History question:

I read (in my last history class) that the only other President (besides Bush) who gained office without winning the popular vote was Abe Lincoln. He was (of course) a member of the Republican party. And during reconstruction (in his second term) all branches of the government were controlled by the republicans as well. There was a notable incident in which during a floor debate, the republican senators (termed "Radical Republicans") actually ejected and later barred the senate doors to southern (and democratic) senators. A lot of the shenanigans in congress today remind me of this - especially when I find out that democratic senators are being compelled to vote on legislation they have been denied access to and time to review.

But my question is: what was the issue (or circumstance) that prompted the Rad. Reps to bar the senate door and keep out the southern democrats??

Thanks in advance for information.

In the post Civil War period they were the ones who fought most tirelessly for the rights of the freedman... There motives weren't 100% pure... Alot of their advocacy on behalf of the freedman was motivated by politics and hatred if not active dislike of the South....

The Radical Republicans were behind the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, ostensibly because he betrayed the cause of the freedman...

There have been quite a few presidents who didn't win the popular vote. John Quincy Adams and Rutherford B. Hayes spring to mind immediately.

Clinton, Nixon, Wilson, Kennedy come to mind... A candidate pulling > 50% is not always the case...

the senate provoked by??

I am pretty sure of it. Could look it up, but I'm too lazy.


Harrison's main campaign slogan was: He's OK.

and Ford was never even elected nationally, let alone win the popular vote.

And that isn't true either John Q Adams won the presidency without the popular vote over Andrew Jackson (before Jackson steamrolled him in the next election). Among several others.

The radical republicans were good (back when the Republican party was the LIBERAL party in America. Remind the freeps of that next time you talk to them). They did some good work, but they also sought to punish the south heavily for the civil war, which was a self defeating action that caused the rise of Jim Crow once the whites got control back in the south. They had the chance to make peace, but instead punished. THey did a lot of good work, but it was all wiped out within a generation

In the south where I live, people still refer to the civil war as "the war of Northern aggression" and the republicans who came to the south afterwards as "carpet baggers". also: Unfortunately I do not know any freepers.

wish I could say I don't know any freeper types.

doomed the South to a brutal Reconstruction.

If Lincoln had lived, I am sure he would have guided things differently. Even though the Radical Republicans were looking to punish the South, Lincoln's vision was to accept the South back into the Union without, "malice, and Charity for all". Booth, while expecting to become some kind of heroic saint, instead doomed the South to years of subjugation and hatred. (I always wonder why someone who proclaimed such love for the Southern Cause, never donned the unifiorm of the South and pursue those goals in a more realistic fashion. Instead, he cowardly shot a man in the back of the head, and thereby altered the future for the worse).

In the 1860's the Republican Party was the party of progress. Eventually, it morphed into the Conservative party of choice. (If either party is in power for a considerable amount of time, they, by default, become conservative). TR was the last Progressive the GOP had, and he turned the country on its ear. He is generally given a back seat to others, but he and Lincoln were the two great GOP presidents.

If Lincoln could see what this GOP had morphed into, he would be exceptionally unhappy to say the least.


:bounce:

nailed it right on the head

:hi:

????????? Okay I'm stumped. When did the "Whites" not have control of the South?

Blacks actually held elective office during Reconstruction.

I guess I am demonstrting my ignorance here but IMO a few elected positions does not mean control. IMHO the "Whites" still have control of the South and there are many Blacks in elected positions.

...during Reconstruction. As much mudslinging as you read in history textbooks re: Reconstruction (most of it nothing more than propaganda from the SCV and UDC), it was actually one of the most well-governed periods in our history.

There were abuses during Reconstruction; but these were the exception rather than the rule. Reconstruction was the only time in our nation's history before the mid-'60s that the people of the South truly controlled their own government. It was murder and lies by the likes of Nathan Bedford Forrest (et. al.) which led to the downfall of this experiment in government of the people, by the people, and for the people. During Reconstruction, democracy thrived much better in the South than in the North.

Well said

Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland
Rutherford B. Hayes ovre Samuel J. Tilden (after some of Tildon's electoral votes were disqualified)

I do not believe Lincoln was so elected.

read Gore Vidal's novel 1876.

for progressives in 1800 on the basis of a slim electoral college victory that he won only because of the 3/5 compromise. He carried the South, where Congressional districts were carved out by counting slaves, who obviously could not vote, as 3/5 of a person. Without those fractional Southerners, Jefferson's electoral vote would have shrunk considerably and John Adams would have been reelected.

