POLL: How Bout An Official Gesture Of Atonement For Past Sins Against African Americans?...

[Pogo]

My ancestors have nothing to atone for they fought and died to end slavery.

The democrat party has to apologize to blacks they destroyed and killed to protect slavery.

The Democrats were gracious enough to lose the Civil War and allow blacks to be free. Maybe the Democratic Party needs to atone for their sins and the sins of their fathers and their father's fathers.

Slavery was around and flourishing WAY before there were any political parties here at all. And I mean WAY.

Further, the Civil War was not fought between "parties". Has anyone here any knowledge of history at all?

Lesson 1: in the election of 1860, directly before the War, the Republican candidate Lincoln and the Democratic candidate Douglas each won exactly the same number of electoral votes from the South --- ZERO.

Breckinridge a Democrat won 72 electoral votes. Douglas won Missouri.

Buchanan swept the south in 1856.

Buchanan and the Democrats had effectively no competition in 1856. The Whigs were disintegrating and the Republican Party had just formed two years earlier. Plus its candidate Frémont DIDN'T EVEN RUN in the South (neither did Lincoln, either time) ---- so who exactly was Buchanan supposed to NOT sweep against? Millard Fillmore, the Know-Nothing candidate-in-absentia?

Breckinridge was not the Democrat. The Democratic convention was suspended without naming a candidate because of disruption from the South. Please tell me "disruption from the South" at a political convention is not something you're hearing for the first time. So the Southerners split off and named their own candidate (pre-shades of 1948) and the Democrats reconvened later and nominated Douglas. Actually the South split into two parties, differing on the question of whether to secede. The other was John Bell. The area where I live voted against secession and remained loyal to the Union, and that would be the Bell vote.

And Missouri is not part of "the South". Never was. Missouri was the one and only state Douglas won. Lincoln took the North and Midwest, Breckinridge and Bell dominated the South, and thus split up the vote.

This is what armchair historians who don't bother to do their homework don't get -- it was never a "war of political parties" --- it was regional. The Democratic Party was already established in both the North and the South; the new (founded 1854) Republican Party existed only in the North --- that doesn't make it a "party war". Republicans established in the North first because of the same dynamic that split the Democrats, and that is that the South was not going to be happy with either. The Republican Party didn't bother to run a Presidential candidate in the South until Grant, 1868.

And that's a recurring theme -- not "party A" versus "party B" but North versus South. To try to whitewash this crucial element into a façile political party spat is excruciating naïveté that deliberately ignores all context.

Southern discontent with established politics is a constant. Breckinridge and Bell did it in 1860; Thurmond did it in '48; Wallace did it twice. South Carolina, where the War began and the first state to secede, was already talking about seceding over the "Tariff of Abominations" in 1828 -- before the Democratic Party even existed and more than three decades before the War.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo ............................ no. Context is a bitch. It's never binary.

 

[Kondor3]

They need what all our poor and middle class need: a higher min wage, enterprise zones, more scholarships, free com college, public U's, lower taxes and fees. Enough with bs.

Fine... YOU give it to 'em, and YOU pay for it.

Nope, the bloated rich and giant corps who've been laughing all the way to the bank for 30 years will pay, Pub dupe.

Good luck getting all that shit passed in Congress, and vetted by SCOTUS, Princess...

As to being a "Pub dupe"...

I have no idea what you're talking about; I voted for Obumble in both 2008 and 2012, and Bernie Sanders in the Illinois primaries this past spring season...

Then again, you have no idea what you're talking about, so, it's a wash...

Then get behind Dem policy- in this case raising taxes on the rich and giant corps, NOT YOU.

Get behind Dem policy? What the hell for? I advocate for a blend of the ideas of the Left and the Right, not just one side. When it comes to so-called Reparations, I take a decidedly Right (anti-Reparations) perspective.

 

[Papageorgio]

My ancestors have nothing to atone for they fought and died to end slavery.

The democrat party has to apologize to blacks they destroyed and killed to protect slavery.

