Michael,
Did you mean to not include Native Americans in Americans who have "had
their clocks thoroughly cleaned"?
I am not at all convinced that in the 19th century there was any sort of
obligation owed defeated southerners other than allow them to take an oath
of allegience. I am shocked by those who feel the North should have
compensated the slave-owners for their "property". If anyone needed to
compensate anyone, it should have been the former slaveowners compensating
their former slaves. Had the former plantations been split up among those
who had worked them, the African-Americans would not have had to live in
poverty for so many generations.
Anne
Anne Pemberton
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http://www.erols.com/stevepem
http://www.erols.com/apembert
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 12:22 PM
Subject: Re: Nicholas Lemann's "Redemption"
> Whether by generally non-violent means in Virginia, or by far more blatant
> tactics in the Deep South, Reconstruction was undone, as described by
> Lemann's
> book, Ayers's review, and most of the posters on this topic, from various
> points of view.
>
> Why it was allowed to happen? White Southerners had just gotten their
> clocks
> cleaned rather thoroughly, more so than any other Americans before or
> since.
> The North could have done anything it wished. Were whites in the North,
> and
> their government, able to win the war, but not prepared to win the peace,
> or
> willing to spend and sacrifice what that victory would have taken? From a
> certain perspective, it looks like they were unwilling to "stay the
> course," but
> chose to "cut and run." Or pehaps, they just did not care very much about
> the
> freedmen.
>
> Or pehaps the situation in the South (like Iraq) was unwinnable.
>
> I'm reminded of another war we lost. Sidney Lens dedicated The Forging of
> the American Empire (1971) "To the children of Vietnam, who are being
> murdered
> and maimed by my government--and yours."
>
> Michael B. Chesson
> U/Mass-Boston
>
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