The are compromises and there are compromise. 1877

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

In 1877 in order to settle the outcome of the election between Tilden the Democrat and Hays the Republican. The Republicans and Democrats put together a "compromise" to give Fillmore the presidency.

The Compromise consisted of withdrawing federal troops from the south who were protecting the ex-slaves and enforcing racial equality.

In doing so the "moderate" Republicans opened the door to the racist policies of the south and condemned black people to decades of murder, subservience, illiteracy, and poverty.

Now, we have a similar spectacle as the Demoratic "moderates" plea for "compromise" and "cooperation".

The Compromise of 1877 still haunts our country today. The compromises that are being suggested today by the "moderates" regarding women's rights (abortion), "defense", Affirmative Action, Tort "reform", the environment, homosexual rights, gun control, voting rights, labor law, etc, etc, may well come back to haunt us in the same way as that "compromise" of 1877 still does.

I don't give a rip if the Democrats "compromise" on whose face appears on a postage stamp. Or, what an airport is named. But, I damned sure don't want to see them "compromise" on the issues that are going to cost people's lives (Iraq/defense), or their liberties (homeland security), or impoverish them (NAFTA and it's clones).

But, compromise sounds nicer than sell out.

[JeffInRick]

1. I'm shakey on my history...

Are you saying that Republicans failed to protect blacks from "decades of murder, subservience, illiteracy, and poverty" at the hands of Democrats?

Please clarify this for me.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Republican "moderates" compromised away reconstruction.

The "Radical Republicans" wanted the troops in the south to stay until racial equality was achieved. The Democrats of that era wanted the troops out so that the south could return to a semi-master slave society.

The "moderates" ended up siding with the Democrats. The troops were removed and the Democrats, at that time the majority party of the whites, took power and passed all the laws that effectively removed the enfrachisement of blacks, closed down black run schools, businesses, and ended equal protection laws. From 1877 onward, the white south virtually reinstuted slavery for blacks in terms of labor, education, voting rights, health, and just plain dignity.

It lasted until the civil rights movement succeeded in getting the Civil Rights Act passed by a reluctant congress in 1964. And, the results of the 1877 Compromise still are with us today in the undereducation, poverty, and lack of jobs that still exist for blacks.

[RPM]

8. BINGO

we hit on that in my History of American Law class the other day.

dead on - sell out.

worst policy impact on race since not doing the whole 40 acres and a mule thing

[Rowdyboy]

3. Millard Fillmore died in 1874...He was president from 1850-1853

Rutherford B Hayes is the Republican you're referring to and the history is ENORMOUSLY more complicated than what you present.

I'll leave your conclusions for others to debate, but your history is factually incorrect.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. You're quite right. I will edit the above.

As for history being more complicated, I also agree. But, presenting the whole thing is a bit difficult to compress.

But, what do disagree with other than my mixup between Hayes and Fillmore?

[JeffInRick]

5. I appreciate the effort...

...and the history lesson. The name of the President hardly seems the most important point.
Then again, maybe I'm missing something.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. You're welcome, despite my screw up.

There are lots of fascinating books about the period. Not at all dull.
I favor personal diaries, memoirs, etc, to get a real feel for what was going on. If you're interested, I'd recommend starting with the pre-war period (ante-bellum) to reconstruction. Particularly, the compilations of slave narratives and those of southern slave holders.

What life was like for slaves and freedmen is like reading about the holocaust.

[Rowdyboy]

7. The Radical Republicans have always fascinated me...

They had a deeply religious, strong hatred of slavery. They supported whatever means necessary to free the slaves, including war. But after the war, they promptly lost interest in the fates of the newly freed slaves (sort of like today's conservative Republicans and the abortion issue-they hate abortion and want it ended. But, once the child is born, they have no interest in its well being. Not long after slavery ended, the Radicals (and the rest of of the Republican party) were bought out by the timber companies, railroads and mining interests (among others).

Moderate Republicans, like Lincoln, didn't want to punish the south. Had Lincoln lived, history would have been altogether different.

After 10 years of occupation, by 1876, it was time for a change. I can't remember the details of Tilden's platform on Reconstruction but you've intrigued me enough to do a little research to see where he differed from Hayes in withdrawing Northern troops. The withdrawal was going to happen soon, regardless. The theft of the election for Hayes merely hastened it.

Sorry if I sounded snarky-I'm honestly not certain the two situations are really comparable, but-as I said-I'm intrigued.

As to the fate of the newly freed slaves, that was totally predictable. When the Republicans failed on their promise of "40 acres and a mule" (ie economic security), all the blacks were left with was the "right to vote". When the troops left, they lost that.
It was sort of like keeping abortion legal, but closing all the abortion clinics. Its legal, but you can't do it.

The freedmen were the losers in the entire situation. Even though they were "freed", they were re-enslaved as sharecroppers and the masters suddenly cared much less about their well-being.

Not that things were a damn bit better for the "wage slaves" of the coal mines and the industrial belt. They were just as abused and mistreated.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. Yes, and the phony move towards "reconciliation" with the south.

