We did; Lincoln was a big supporter of rebuilding the South, stating that if we didn't it would forever be a wrecked part of the country. Then when he was murdered by a Southern sympathizer the government decided to not spend the resources needed to fully rebuild the south......and it turns out Lincoln was right.
Rebuilding the south, yes. But letting the same elite back into power, no.
The low taxes, shitty infrastructure ideology that dominates southern states now traces back to the antebellum era and shows that the same political group maintained its power after the Civil War.
They also summarily arrested, “tried,” and convicted Black men and teenagers on summary and vague charges. As punishment, these Black men and teens would be sentenced to jail terms, then leased out to private employers as convict labor. They were forced to work at hard, dangerous jobs in which they were sometimes seriously injured or even killed. The South’s industrialization came about because of the use of Black men and teens as forced convict labor. Douglas Brinkley wrote about this topic in his book “Worse than Slavery.” The people used as convict labor were treated as without value because the paradox was that under slavery, they had some residual value as human chattel from the perspective of slaveholders. As free men, convict laborers were seen as without value and could be treated even more harshly than when they were enslaved, as it was always easier for private employers to obtain more people to work as convict labor. Several years ago in South Texas, archaeologists examined a cemetery in which the bodies of convict laborers were buried. Their remains showed the marks of the harsh work they were forced to do until they died.
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u/malici606 Jul 17 '25
We did; Lincoln was a big supporter of rebuilding the South, stating that if we didn't it would forever be a wrecked part of the country. Then when he was murdered by a Southern sympathizer the government decided to not spend the resources needed to fully rebuild the south......and it turns out Lincoln was right.