The Democrats were gracious enough to lose the Civil War and allow blacks to be free. Maybe the Democratic Party needs to atone for their sins and the sins of their fathers and their father's fathers.

Slavery was around and flourishing WAY before there were any political parties here at all. And I mean WAY.

Further, the Civil War was not fought between "parties". Has anyone here any knowledge of history at all?

Lesson 1: in the election of 1860, directly before the War, the Republican candidate Lincoln and the Democratic candidate Douglas each won exactly the same number of electoral votes from the South --- ZERO.

Breckinridge a Democrat won 72 electoral votes. Douglas won Missouri.

Buchanan swept the south in 1856.

Buchanan and the Democrats had effectively no competition in 1856. The Whigs were disintegrating and the Republican Party had just formed two years earlier. Plus its candidate Frémont DIDN'T EVEN RUN in the South (neither did Lincoln, either time) ---- so who exactly was Buchanan supposed to NOT sweep against? Millard Fillmore, the Know-Nothing candidate-in-absentia?

Breckinridge was not the Democrat. The Democratic convention was suspended without naming a candidate because of disruption from the South. Please tell me "disruption from the South" at a political convention is not something you're hearing for the first time. So the Southerners split off and named their own candidate (pre-shades of 1948) and the Democrats reconvened later and nominated Douglas. Actually the South split into two parties, differing on the question of whether to secede. The other was John Bell. The area where I live voted against secession and remained loyal to the Union, and that would be the Bell vote.

And Missouri is not part of "the South". Never was. Missouri was the one and only state Douglas won. Lincoln took the North and Midwest, Breckinridge and Bell dominated the South, and thus split up the vote.

This is what armchair historians who don't bother to do their homework don't get -- it was never a "war of political parties" --- it was regional. The Democratic Party was already established in both the North and the South; the new (founded 1854) Republican Party existed only in the North --- that doesn't make it a "party war". Republicans established in the North first because of the same dynamic that split the Democrats, and that is that the South was not going to be happy with either. The Republican Party didn't bother to run a Presidential candidate in the South until Grant, 1868.

And that's a recurring theme -- not "party A" versus "party B" but North versus South. To try to whitewash this crucial element into a façile political party spat is excruciating naïveté that deliberately ignores all context.

Southern discontent with established politics is a constant. Breckinridge and Bell did it in 1860; Thurmond did it in '48; Wallace did it twice. South Carolina, where the War began and the first state to secede, was already talking about seceding over the "Tariff of Abominations" in 1828 -- before the Democratic Party even existed and more than three decades before the War.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo ............................ no. Context is a bitch. It's never binary.

No it isn't, that is what you perceive.

 

[Kondor3]

...You uh, know that 'Forty-Acres-and-a-Mule happy horseshit' was a Republican idea...

1. Incorrect... it was a Military General's idea; one that the Federal government immediately repudiated when word leaked up from the field.

2. Libs take great pains to tell us that the Pubs of the 1860s are the Dems of today, and vice versa, once the Southern Democrats jumped ship to the GOP in 1964.

...the first instance of "affirmative action" and a legacy of the Whigs' big-government philosophy...

As I said, 40-acres-and-a-mule were the idea of a general in the field, who had no authority to speak in such terms; something that the central government rushed to repudiate.

...I suspect you do know that, but as we've got ignorami on this board believing that political parties are some kind of rock that holds fast through time, why feed that ignorance. Context, brother.

My aversion to the Pubs is almost as strong as my aversion to the Dems; although I do tend to lean just a wee bit more to the Left, than True Dead Center; but close enough.

In any event, the lightweights on this board system who don't know any better will only learn through observation and occasionally getting their backsides kicked.

 

[Papageorgio]

They need what all our poor and middle class need: a higher min wage, enterprise zones, more scholarships, free com college, public U's, lower taxes and fees. Enough with bs.

Fine... YOU give it to 'em, and YOU pay for it.

