[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

However, that's ignoring popular sentiment at the time. There simply wasn't a lot of enthusiasm in the North to treat the South like a conquered enemy and impose harsh and enduring terms from Washington.

Actually, that's not accurate. There was a huge, massive, appetite to reduce the southern states into economic colonies for Northern industrial capacity. This attitude was so prominent and easily capitalized on that it's become a component of Southern white identity. Carpetbaggers, scalywag. Historian Eric Foner has some very approachable content on this subject. It was northern conservatism that eventually eroded support for Southern reconstruction, not popular opinion. These are largely the same political actors and sentiments In fact, much of stirring resentment in the North prior to the civil war was as a result of the Fugitive Slave Act which compelled northerners to return fugitive slaves to their southern owners. Following the Civil War, the US congress passed laws despite Veto attempts from Andrew Johnson, specifically to prevent the rise or reaffirmation of slave holders in the south. Congress did this largely as a result of Northern/Union popular opinion as word spread from returning Union soldiers.

It wasn't only in the South that Americans were extremely wary of entrusting the federal government with such power.

This just isn't true either. The war was fought to preserve Federal authority, to preserve the Union. In fact, you can trace most of our modern conservatism's distrust in the Federal government o this exact moment in history. Cliff, what you're saying is in opposition to established history. The 'Union' Forces were fighting for a federal mandate and the 'Confederate' forces were fighting for a coalition of loosely affiliated confederated states. It's right in their names.

Reconstruction carpetbaggers were seen as the 'froth' of an increasingly 'swelling tide' of Northern economic interest in the South. It is likely that without Lincoln's assassination and the election of a virulent, unapologetic racist in Johnson, that reconstruction would not have been abandoned. Even with an incredibly strong opponent in the White House, congress moved to increase their presence and oversight in the South.

Pretty sure the Dixiecrats are within living memory. The South didn't go Republican until the 60s.

The Dixiecrats are not a political party, and their racist fueled ideology increasingly found no home with the Democrats until the point they switched party allegiance to find a sympathetic audience for the race-based Weltanschauung. Your example couldn't prove the point any better.