The never-ending Civil War (WWII, 60's, Asians, Lincoln)

[barante]

Did the war ever end?
I ask this question because I have been writing a book about residential segregation Antero Pietila HOME. The focus is on Baltimore which in 1910 became the first city in the United States to decree that each residential block be segregated.
In examining those who advocated that law as well as the three attempts to disfranchise blacks that Democrats made in Maryland between 1905 and 1911 I made an intriguing discovery: All the major advocates of anti-black measures were either Southerners by birth (and many were sons of former slave owners) or, if they were Marylanders, pro-Confederacy activists and sons of slaveholders.
Do we hear echoes of the War of Northern Aggression in today's political discourse?

[Irishtom29]

Originally Posted by barante

Do we hear echoes of the War of Northern Aggression in today's political discourse?

I dunno but we hear echoes of the War of the Rebellion, no doubt.

Have you read "Confederates in the Attic"? Interesting take on some current issues going back to the war such as the new segregation in schools brought about by the disengagement of whites from the public schools in some areas.

[Buzz is Back]

The civil war , no never ended.

The foci still remains race, but other cultural issues- that separate the south still from the north and west coast/upper mid west.

Lincoln preserved the union, but still kept the underlying differences which remain.

[newhandle]

Sure the war ended and the south was added back into the Union. What did not stop was the war on African-Americans.

[danielj72]

Many of the issues of the war were never resolved. The current political divide is proof of that. Obama and his regime believe federal goverment power can be used over the states in order to bring about the social change they desire. The conservatives believe states should retain the power, distrust large goverment and believe in traditional values. How is this that different from 1860???? The north supported larger more powerful federal goverment, while the south stuck to the idea that states were soverign. Yes the slavery issue is long dead, and it was the trigger issue in 1860, however abortion, gay marriage, socialized medicine, federal spending all could become trigger issues in the modern era. Even though the last election suggest that the big goverment folks have won the upper hand, those who cling to traditional American ideas of goverment and culture are still a very large group. Although they are concentrated in the south and mountain west, there are also many of them now in the midwest or even interior California. Confederate flags can be seen on trucks in places like Indiana or Michigan. The tea partys are proof that anger is building, and our political divides are very serious, as they were in the years leading up to the war. Im not saying we are heading for another one (civil war), but I am saying the issues remain unresloved and we need to be careful as a nation how we handle them or we could find ourselves headed down a dark path.

[Angus Podgorny]

Why is it that you identify people who fly confederate flags and believe discrimination on the basis of race or any other human condition are those who 'cling to traditional american ideas'?

They aren't my notion of 'traditional american ideas'. Unless you believe slavery and segregation are traditional american ideas.

[newhandle]

Of course issues remain unresolved; they always will. The nation is organic, living and growning. When the Republic was founded, only white men of property could vote, then all white men, then in theory all men, then women. Civil rights were only extended to African Americans, Irish, Native Americans, Jews, Asians in this century. Gay rights is the next big issue and the course of American history and tradition is on the gay rights side. The right was pretty much quiet on Bush's big govt, extension of govt. into the private lives of its citizens, the rape of American by big business, but when an African American gets in office, now they whine. The mountain west is now purple, going blue. Confederate flags represent a throwback to a nation which was comfortable in its prejudices.

[barante]

newhandle -- While your thrust is correct, details may be debatable. For example, in Maryland Jews won the right to vote and hold political office in 1826. Several gained high elected office. Yet university quotas and real estate discrimination existed until the 1950s. See Antero Pietila HOME. An intriguing detail: Maryland tried to disfranchise blacks at three refereda between 1905 and 1911. Even music was segregated; the Colored Park Band was finally disbanded in 1964.

[newhandle]

Jews did not get the right to hold public office in NC until after the Civil War. Of course Judah Benjamin was a US Congressman, US Senator and held three Confederal cabinet posts.

My aunts remember in the 30's having to sleep under the boardwalk in Va. Beach when attending a public dance because of their last name which sounded (and is)Jewish; they could not stay with the other kids.

The Jewish hospitals were founded in part because Jewish doctors were not allowed to practice elsewhere. Cornell, Yale and Columbia had rigid Jewish and Catholic quotas as late as the 1930's (no African Americans need apply).

Of course, Jews were a very prominent part of Richmond, Va's history going back to the revolution.

The rise and power of the Klan throughout the US made anti-Jewish policies acceptable everywhere in the 20's. Lindbergh's "America First" pro-Nazi stance made anti-Semitism acceptable in the 1930's. Until FDR Jews were not permitted to hold important jobs at the State Dept. and with the exception of the Supreme Court, Army and Navy a lot of the Federal Govt. was defacto off limits. (Even Colorado State govt, was run by the Klan for a few years.)

Until the Federal Govt passed legislation in the 60's, the barriers did not fall.

[barante]

While my forthcoming book focuses on residential discrimination against blacks, Jews and, during WWII, hillbillies, it has one full chapter on anti-semitism. It quantifies quotas at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland medical school and shows how Jews were identified.
On another topic, yesterday I went to hear John Stauffer, who has written Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. I have not read it, although I did order it along with David Blight's Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. Both of these books seem relevant in terms of the topic of this thread.
Stauffer is simply a fantastic lecturer. If his book is half as good as his lucidly penetrating talk, I'm in for a treat.