Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens and the rest of the Confederate leaders should have been hanged, not allowed to roam free.

June 26, 2025 - 19:24 UTC

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Not just them, but every Confederate officer, politician, and judge should have also been included.
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And then most of their descendants wouldn't be here.
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Every single Confederate politician and military leader from the greenest CSN ensign to Jeff Davis himself should have been hanged in public in front of the white house and their bodies left there for crows to pick apart. That should have been the /start/ of reconstruction.
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Nathan Bedford Forrest shouldn't have been allowed to surrender
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I heard they didn't because they weren't willing to run the risk of a jury finding secession legal in the trial.

To which I ask, what trial?
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We could dig up their corpses and hang them in the public square. I'd be OK with that.
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and Nixon should have been tried for his crimes, but Ford.
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Hanged by an incompetent hangman, like we did to the nazi high command
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"Look forward, not backward."
"Let bygones be bygones."
"Violence is never the answer."

Never seems to help.
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Every single slaveowner should have had all their property seized and redistributed to former slaves as a first step in reparations.

God, imagine if Lincoln had picked anyone other than Andrew fucking Johnson to be his VP.
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IIRC Presidents had Vice Presidents from different parties back in the day.
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Lincoln was not interested in anything beyond the preservation of the union.
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The problem is, this in fact started to happen. Former slaves were given land to farm. Former slaves became enthusiastically involved in local governments. But then the southern states said enough is enough. Lynchings. The KKK. Jim Crow. All that was hard won, was lost. Sounds familiar.
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Andrew Johnson favored prosecuting top confederated states officials, but was opposed, notably by Grant, who cited Appomattox surrender terms to keep Lee from trial, and Salmon P. Chase, who opposed trials in military occupied areas. I believe Lincoln would have done better, but don't blame Johnson.
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He only did so begrudgingly. It was forced on him.
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There were actually dozens of former slaves who received land titles to their 40 acres, and even began working the land and building communities there, before the feds took the land back and gave it back to the former slave owners.
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Wasn’t that basically Thaddeus Stevens’ plan?
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keep in mind, this is the compromise position! a lot of people would've wanted their executions but sweeties like us are only demanding the fruits of their stolen labor returned. then they get to live and go get a real job! everyone wins!
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If those Confederate leaders had been hanged then Lincoln would not have been assassinated, trust and believe this.
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I'm pretty sure every Confederate official should've swung. None of them were so important or irreplaceable.
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