Nope, the bloated rich and giant corps who've been laughing all the way to the bank for 30 years will pay, Pub dupe.

Good luck getting all that shit passed in Congress, and vetted by SCOTUS, Princess...

As to being a "Pub dupe"...

I have no idea what you're talking about; I voted for Obumble in both 2008 and 2012, and Bernie Sanders in the Illinois primaries this past spring season...

Then again, you have no idea what you're talking about, so, it's a wash...

Then get behind Dem policy- in this case raising taxes on the rich and giant corps, NOT YOU.

Get behind Dem policy? What the hell for? I advocate for a blend of the ideas of the Left and the Right, not just one side. When it comes to so-called Reparations, I take a decidedly Right (anti-Reparations) perspective.

Yep, it is a combo of ideas to move forward. I agree Reparations will hinder the healing, not advance the healing.

 

[Pogo]

My ancestors have nothing to atone for they fought and died to end slavery.

The democrat party has to apologize to blacks they destroyed and killed to protect slavery.

The Democrats were gracious enough to lose the Civil War and allow blacks to be free. Maybe the Democratic Party needs to atone for their sins and the sins of their fathers and their father's fathers.

Slavery was around and flourishing WAY before there were any political parties here at all. And I mean WAY.

Further, the Civil War was not fought between "parties". Has anyone here any knowledge of history at all?

Lesson 1: in the election of 1860, directly before the War, the Republican candidate Lincoln and the Democratic candidate Douglas each won exactly the same number of electoral votes from the South --- ZERO.

Breckinridge a Democrat won 72 electoral votes. Douglas won Missouri.

Buchanan swept the south in 1856.

Buchanan and the Democrats had effectively no competition in 1856. The Whigs were disintegrating and the Republican Party had just formed two years earlier. Plus its candidate Frémont DIDN'T EVEN RUN in the South (neither did Lincoln, either time) ---- so who exactly was Buchanan supposed to NOT sweep against? Millard Fillmore, the Know-Nothing candidate-in-absentia?

Breckinridge was not the Democrat. The Democratic convention was suspended without naming a candidate because of disruption from the South. Please tell me "disruption from the South" at a political convention is not something you're hearing for the first time. So the Southerners split off and named their own candidate (pre-shades of 1948) and the Democrats reconvened later and nominated Douglas. Actually the South split into two parties, differing on the question of whether to secede. The other was John Bell. The area where I live voted against secession and remained loyal to the Union, and that would be the Bell vote.

And Missouri is not part of "the South". Never was. Missouri was the one and only state Douglas won. Lincoln took the North and Midwest, Breckinridge and Bell dominated the South, and thus split up the vote.

This is what armchair historians who don't bother to do their homework don't get -- it was never a "war of political parties" --- it was regional. The Democratic Party was already established in both the North and the South; the new (founded 1854) Republican Party existed only in the North --- that doesn't make it a "party war". Republicans established in the North first because of the same dynamic that split the Democrats, and that is that the South was not going to be happy with either. The Republican Party didn't bother to run a Presidential candidate in the South until Grant, 1868.

And that's a recurring theme -- not "party A" versus "party B" but North versus South. To try to whitewash this crucial element into a façile political party spat is excruciating naïveté that deliberately ignores all context.

Southern discontent with established politics is a constant. Breckinridge and Bell did it in 1860; Thurmond did it in '48; Wallace did it twice. South Carolina, where the War began and the first state to secede, was already talking about seceding over the "Tariff of Abominations" in 1828 -- before the Democratic Party even existed and more than three decades before the War.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo ............................ no. Context is a bitch. It's never binary.

No it isn't, that is what you perceive.

Nope. It's the history book. A small part thereof.

Prove me wrong.

 

[paulitician]

Would you support it? Do you think it would help heal the deep wounds? Maybe an official Government-sponsored acknowledgement and atonement could lead to reconciliation.

Most African Americans still feel anger and sorrow over how they've been treated. It does seem like an open festering wound. Maybe a kind official gesture could help African Americans forgive and get some kind of closure. What do you think?

