# Why didn't the South/racists get their day of reckoning like postwar Germans did? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 4, 2016, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571 "2016-11-04T00:23:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ganthet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@ganthet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ganthet)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/61 "2017-06-05T16:19:27Z")
> [@bump](#): > > So as a result with the fall of the Confederacy, the practice of slavery ended, the rebellion was put down, and that was more or less that. All that remained in most people’s eyes was to rebuild and reintegrate the South into the union. Trying to eliminate racism wasn’t even a consideration. Reconstruction policies, at least as enacted by the Radical Republicans in Congress who took a stronger tone tham Johnson, certainly weren’t aimed at ending racism in any form but it wasn’t just about reintegrating the South alone. Civil rights laws were enacted allowing former slaves (well, at least the men) to be enfranchised and a Freedman’s bureau was created to help with jobs, at least by 19th century standards. Prior to Reconstruction ending and the Jim Crow era beginning, there were even a handful of African-American members of Congress. As during the Allied occupation, certain low level Nazi officials were permitted to hold certain essential positions, signficant figures of the Confederacy were elected to Congress following Reconstruction. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/62 "2017-06-05T16:52:37Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Who would you select to punish anyway? Robert E Lee? He was very well respected even in the North. Jefferson Davis? Maybe but he was just an elected President of an area that considered itself a sovereign nation and he is just one person. Individual soldiers? Davis was imprisoned for two years, with irons on his legs, etc. > **[Myth: Henry Wirz was the only person tried for war crimes in the Civil War -...](https://www.nps.gov/ande/learn/historyculture/wirztribunal.htm)** \*there were nearly 1,000 military tribunals in which Confederates, both regulars and guerrillas, were charged with various violations of the laws of war – mostly related to the treatment of prisoners of war. Some of these trials even led to acquittals. \* ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/63 "2017-06-05T16:55:07Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Also, remember that slavery was explicitly allowed by the constitution. Not true. Implicitly, perhaps, but not explicitly. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/64 "2017-06-05T16:59:16Z")
> [@bump](#): > > To be fair, “states rights” was the reason, in that the states felt that their rights as states were being infringed by the Federal government, but the state right that they were all fighting for was the right to own slaves. So it did boil down to slavery in the ultimate analysis, but not nearly as simplistically as the earlier “all about states rights”, or the current “it was all about slavery” concepts would have you believe. > . Since the only states rights’ they were fighting for was slavery, this is actually false. All other rights of individual states were not a issue with the South or the South fought against that right. To be pedantic, the South was against States Right **s** but in favor of one States Right. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/65 "2017-06-05T17:03:20Z")
> [@ganthet](#): > > Instead, we named U.S. Army posts after him and other Confederate generals. At least it’s amusing that someone as ineffective, arrogant, self-sabotaging, and disastrous as Braxton Bragg is now the namesake of Fort Bragg, which is generally considered the unofficial headquarters of the Army outside of the Pentagon. Good thing they haven’t picked up any of his traits. I dont know what you’re talking about: Braxton Bragg was one of the best Generals the North had. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/66 "2017-06-05T17:04:53Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Anytime somebody trots out the word “communism” you have to determine whether they mean Marxist communism = “rule by the proletariat”, or Leninist / post-Leninist communism = “rule by a totalitarian dictator using / fooling the proletariat via Marxist talk.”. Has a true Marxist communist Nation ever existed? It’s like Unicorns and Leprechauns. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/67 "2017-06-05T19:06:13Z")
The short answer is that the Allied Powers were much more interested in creating a new German state in their image than the Union was in recreating the South in its image after the Civil War. Another aspect to this is that while many Germans were indeed antisemitic, it is also true that many Jews had been integrated within German society for centuries. There was a precedent for Jews being autonomous and citizens. The virulent antisemitism swept over Germany due to a rise of extreme illiberalism and nationalism that had been taking place since the 2nd half of the 19th Century, concurrent with globalization interestingly enough. No such precedent existed in the United States. Many Northerners were reluctant to use slavery as a _cassis belli_ against the South. Northerners fought to preserve the Union but they were much less concerned with remaking the South entirely and superimposing its own value system. Many Northerners themselves had white supremacist views and were only interested in seeing to it that the institution of slavery was dissolved. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/68 "2017-06-05T19:12:31Z")
> [@ganthet](#): > > Reconstruction policies, at least as enacted by the Radical Republicans in Congress who took a stronger tone tham Johnson, certainly weren’t aimed at ending racism in any form but it wasn’t just about reintegrating the South alone. Civil rights laws were enacted allowing former slaves (well, at least the men) to be enfranchised and a Freedman’s bureau was created to help with jobs, at least by 19th century standards. Prior to Reconstruction ending and the Jim Crow era beginning, there were even a handful of African-American members of Congress. This is indeed true. Unfortunately, white terrorism ultimately ended any hope of progress. Armed affiliates of the southern Democratic party like the KKK and White Man’s League roamed the countryside and murdered blacks and whites who helped the Freedmen. Over time, this discouraged Republicans (blacks and whites from the north) and re-established the Democratic party in the South. By 1876 Democrats had become a political force again, not just in local politics but also nationally as well. In fact I believe they won a plurality in the presidential election but results in some states were not accepted by the House, creating a political crisis that ultimately ended with Rutherford B Hayes as president. Democrats agreed to concede the presidential election to the Republicans and the Republicans agreed to remove troops from the South. ---
