Comment by dctoedt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dctoedt | Hacker News Reader

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> The United States is exactly meant to be that: states that are united, but independent. The federal government was never intended to lord over everyone's lives.

That changed in the wake of the South's surrender at Appomattox: The Civil War Amendments explicitly gave the federal government expanded powers. Sure, the southern states were forced to ratify those amendments before Congress would recognize their representatives and senators. But they brought it on themselves; it was one of history's most-horrendous examples of FAFO. And the South was saved from far worse by Lincoln's and Grant's desire to be conciliatory and Andrew Johnson's malign views. (I read a tweet some years ago that Gen. Sherman should have mowed the South like a lawn, with multiple passes.)

> (I read a tweet some years ago that Gen. Sherman should have mowed the South like a lawn, with multiple passes.)

Nothing validates this view more than looking at the modern republican party. This is especially blasphemous to say after MLK day, who's life was dedicated to attempting the fix the injustices of the south, and who's death is entirely and inarguably a result of the white supremacist views and actions that were perpetuated, emboldened, and exported by the reconstructionist south (not that the north was innocent, far from it, but the majority of the burden inarguably on the south). At minimum the traitors should have been hanged in public view. The desire to be conciliatory has never been less vindicated -- it's not like the south all the sudden decided to adhere to constitution, they had to be forced to anyhow. It's a nice sentiment, but it should have been left at that.

> the white supremacist views and actions that were perpetuated, emboldened, and exported by the reconstructionist south (not that the north was innocent, far from it, but the majority of the burden inarguably on the south)

Well, the south was the only place where there were any appreciable amounts of nonwhite people. "White supremacy" was just "the way things are" in the north, because they pretty much only had white people.

In 1900, decades after the end of the Civil War, the south was about one-third black; every other region (midwest, northeast, west) were less than 2% black.

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