The government didn't enslave them. That being said if they want an official "we're sorry" that doesn't include reparations I have no problem with that. Reparations though are a non starter.

I'm willing to accept a compromise. But we have to heal this open festering wound. I think an official act could help African Americans forgive. Maybe help them find some sort of closure.

The only reason there is an 'open festering wound' is because the race baiters started dumping salt into a tiny wound.

BLM, Black Panthers and other groups have already said it's too late for apologies or atonement. So, what good will throwing more money at them accomplish? We've spent trillions over the years to try and elevate people. That created an entitlement mindset and it's now out of control.

No one alive today was a slave or owned one and it's asinine to expect people to pay for sins they didn't commit. We've already come up with every program to help people. Affirmative action, college funds and increased welfare. What would reparations be other than another welfare check? And when it's spent, then what? Do the checks keep coming forever? When will it be enough?

They are talking revenge and black supremacy. It's about getting even and many are willing to kill. Do you think some more money will really change people's hearts? And what amount are they thinking? Are we supposed to put a million dollars in an account and give them a big house and care? Even then, the money will be gone before you know it.

Throwing money at something rarely has an effect. Coming to an understanding is best, but they've made clear that they don't want to talk. Some have stated that they don't want black criminals shot no matter what. So, along with the reparations, we have to allow them to commit crimes, too?

Until we hear a rational voice from any of these groups, there will be no solution.

I hear ya, but i'm not suggesting monetary compensation. I'm talkin about some sort of official Government acknowledgement and atonement for past sins like Slavery.

Not sure exactly how it would work. I'm just making suggestions. Slavery and other awful abuses is still an open festering would for African Americans. We should try to heal it and help find some closure.

 

[Papageorgio]

The Democrats were gracious enough to lose the Civil War and allow blacks to be free. Maybe the Democratic Party needs to atone for their sins and the sins of their fathers and their father's fathers.

Slavery was around and flourishing WAY before there were any political parties here at all. And I mean WAY.

Further, the Civil War was not fought between "parties". Has anyone here any knowledge of history at all?

Lesson 1: in the election of 1860, directly before the War, the Republican candidate Lincoln and the Democratic candidate Douglas each won exactly the same number of electoral votes from the South --- ZERO.

Breckinridge a Democrat won 72 electoral votes. Douglas won Missouri.

Buchanan swept the south in 1856.

Buchanan and the Democrats had effectively no competition in 1856. The Whigs were disintegrating and the Republican Party had just formed two years earlier. Plus its candidate Frémont DIDN'T EVEN RUN in the South (neither did Lincoln, either time) ---- so who exactly was Buchanan supposed to NOT sweep against? Millard Fillmore, the Know-Nothing candidate-in-absentia?

Breckinridge was not the Democrat. The Democratic convention was suspended without naming a candidate because of disruption from the South. Please tell me "disruption from the South" at a political convention is not something you're hearing for the first time. So the Southerners split off and named their own candidate (pre-shades of 1948) and the Democrats reconvened later and nominated Douglas. Actually the South split into two parties, differing on the question of whether to secede. The other was John Bell. The area where I live voted against secession and remained loyal to the Union, and that would be the Bell vote.

And Missouri is not part of "the South". Never was. Missouri was the one and only state Douglas won. Lincoln took the North and Midwest, Breckinridge and Bell dominated the South, and thus split up the vote.

This is what armchair historians who don't bother to do their homework don't get -- it was never a "war of political parties" --- it was regional. The Democratic Party was already established in both the North and the South; the new (founded 1854) Republican Party existed only in the North --- that doesn't make it a "party war". Republicans established in the North first because of the same dynamic that split the Democrats, and that is that the South was not going to be happy with either. The Republican Party didn't bother to run a Presidential candidate in the South until Grant, 1868.

And that's a recurring theme -- not "party A" versus "party B" but North versus South. To try to whitewash this crucial element into a façile political party spat is excruciating naïveté that deliberately ignores all context.

