), bolding mine on the most well-known lines of the quote: > I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. **My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.** What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save thise Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. With regards to comparisons with the Nazis, the Southern cause, as despicable as we may find it to be with our modern sensibilities, they were in no way seen to be anywhere near as unambiguously evil as the Nazis were in their respective times. Traitors to the Union? Sure. Genocidal maniacs bent on world domination who murdered over 9,000,000 _Untermensch_ while in the process of losing the war and planned to murder scores of millions more if they had won? No. ---
**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 9, 2023, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/32 "2023-07-09T04:07:33Z")
When a defense of the Confederacy consists of—and here I paraphrase—“Come on, they weren’t as bad as the Nazis!” I’m not sure it’s worth defending. At all. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/33 "2023-07-09T04:09:39Z")
I’m not defending the Confederacy, nor was I the one comparing them to the Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/34 "2023-07-09T05:57:16Z")
The OP hit the bullseye. It’s what we need to do with traitors now also. Prison won’t do the job. Once they see one of their own doing the traitor’s dance at the end of a rope we’ll see the cowards finally fade away. Yes, I’m serious. ---
**Author:** ![slicedalone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slicedalone/32/12515_2.png) [@slicedalone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slicedalone)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/35 "2023-07-09T06:19:06Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > we need to do with traitors now also. Prison won’t do the job. Plus, execution is the only way to pardon-proof a guilty verdict. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/36 "2023-07-09T07:51:02Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You can’t believe they would be protected in any way. That would require a larger army than used in the war. Assuming there was any will to protect them. While blacks weren’t reduced to property in northern eyes, that was about as far as it went. Look at the history of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment (of _Glory_ fame). Would former slaves be worthy of more? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/37 "2023-07-09T13:31:22Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > > [@Mk\_VII](#): > > > > If the people who actually fought and beat the rebels could find it in them to promote reconciliation over revenge, why are you bent on reversing this? > > Because their “reconciliation” consisted of letting the southern leaders brutalize Black people for another hundred years, while continuing to proclaim it was righteous. The fault there was in Union leaders not staying the course and allowing Reconstruction to collapse. Understandable given war weariness and racial attitudes at the time. Mass executions would have resulted in vastly more bitterness and hard-core resistance in the conquered South, and probably an extended guerrilla war. ---
**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 9, 2023, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/38 "2023-07-09T13:46:14Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And I don’t feel the justification was there. Slavery may be abhorrent to us but we have to recognize it was legal in 1861. Executing people for carrying out legal acts is wrong even if you retroactively declare them illegal. It’s not slavery that would justify their punishment; it’s _treason_. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And normal acts of war should be covered by the normal rules of war; not be used as justification for punishment or executions. Treason is literally defined in the Constitution. Why would that section not constitute the “normal rules of war”? It’s not like the confederates can claim they weren’t aware of the crime, or what it would take to find them guilty. It was in clear language ever since the nation was founded. What would be the result? Perhaps more violence, but terroristic violence is what we already had - I’m not sure that executing people like Lee and Davis would have made it appreciably worse. But here’s what I do expect? After these men were hanged as traitors, and clearly identified as **losers** , we would not likely get schools and monuments named after them. Trump’s first attorney general had a family name that was in tribute to the former confederate president- can you imagine if a top German official was named Adolf Hitler Schultz today, or if people like Goring and Himmler had been allowed to head up German universities, or become mayors of local towns, after the war? > [@Dissonance](#): > > nor was I the one comparing them to the Nazis. I did, and I’ll do it again. They believed themselves a master race, and used slave labor in furtherance of their ends. These people were the Nazis of the 19th century, and they deserve all the opprobrium we can muster. The fact that this is debatable reflects, in my opinion, the mistake of not clearly labeling these men as committing treason, for which death was an appropriate outcome. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/39 "2023-07-09T13:55:59Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Mass executions would have resulted in vastly more bitterness and hard-core resistance in the conquered South, and probably an extended guerrilla war. I agree with that. Mass executions would be awful. It takes time to try each traitor and give them a chance to apologize, explain that they were wrong, that they led their own brethren down the road to failure because of their lack or morals and courage, and suffer a lesser punishment than death. There only need to be a few, maybe tens but probably not hundreds, to be executed and then the rest would change the course of their lives. Mass executions would show the same kind of cowardice and betrayal that our enemies displayed. The normal slow process of justice that hangs the stupidest recalcitrants first would work better. ---
**Author:** ![slicedalone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slicedalone/32/12515_2.png) [@slicedalone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slicedalone)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2023, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-america-would-be-less-divisive-today-if-we-had-executed-confederate-leaders-for-treason/986789/40 "2023-07-09T14:03:19Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > probably an extended guerrilla war We had an extended guerrilla war, lasting from Reconstruction up to the present. The only difference is that blacks suffered from it the most, if not exclusively, and continue to suffer as victims of that war. [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=1) [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=3)