**Author:** ![ganthet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@ganthet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ganthet)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/69 "2017-06-05T19:45:55Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > This is indeed true. > > Unfortunately, white terrorism ultimately ended any hope of progress. Armed affiliates of the southern Democratic party like the KKK and White Man’s League roamed the countryside and murdered blacks and whites who helped the Freedmen. Over time, this discouraged Republicans (blacks and whites from the north) and re-established the Democratic party in the South. By 1876 Democrats had become a political force again, not just in local politics but also nationally as well. In fact I believe they won a plurality in the presidential election but results in some states were not accepted by the House, creating a political crisis that ultimately ended with Rutherford B Hayes as president. Democrats agreed to concede the presidential election to the Republicans and the Republicans agreed to remove troops from the South. So what would you posit as the major nostalgia differences in outcome between post-war German society and post-civil war Southern society? Were Jews just more sympathetic, given the actual industrial genocide, to the Allies than African-Americans were to Northerners combined with legal prohibitions in Germany on Nazi salutes and certain pro-Nazi speech? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/70 "2017-06-05T20:10:58Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Has a true Marxist communist Nation ever existed? > > It’s like Unicorns and Leprechauns. True. So far. But that doesn’t stop the True Believers from working to create that first successful example. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/71 "2017-06-05T21:14:48Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > First of all, let’s be very clear; The GERMANS never had a day of reckoning. NAZIS did. The Allies cheerfully hanged Nazis by the score, and good riddance to them, not only in Germany but in their puppet states as well. But the German people were not punished - Germany was rebuilt and, at least in the West, its people treated with charity and dignity. Besides all the other problems with the OP analogy this is the biggest one. There wasn’t group punishment of the Germans as a people much beyond the destruction the war itself (including large scale Soviet atrocities inside Germany in the final months, less though non-zero by the Western Allies). Not relative to the war anyway. There was punishment of Nazi’s by and large (imperfectly of course) based on evidence against particular people and proportional to that evidence. That’s not actually fundamentally different from what happened to former officials and officers of the Confederacy v the Southern population as a whole. Although that was in the context of slavery itself not being retroactively considered a crime. Fighting against the US was the offence. So the punishments weren’t as dire as for eg. mass murdering Holocaust victims, POW’s etc, pretty understandably I think. The basic difference, under the implication that the ‘day of reckoning’ solved the German problem but not the US race problem, is that the German people post WWII _wanted_ to turn away from Nazism and foreign aggression. The Southern people were willing to turn away from secession and slavery, but were not willing to live with the freed people as equals. So it’s not surprising that after less than 10 yrs of occupation of West Germany there was no more Nazi or German aggression problem (though there still being an East Germany was also part of that), but after 10+ yrs of Reconstruction no end remotely in sight for the race problem. The Allied occupiers of Germany didn’t have to change a basic internal pattern of German society\*, as Reconstruction failed to do in the South. And as many posts have noted, ‘racism’, especially in the broader terms in which it’s often defined today was not what the American Civil War was about. Although OTOH in the context of the ongoing racial division in the US, the extent to which the war was about abolishing slavery tends to be understated. The reason the Southern states seceded was definitely a fear that Lincoln’s election would result in the abolition of slavery. They said so crystal clearly in the secession declarations, especially SC’s at which time there was no incident at Fort Sumter to use as additional excuse. Latter day claims it was ‘just as much’ about tariff policy or a ‘way of life’ are pseudo-history BS. Likewise while it’s true the average Northerner fought initially for the Union, not to free slaves, there was some transformation of that view, and a definite political gain by Radical Republicans who were more openly abolitionist, as the war went on. And, being against slavery doesn’t mean you are in favor of racial integration and/or equality. IOW almost nobody in 1865 could avoid being called a ‘racist’ now, but by 1865 plenty of people in the Union saw slavery as the root of the conflict which had caused such horrific loss and which could not be allowed to continue. \*German postwar attitudes toward Nazi victims were not as relevant to every day German society because of the tragic degree to which the Nazi’s had succeeded in killing and/or causing their victims to flee Germany. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/72 "2017-06-05T22:09:33Z")
1. Because the North’s views weren’t THAT different from the Souths. It’s not like the North attacked to save those poor slaves. 2. I’m not quite down with ‘The Germans weren’t punished, the Nazis were’. All combatants were herded into internments camps and renamed ‘disarmed enemy combatants’ with ZERO POW rights. You can imagine how well that went. And that’s the Allies…we don’t need to mention the Soviet response. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/73 "2017-06-05T22:12:14Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > 1. Because the North’s views weren’t THAT different from the Souths. It’s not like the North attacked to save those poor slaves. > . That was indeed a reason- just not by any means the primary reason. In any case the war was about Slavery. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/74 "2017-06-05T22:19:54Z")