Southern discontent with established politics is a constant. Breckinridge and Bell did it in 1860; Thurmond did it in '48; Wallace did it twice. South Carolina, where the War began and the first state to secede, was already talking about seceding over the "Tariff of Abominations" in 1828 -- before the Democratic Party even existed and more than three decades before the War.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo ............................ no. Context is a bitch. It's never binary.

No it isn't, that is what you perceive.

Nope. It's the history book. A small part thereof.

Prove me wrong.

Buchanan swept the south. Fremont won states in the north. A Southern Democrat swept the south. Prove me wrong.

 

[BluesLegend]

WTF fine just as soon as those damn Romans apologize for enslaving my white ancestors.

Uh... you think "the Romans" were black, do you?
It's worse than I thought in here.

I'm still ignoring anything you say, make a note.

 

[Pogo]

...You uh, know that 'Forty-Acres-and-a-Mule happy horseshit' was a Republican idea...

1. Incorrect... it was a Military General's idea; one that the Federal government immediately repudiated when word leaked up from the field.

2. Libs take great pains to tell us that the Pubs of the 1860s are the Dems of today, and vice versa, once the Southern Democrats jumped ship to the GOP in 1964.

Uh --- not exactly, you skipped a lot just as PG did.

Again, political parties are not some static force that never evolves, and I suspect you're smart enough to know that, but just to state the history you're leaving out --- the Republicans of 1860 weren't the Democrats obviously, but they were (a) the Liberals, considerably to the left of Democrats, and (b) the party of activist central government, a legacy of the Whigs that populated them (Lincoln for one) while the Democrats were the Conservatives and the party of "states rights" or "smaller government".

Obviously that's not where we are today, but that didn't shift in 1964. It shifted as the 19th century became the 20th, when the RP gradually abandoned its Liberalism and took on the interests of corporations and the wealthy, and the DP absorbed the Populist movement, culminating in FDR, which is exactly where the black population started voting Democratic and has been ever since. If there's a magnetic reversal of the parties, that's where it is, and deserves to be observed as such.

Now 1964 was simply the final straw in that North-South conflict that aforementioned magnetic pole reversal created and exacerbated; while the DP had moved significantly to the left in the '30s, it still had the bipolar problem of the conservative South hanging on, who hated "Liberals" but hated even more the idea of having anything to do with the "party of Lincoln" that had vanquished and humiliated them (and the only reason they were hanging on), so they teetered in an uneasy alliance often broken by the aforementioned split in 1948 (and a less dramatic breakdown in 1924), and of course George Wallace's endless ranting against "liberals", even putting off a similar run in 1964 at the request of Barry Goldwater, which would have taken all the support Goldwater had (and then offered to be Goldwater's running mate).

So these opposing forces had always been there unresolved, and stayed unresolved until LBJ dispensed with the jellyfish-think and signed the CRA. This prompted Strom Thurmond to do what was for exactly 99 years unthinkable, and become a Republican, far more in line with the South's conservative values anyway. In effect it was simple traditional spite that had kept them hanging on some thirty years to a party that was increasingly foreign to their perceived interests.

Thurmond's move, sudden as it was, was not without a prior indicator --- he had dipped a toe in the water in 1952 when he endorsed Eisenhower, and in retaliation the Democratic Party kicked him off the ballot -- he had to run in his next re-election as a write-in (which he won) --- which is yet one more indication that, even if it was unthinkable to be a Republican, it was more important to be a Son of the South than to be a Democrat.

Sorry but it's never easy to recount this in a quick sound bite. Can't be done.

I'm not sure it's possible to articulate how strongly this emotional tide, the one against "the party of Lincoln", the North in general, and "liberals" --- held on in the South. I saw it in my own lifetime, in no uncertain terms, not so much in my Southern relatives (they were after all relatives) but absolutely in the population surrounding them. When I was little I seriously wondered if we would get shot for being "yankees". The tension was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. And this is nearly a century after the Civil War, which was still even then a topic of everyday conversation.

