Thaddeus Stevens Quotes

This marvelous quotation gives us a picture of the essence of the conflict in conception of freedom between Southern whites and negroes. There was no way to change the large majority of whites’ opinions and it is easy to see why Jim Crow and Southern discrimination evolved as it did. The emancipated Blacks had insufficient power or resources and there was not enough effort or success at changing white attitudes and no where near enough law enforcement to impose the view on the majority of the Southern white population.

For more about the Bureau. See {629185}.and {629187}.

This was has report on Buxton a community of Blacks in Ontario Canada that had been established by the Elgin Association. See {613967}.

This quotation’s authenticity and accuracy are challenged by many scholars. The only source is the personal reminiscences of General Butler, a politician with Presidential aspirations who had his own agenda. The nuance of wording is very critical as to whether Lincoln was trying to accomplish export or whether he was asking Butler to staff out the feasibility so that Lincoln could deal with others who had raised the issue. Butler’s reply was that it was not feasible ({633655}), and there is no other record of the idea being advocated or implemented. The quotation, if indeed it was a quotations, is taken by some to indicate that Lincoln was no friend of Blacks and very racist to boot.

Hughes was a strong critic of the exploitation of laborers in the North by what he called the “bloated capitalist” First Irish Bishop in the United States

The essential conundrum for the Southerners of the Early United States was their independence as individual states vis a vis the trust and dependence that would be required if they gave up much of their traditional authority to manage their own affairs. However, if they chose to maintain States’ rights and other States did as well, they not only lose the security and unity of a nation, but the other states were more economically powerful, better educated, with stronger infrastructures as well. The changing world politics, industrialization, and technology was making it more and more difficult for a Southern State to have it both ways. They could have a loose affiliation of states, maintain their own autonomy but would be saddled with war debt and a slave-dependent economy that was itself deteriorating. Or they would be in a strong union where they were the weaker economic and political forces and might be politically and culturally dominated by states like Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts which would force major social and economic reforms upon the South. The knot to which Lee referred was the mythical one so complex that non could untie it, but it could instantly be cut with a sword. Lee argued that the Southern states would have to accept the dominance of the other states (which was like political slavery) or just cut the knot and not ratify the Constitution. More negotiating and trying to untie the knot would be useless.

He was the Russian Reformer who ended serfdom and gave land to the peasants and then was assassinated. Ironically, both Alexander II and Lincoln were assassinated—because of their reform efforts—Lincoln for going too far; the Czar for not going far enough. See the Nickname that was given to the Czar: {622809}.

Note the language used for abolitionists in the years leading up to the Civil War. American voters at that time had always lived with the institution of slavery in America and many thought of it as an institutional pillar of the American nation. Those who wanted to bring down an American institution were “fanatics”. Generally this world is used to describe true fanatics and reformers who want to change anything that has been in existence a long while. To paraphrase Edwin Newman, What words shall we use to describe the zealot who wants to destroy the country when every person who wants to improve and change a facet of our system is called a “fanatic.”

Some whites began to understand the negative effect that slavery had on the Negroes. He like many Northerners interested in the rehabilitation of former slaves was convinced that a strong education program was necessary and the ex-slaves should not be dependent in their ex-masters for the education and acclimation to American life. However, with a President (Andrew Johnson) uninterested in Black development and a local white population totally opposed to such efforts only a little progress was made and the consequences affected America for the next 100 years.

He was a deeply religious Christian which is one of the reasons that he was appointed to head the Freemen’s Bureau to integrate the emancipated slaves into society. Howard University was named for him, and he served as its First President. For more about the Bureau. See {629185}.and {629187}.

Much of the South was so insular that people knew nothing about the notion of abolition and just assumed that no one would ever consider freeing the slaves. Many never knew that it was the South that first fired on the Union troops and flag. If the North won the war, the assumption was that Northerners would then own the plantations and the valuable slaves. In reality, while all slaves were emancipated in the South, very few plantations and farms were confiscated from their Southern owners by Northerners despite the fact that there was political pressure in the North to confiscate the land of all rebels who had committed treason and use the value to repay the Union bonds and care for the wounded Union veterans and the widows of dead Union Soldiers. Eggleston was an accomplished writer who had served in the Confederate army of the Civil War. 20 year after the war he wrote a series of articles for the prestigious Northern Atlantic Monthly trying to convey the war from the Southerner’s point of view.

He may well have been right if the South had capitulated. But that is exactly what happened when they did not and were beaten. So the worst that the South could have ended up with by not following Vance’s view would be what they ended up without the many deaths and wounded and the massive destruction of property that took place in the latter part of the war.

The 10th Amendment reserves powers to the states and limits the Federal Government’s powers. However, there are other clauses in the Constitution, like the Commerce Clause (Article I Section 8), which gives the Federal Government authority and control over Interstate Commerce, which in modern society permeates almost all activities of State government, The result is that the federal government / state government power division has been a political issue and not really a constitutional one. At the time Republicans advocated a literal 10th Amendment interpretation and the Democrats favored a stronger Federal Government with more authority and power as stated by the Commerce Clause. Roy had been trying to explain to his fellow Republican strategists that it is hard to attract Blacks to the remainder to the Republican Platform as long as they were insensitive to what the 10th Amendment meant to Blacks historically. The Southern states cited the 10th Amendment more than any other part of the constitution to justify their right to maintain slavery. It was the Federal Government that ended slavery. Under the rubric of the 10th Amendment the South managed to get rid of most of the racial civil rights Reconstruction reforms that were imposed by the Federal Government on the Southern States. And it was the 19th Amendment that was the authority for Segregation for 100 years. And the terrorism of the Klu Klux Klan and the lynching and terror imposed on Blacks by Southern states claiming the 10th Amendment right to do so. Finally, it was the Federal Government, overriding the 10th Amendment with the Commerce Clause and other parts of the Constitution that passed and enforced the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Desegregation and the end to Lynching and other Southern State-Sponsored terrorism. Blacks will not any time soon accede to having the 10th Amendment literal view of the role of government and if Republicans insist on that there would continue to be very few Black Republicans,

After the Civil War and Reconstruction, the American nation was still bitterly divided intelelctually, socially, emotionally and poliotically. In an effort to bring more unity to America, most of the power stucture and the influentials of the nation began to avoid those issues that would divide North and South and try and promote a narrative that both sides might be able to live with. And this is what Zeitz describes in this quotation. America went through a period of Revisionist History that even in the 21st century was held by many people. It wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that the real history and narrative of the Civil War and Reconstrution emerged from the few academics who had all along criticized the fabricated narritive that did unify the country at the cost of historical accuracy and truth. Many scholars point out that the price that America paid for this unity was the Jim Crow era and a century of legalized racism. Much of the nation was built on the labor of Negro slaves and the victims of the slavery era, also bore the brunt of American unity and reconcilliation.