Which, in reality, was to render the civil war itself almost meaningless. There was a huge move towards "reconciliation", in which the south was to be "forgiven" for it's attempt at secession. This was engineered by the southerners thus transforming the war into a dispute about "states rights" rather than about slavery. This then allowed the plight of the freedmen to be brushed aside in favor of white supremacy in both the north and the south.

The "wage slaves" in the north had it somewhat better in that they were somewhat mobile and were able to organanize unions that eventually, and at no small cost, able to improve the situation. Often overlooked, was the plight of the white sharecroppers in the south who should have had an affinity with their black sufferers. But, racism won the day and the landowners were able to use the "divide and conquer" tactic quite successfully.

I find the antebellum and reconstruction eras far more interesting than the civil war itself. One war being much like another in terms of brutality, nationalism, and bloodshed. It's much more interesting what led up to it, and what followed. Much like what is happening in the Middle East now.

[Historic NY]

6. Fugitive slave act & Compromise of 1850 is that what you mean.

Millard Fillmore was the 13th president, he succeed to it on the death of President Taylor. Fillmore died in 1874 and was long out of power by the time the activities of the 1877 compromise were in the works.

Presidency
Thus the sudden accession of Fillmore to the Presidency in July 1850 brought an abrupt political shift in the administration. Taylor's Cabinet resigned and President Fillmore at once appointed Daniel Webster to be Secretary of State, thus proclaiming his alliance with the moderate Whigs who favored the Compromise. A bill to admit California still aroused all the violent arguments for and against the extension of slavery, without any progress toward settling the major issues. Clay, exhausted, left Washington to recuperate, throwing leadership upon Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. At this critical juncture, President Fillmore announced in favor of the Compromise. On August 6, 1850, he sent a message to Congress recommending that Texas be paid to abandon her claims to part of New Mexico. This helped influence a critical number of northern Whigs in Congress away from their insistence upon the Wilmot Proviso--the stipulation that all land gained by the Mexican War must be closed to slavery.

Douglas's effective strategy in Congress combined with Fillmore's pressure from the White House to give impetus to the Compromise movement. Breaking up Clay's single legislative package, Douglas presented five separate bills to the Senate: 1.Admit California as a free state. 2.Settle the Texas boundary and compensate her. 3.Grant territorial status to New Mexico. 4.Place Federal officers at the disposal of slaveholders seeking fugitives. 5.Abolish the slave trade in the District of Columbia. Each measure obtained a majority, and by September 20, President Fillmore had signed them into law. Webster wrote, "I can now sleep of nights."

Some of the more militant northern Whigs remained irreconcilable, refusing to forgive Fillmore for having signed the Fugitive Slave Act. They helped deprive him of the Presidential nomination in 1852. Within a few years it was apparent that although the Compromise had been intended to settle the slavery controversy, it served rather as an uneasy sectional truce.

As the Whig Party disintegrated in the 1850's, Fillmore refused to join the Republican Party; but, instead, in 1856 accepted the nomination for President of the Know Nothing, or American, Party. Throughout the Civil War he opposed President Lincoln and during Reconstruction supported President Johnson. He died in 1874.

source
Wead, Doug. All the President's Children: Triumph and Tragedy in the Lives of America's First Families (Atria: New York, 2003), 456p.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2951.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1850

http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/USA/1877Comp.CP.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1877

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Yes. I got the two names mixed.

Both "compromises" were dispicable, but I think the 1877 compromise had more lasting, and damaging effect.

[patcox2]

12. None of these things means as much to me as economic justice.

That used to be all the democratic party was for, simple, easy, economic justice, protecting the poor from the rich. Now we are so identified with the most polarizing issues, it has destroyed the party. We are the gun-bannning gay marriage abortion party.

When people ask how can poor people vote against their economic interests, the answer is, the democrats never made the case that we are the party that will fight for their economic interest. Instead, the message is all about abortion and gun control and gay marriage. Of course, the republicans do a great job of inflating and magnifying and ridiculing these issues, but the fact is we lose sight of the simple message of economic justice that the democratic party used to represent. We have lost all credibility on the bedrock issues that the democratic party use to own when Clinton sold out the poor with welfare reform and sold out the working people with Nafta and the wto. What the hell can Bush do to the poor working people in the south that Clinton, (great friend of Tyson,recently made a big part of the amusing "F*** the South rant) didn't already do?

And now its all these special interests that dominate our message, and the average guy just says "well what the hell are they going to do for me? I'm not gay and I have a gun and I don't need an abortion?"

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Special interests?

So "economic justice" for the "average guy" (who is the "average guy"?) is the only thing that the Democrats should stand for?

Things like peace, women's rights, civil rights, gay rights, should be shuffled off to the sidelines because they get in the way of promising the "average guy" a raise? And, the "average" guy who isn't going to have an abortion, owns guns, and isn't gay, should be mollified into voting for us by abandoning those "polarizing" issues?

Actually I can't think of any Democratic President that limited himself to "economic justice". Can you?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. dupe, ignore.