That's no longer the case today but the significance of the positions Johnson and Thurmond took in 1964 as a cultural purge, aside from the superficially political, probably cannot be overemphasized.

...the first instance of "affirmative action" and a legacy of the Whigs' big-government philosophy...

As I said, 40-acres-and-a-mule were the idea of a general in the field, who had no authority to speak in such terms; something that the central government rushed to repudiate.

Again, you left out that the central government that rushed to repudiate it was that of Andrew Johnson, the Democrat who inherited the office after Lincoln. Which again reflects the characterization of where the parties were at the time as outlined above.

The point being, we gloss over these histories at our peril. Like PG above, pretending a simple naïve dynamic like "duh, the Democrats were the South and pro-slave and they fought the Republicans in the Civil War" is to ignore the entire contexts and roots and dynamics of the entire national history, and thus is to ignore them, and thus is to be condemned to repeat them. I guess my original impetus was to point out that the "40 acres and a mule" - slash - "affirmative action" idea isn't the exclusive-and-forever domain of Democrats but was actually started by Republicans, demonstrating once again that political parties are not static but change with the times.

 

[Pogo]

Slavery was around and flourishing WAY before there were any political parties here at all. And I mean WAY.

Further, the Civil War was not fought between "parties". Has anyone here any knowledge of history at all?

Lesson 1: in the election of 1860, directly before the War, the Republican candidate Lincoln and the Democratic candidate Douglas each won exactly the same number of electoral votes from the South --- ZERO.

Breckinridge a Democrat won 72 electoral votes. Douglas won Missouri.

Buchanan swept the south in 1856.

Buchanan and the Democrats had effectively no competition in 1856. The Whigs were disintegrating and the Republican Party had just formed two years earlier. Plus its candidate Frémont DIDN'T EVEN RUN in the South (neither did Lincoln, either time) ---- so who exactly was Buchanan supposed to NOT sweep against? Millard Fillmore, the Know-Nothing candidate-in-absentia?

Breckinridge was not the Democrat. The Democratic convention was suspended without naming a candidate because of disruption from the South. Please tell me "disruption from the South" at a political convention is not something you're hearing for the first time. So the Southerners split off and named their own candidate (pre-shades of 1948) and the Democrats reconvened later and nominated Douglas. Actually the South split into two parties, differing on the question of whether to secede. The other was John Bell. The area where I live voted against secession and remained loyal to the Union, and that would be the Bell vote.

And Missouri is not part of "the South". Never was. Missouri was the one and only state Douglas won. Lincoln took the North and Midwest, Breckinridge and Bell dominated the South, and thus split up the vote.

This is what armchair historians who don't bother to do their homework don't get -- it was never a "war of political parties" --- it was regional. The Democratic Party was already established in both the North and the South; the new (founded 1854) Republican Party existed only in the North --- that doesn't make it a "party war". Republicans established in the North first because of the same dynamic that split the Democrats, and that is that the South was not going to be happy with either. The Republican Party didn't bother to run a Presidential candidate in the South until Grant, 1868.

And that's a recurring theme -- not "party A" versus "party B" but North versus South. To try to whitewash this crucial element into a façile political party spat is excruciating naïveté that deliberately ignores all context.

Southern discontent with established politics is a constant. Breckinridge and Bell did it in 1860; Thurmond did it in '48; Wallace did it twice. South Carolina, where the War began and the first state to secede, was already talking about seceding over the "Tariff of Abominations" in 1828 -- before the Democratic Party even existed and more than three decades before the War.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo ............................ no. Context is a bitch. It's never binary.

No it isn't, that is what you perceive.

Nope. It's the history book. A small part thereof.

Prove me wrong.

Buchanan swept the south. Fremont won states in the north. A Southern Democrat swept the south. Prove me wrong.