> [@ganthet](#): > > So what would you posit as the major nostalgia differences in outcome between post-war German society and post-civil war Southern society? Were Jews just more sympathetic, given the actual industrial genocide, to the Allies than African-Americans were to Northerners combined with legal prohibitions in Germany on Nazi salutes and certain pro-Nazi speech? It was perhaps easy to view Nazi Germany as a mistake, a brief moment in the long and complicated history of a country. Nazis were democratically elected but they were a plurality and they came to power at a time when Germans were at a crossroads. Germans could look at the destruction of their state and view it as something to regret. German identity was not inextricably tied to the extermination of Jews, but White Southern identity was very much tied to the ownership of Black slaves. And while White Southerners begrudgingly accepted that they had lost the war and had to accept Blacks as actual people, they did not in any way accept them as their equals, and more importantly, this was something that their conquerors didn’t insist upon. Allied forces used brute force to occupy Germany but they used Nazi atrocities embarrass a country that had previously been associated with high culture and had produced some of the greatest intellectual minds – including philosophers and ethicists – that the world had ever known. This was simply not true of the American South. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/75 "2017-06-05T22:28:04Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > That was indeed a reason- just not by any means the primary reason. In any case the war was about Slavery. I’m going to need a cite sir. It was about slavery for THE SOUTH. Lincoln himself said > [@](#): > > 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 ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/76 "2017-06-05T22:35:29Z")
Edit: Nevermind. I don’t need a cite. I don’t want to hijack the thread. I remove my call for a cite. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/77 "2017-06-05T22:38:06Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > I’m going to need a cite sir. It was about slavery for THE SOUTH. Lincoln himself said That is true. Lincoln’s \*primary \*motivation was to save the Union. But he was elected by a party and on a ticket that had as it goal the limitation and possibly eventual eradication of slavery. The South knew that full well, which is why they left the Union. > **[Origins of the American Civil War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_American_Civil_War)** > > A consensus of historians who address the origins of the American Civil War agree that the preservation of the institution of slavery was the principal aim of the eleven Southern states (seven states before the onset of the war and four states after the onset) that declared their secession from the United States (the Union) and united to form the Confederate States of America (known as the "Confederacy"). However, while historians in the 21st century agree on the centrality of slavery in the c _The primary catalyst for secession was slavery, especially Southern political leaders’ resistance to attempts by Northern antislavery political forces to block the expansion of slavery into the western territories. …The 1860 Republican platform consisted of 17 declarations of principle, of which 10 dealt directly with the issues of free soil principles, slavery, the Fugitive Slave Act, and the preservation of the Union,…_ Lincoln was elected on a promise there would be no more slaves states. No more slave states meant that as time went on, Free States would more and more dominate Congress. Thereby, slavery could be contained and perhaps ended. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2017, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/78 "2017-06-05T22:47:47Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > That is true. Lincoln’s \*primary \*motivation was to save the Union. But he was elected by a party and on a ticket that had as it goal the limitation and possibly eventual eradication of slavery. The South knew that full well, which is why they left the Union. > [Origins of the American Civil War - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_American_Civil_War) > _The primary catalyst for secession was slavery, especially Southern political leaders’ resistance to attempts by Northern antislavery political forces to block the expansion of slavery into the western territories. …The 1860 Republican platform consisted of 17 declarations of principle, of which 10 dealt directly with the issues of free soil principles, slavery, the Fugitive Slave Act, and the preservation of the Union,…_ > > Lincoln was elected on a promise there would be no more slaves states. No more slave states meant that as time went on, Free States would more and more dominate Congress. Thereby, slavery could be contained and perhaps ended. Ok…ill get into it a teeny bit in so how it affects the OP. When I get off work I’m going to study up on conscription and resistance to the idea of going to war to free slaves. Or if that even entered into the mind of northern soldiers and if Lincoln was afraid to frame it that way. So I don’t really have a rebuttal. I’m just gonna study up on this interesting subject. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Plutonium_Kid)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/79 "2017-06-06T02:31:37Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Communists tend to have egalitarian social views, opposing concepts that one gender, race, religion, nationality, etc is superior to another. Only in theory. In practice, the communist movement established totalitarian oligarchies every bit as brutal as the Nazis. Communism is probably the bloodiest political movement in world history. All their noble-sounding platitudes and rhetoric are just a velvet glove on an iron fist. > [@](#): > > Southern culture seems very heavily steeped in anti-egalitarian beliefs. The belief that men are over women, evangelical christians over all other faiths and non-faiths, whites over non-whites, Americans over non-americans, etc. Whew! That’s a tremendous over-generalization and over-simplification there. It isn’t that Southerners or anyone else were anti-egalitarian, it’s that the modern left has made radical egalitarianism a dogma that no one is supposed to question. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@The\_Plutonium\_Kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Plutonium_Kid)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571/80 "2017-06-06T02:36:56Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I dont know what you’re talking about: Braxton Bragg was one of the best Generals the North had. > 😛 Good one! 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-south-racists-get-their-day-of-reckoning-like-postwar-germans-did/770571.md?page=5)