The Blair Plan enacted, 1865

[History Learner]

AFAIK, the Klan was mostly crushed by the early 1870s.

And the 14th Amendment was proposed in 1866, just one year after the end of the American Civil War. So, it wasn't anywhere near a decade after the war.

Proposed after Confederate armies had laid down their arms and the state dissolved, Lee is arguing in favor of renewed National union, and during the "easy times" of the Johnson soft Reconstruction. It's only adopted later and by then the means of legally subverting it are already clear.

 

[WolfBear]

Proposed after Confederate armies had laid down their arms and the state dissolved, Lee is arguing in favor of renewed National union, and during the "easy times" of the Johnson soft Reconstruction. It's only adopted later and by then the means of legally subverting it are already clear.

You don't need a state for an insurgency, do you?

And the easy Johnson Reconstruction ended after the huge Republican victory in the 1866 midterms, no?

 

[History Learner]

You don't need a state for an insurgency, do you?

And the easy Johnson Reconstruction ended after the huge Republican victory in the 1866 midterms, no?

You don't need a State, but for an entity like the Confederacy and the fact much of the Senior leadership chose to pursue reconciliation-aided by initial lenient treatment by the likes of Sherman at Bennet Place-kept a damper on it in the early phases which was critical.

 

[WolfBear]

You don't need a State, but for an entity like the Confederacy and the fact much of the Senior leadership chose to pursue reconciliation-aided by initial lenient treatment by the likes of Sherman at Bennet Place-kept a damper on it in the early phases which was critical.

I'm surprised that the 14th and 15th Amendments didn't change their minds in regards to this. But as you previously said, they might have thought that eventual subversion of these Amendments was doable, so why bother with an insurgency?

 

[History Learner]

I'm surprised that the 14th and 15th Amendments didn't change their minds in regards to this. But as you previously said, they might have thought that eventual subversion of these Amendments was doable, so why bother with an insurgency?

Basically tempers had time to cool, and alternative paths to power existed.

 

[WolfBear]

Basically tempers had time to cool, and alternative paths to power existed.

Interesting that tempers cooled over just a couple of years!

 

[WolfBear]

@History Learner I have a question for you: What do you think that the odds would have been that the Blair Plan would have been subverted/derailed by Union abolitionists even if the Confederacy would have actually agreed to it? They could plausibly argue that the Union's already shed blood should not be in vain and that simply restoring the Union would not do sufficient justice here.