Again ---- Buchanan had no competition. Unless you think Millard Fillmore was "competition". Frémont did not run in the South. Neither did Lincoln. You don't get votes if you don't run. So of course Frémont got votes in the North -- that's where the Republican Party was based. Exclusively.

And Buchanan was from Pennsylvania; he was a Democrat but Pennsylvania is not in "the South" either. Never has been. I'm from there, and my mother's from the South, so nobody knows the difference better than I do.

Anyway, the Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in the 1860 election was Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, not Breckinridge, not Bell. Douglas carried one state, which means he came in not second or even third, but fourth. Because for reasons alluded to above in post 90, it was more important to vote for a Southerner --- or in this event, to split between two Southerners ----- than to vote for a Democrat. The same thing occurred in 1948, and in 1968, and effectively in 1964 when the divorce was pending.

Same dynamic every time. This is why I keep pointing out the obvious regional roots, where y'all armchair pundits want to talk "political parties". The former is where the deep roots are --- not the latter.

And I've got more.

 

[Jackson]

Perhaps the ultimate apology would be a free trip for those who feel they are "misunderstood" so they throw rocks, fireworks and projectiles at police. A mandatory free trip back to the jungles of Africa are in order.

 

[my2¢]

Both black and white can only be healed from within.

 

[paulitician]

Would you support it? Do you think it would help heal the deep wounds? Maybe an official Government-sponsored acknowledgement and atonement could lead to reconciliation.

Most African Americans still feel anger and sorrow over how they've been treated. It does seem like an open festering wound. Maybe a kind official gesture could help African Americans forgive and get some kind of closure. What do you think?

The government didn't enslave them. That being said if they want an official "we're sorry" that doesn't include reparations I have no problem with that. Reparations though are a non starter.

After they get the "I'm sorry" they will start using it as a justification for reparations, so no dice.

I agree, some will. But i think most will forgive and find some closure.

 

[bripat9643]

Would you support it? Do you think it would help heal the deep wounds? Maybe an official Government-sponsored acknowledgement and atonement could lead to reconciliation.

Most African Americans still feel anger and sorrow over how they've been treated. It does seem like an open festering wound. Maybe a kind official gesture could help African Americans forgive and get some kind of closure. What do you think?

The government didn't enslave them. That being said if they want an official "we're sorry" that doesn't include reparations I have no problem with that. Reparations though are a non starter.

After they get the "I'm sorry" they will start using it as a justification for reparations, so no dice.

I agree, some will. But i think most will forgive and find some closure.

You are utterly naive about the left. The only reason they want an apology is so they can use it as a justification for reparations. You are making a mistake if you ever cut the left an inch of slack. They are all ignominious douche bags.

 

[Freewill]

Here is what seems to be a left leaning article on the 40 acres and a mule claim.

The Truth Behind '40 Acres and a Mule' | African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

 

[paulitician]

Would you support it? Do you think it would help heal the deep wounds? Maybe an official Government-sponsored acknowledgement and atonement could lead to reconciliation.

Most African Americans still feel anger and sorrow over how they've been treated. It does seem like an open festering wound. Maybe a kind official gesture could help African Americans forgive and get some kind of closure. What do you think?

I bet african americans are really upset over the last 7.5 years.....tyrone scratches head.

Well in fairness, it doesn't wipe away hundreds of years of brutal treatment.

 

[Papageorgio]

Breckinridge a Democrat won 72 electoral votes. Douglas won Missouri.

Buchanan swept the south in 1856.

Buchanan and the Democrats had effectively no competition in 1856. The Whigs were disintegrating and the Republican Party had just formed two years earlier. Plus its candidate Frémont DIDN'T EVEN RUN in the South (neither did Lincoln, either time) ---- so who exactly was Buchanan supposed to NOT sweep against? Millard Fillmore, the Know-Nothing candidate-in-absentia?

Breckinridge was not the Democrat. The Democratic convention was suspended without naming a candidate because of disruption from the South. Please tell me "disruption from the South" at a political convention is not something you're hearing for the first time. So the Southerners split off and named their own candidate (pre-shades of 1948) and the Democrats reconvened later and nominated Douglas. Actually the South split into two parties, differing on the question of whether to secede. The other was John Bell. The area where I live voted against secession and remained loyal to the Union, and that would be the Bell vote.