And the horrible fact is, John Adams was a disaster as a president, a closet monarchist and proto-fascist who allowed his Federalist party members to enact disgustingly reactionary pieces of shit legislation like the Sedition Act and the Immigration Act (which limited the number of "undesirables" like catholics and lengthened the term before naturalization was possible, which was designed merely to limit the growth of Jefferson's Democratic-Republican party.

American history is full of uncomfortable truths.

are not anything new. I disagree the federalists and Adams were as bad as you claim, but that's beside the point. They did enact very disgusting political legislation aimed at weakening their allies.

The peaceful turnover of power in the election of 1800 is THE most important point in America's history as a (semi) working Democracy

It was from the end of the war until 1876.

Not that it's a bad thing!

Harrison didn't win the popular vote. JQ Adams didn't win the popular vote OR the electoral vote.

did win the popular vote. He received less than 40% but he won it.

thats what caused the real controversy in the South.

at a small conservative Christian school I was the only one who supported Clinton. Literally, when we had our "mock" election, there was 1 vote for Bill Clinton. After he won, everyone talked about he didn't even get 50% of the vote, like it was a big deal. (They seemed to ignore that many, many of our presidents never got 50% of the vote.)

My point to them was this: Abe Lincoln received the lowest popular vote total to win (39%) and Nixon received the secondest highest (almost 61%). The truth is, we don't judge our presidents based on their votes totals.

Maybe I will get flamed for saying it, but we shouldn't focus on GW's vote totals either. He has done MANY MANY MANY things that should give us ammunition for getting him out of office. His vote total 4 years ago needs not factor into it.

That Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in the South in 1860.

I've read quite a bit about that era and never heard of the incident in question. If it came from a history textbook, I would be suspicious of its veractiy, particularly without a footnote or citation.

Anyone interested in the subject of the brave and forward-thinking Radical Republicans might want to check out this site which has some excellent information and source documents.


http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASradical.htm

In elections held in the fall of 1865 the voters of the South sent many prominent ex-Confederates to Congress including 4 former rebel generals and the Confederate vice president, Alexander Stephens. Congress rejected Johnson's plan because they wanted to insure black participation (for their Republican votes), and they wanted to reduce the power of the planter class (who were the leaders of the southern Democrats). The Southern congressmen were turned away at the door. The Radicals informed Johnson that they would not welcome traitors into their midst. Congress also wanted to regain the power that it had lost to the Executive during the Civil War.

http://www.jmu.edu/madison/teach/burson/cw.htm

the original poster gets an answer to his question from BrotherBuzz, and a good answer it is.

As BB said the southern states quickly held elections once the war was over and pretty much elected their Confederate governments to US offices.

The congress ruled that the states in rebellion could not just walk back into the union, they'd have to apply for readmission and pass certain tests including passing the 13th and 14th Amendments.

Therefore, the southern states only were readmitted to the Union one by one between 1865 and 1877 and regained their status as states.

In that interim period, many white southerners lost the right to vote since they wouldn't sign loyalty oaths or they held Confederate positions.

The three groups who still could vote during this period of "Reconstruction" were ...

1. Freedmen - the name for freed slaves
2. Scaliwags - southerners who were pro-union during the war
3. carpetbaggers - northerners who came down south to open schools, open businesses, work for the occupation government, or buy up land that southerners had to sell to pay their taxes.

This period lasted anywhere from 5 to 12 years depending on the state. Once reconstruction ended and the Yankee troops returned north, the southern whites quickly regained control, and chased the carpetbaggers out of the south and disenfranchised black voters through poll taxes, literacy tests and grandfather laws.

A few asides :

Not letting the states elect congressmen was strange since Lincoln had always said that there was no such thing as a Confederacy. The states never left the Union legally.

I went by a local elementary school recently and it had one of those displys of flags over Texas. The Confederate flag was dated 1861-1870. The 1870 number was because Texas was readmitted as a state in 1870, so that puts Texas still as an occupied part of the Confederacy until then I guess.

Years ago, Newsweek did a cover story on the 14th Amendment where they showed how it was never legally ratified. Not that it makes and difference, but I remember at the time thinking that it was interesting.