And Missouri is not part of "the South". Never was. Missouri was the one and only state Douglas won. Lincoln took the North and Midwest, Breckinridge and Bell dominated the South, and thus split up the vote.

This is what armchair historians who don't bother to do their homework don't get -- it was never a "war of political parties" --- it was regional. The Democratic Party was already established in both the North and the South; the new (founded 1854) Republican Party existed only in the North --- that doesn't make it a "party war". Republicans established in the North first because of the same dynamic that split the Democrats, and that is that the South was not going to be happy with either. The Republican Party didn't bother to run a Presidential candidate in the South until Grant, 1868.

And that's a recurring theme -- not "party A" versus "party B" but North versus South. To try to whitewash this crucial element into a façile political party spat is excruciating naïveté that deliberately ignores all context.

Southern discontent with established politics is a constant. Breckinridge and Bell did it in 1860; Thurmond did it in '48; Wallace did it twice. South Carolina, where the War began and the first state to secede, was already talking about seceding over the "Tariff of Abominations" in 1828 -- before the Democratic Party even existed and more than three decades before the War.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo ............................ no. Context is a bitch. It's never binary.

No it isn't, that is what you perceive.

Nope. It's the history book. A small part thereof.

Prove me wrong.

Buchanan swept the south. Fremont won states in the north. A Southern Democrat swept the south. Prove me wrong.

Again ---- Buchanan had no competition. Unless you think Millard Fillmore was "competition". Frémont did not run in the South. Neither did Lincoln. You don't get votes if you don't run. So of course Frémont got votes in the North -- that's where the Republican Party was based. Exclusively.

And Buchanan was from Pennsylvania; he was a Democrat but Pennsylvania is not in "the South" either. Never has been. I'm from there, and my mother's from the South, so nobody knows the difference better than I do.

Anyway, the Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in the 1860 election was Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, not Breckinridge, not Bell. Douglas carried one state, which means he came in not second or even third, but fourth. Because for reasons alluded to above in post 90, it was more important to vote for a Southerner --- or in this event, to split between two Southerners ----- than to vote for a Democrat. The same thing occurred in 1948, and in 1968, and effectively in 1964 when the divorce was pending.

Same dynamic every time. This is why I keep pointing out the obvious regional roots, where y'all armchair pundits want to talk "political parties". The former is where the deep roots are --- not the latter.

And I've got more.

So you can't dispute what I said.

 

[paulitician]

Would you support it? Do you think it would help heal the deep wounds? Maybe an official Government-sponsored acknowledgement and atonement could lead to reconciliation.

Most African Americans still feel anger and sorrow over how they've been treated. It does seem like an open festering wound. Maybe a kind official gesture could help African Americans forgive and get some kind of closure. What do you think?

With some it will only agitate...

I hear ya, just searching for ways to heal this open festering wound.

 

[paulitician]

Would you support it? Do you think it would help heal the deep wounds? Maybe an official Government-sponsored acknowledgement and atonement could lead to reconciliation.

Most African Americans still feel anger and sorrow over how they've been treated. It does seem like an open festering wound. Maybe a kind official gesture could help African Americans forgive and get some kind of closure. What do you think?

The government didn't enslave them. That being said if they want an official "we're sorry" that doesn't include reparations I have no problem with that. Reparations though are a non starter.

After they get the "I'm sorry" they will start using it as a justification for reparations, so no dice.

I agree, some will. But i think most will forgive and find some closure.

You are utterly naive about the left. The only reason they want an apology is so they can use it as a justification for reparations. You are making a mistake if you ever cut the left an inch of slack. They are all ignominious douche bags.

I'm not supporting monetary compensation. But some sort of official acknowledgement and atonement could go a long way. And after that, we can do the same with Native Americans.