Extemporaneous musings, occasionally poetic, about life in its richly varied dimensions, especially as relates to history, theology, law, literature, science, by one who is an attorney, ordained minister, historian, writer, and African American.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Give Us Our Spoils!
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-issues-proclamation-of-amnesty-and-reconstruction
This was a very seminal document in our transition from slavery to freedom. It allowed the South to "deal" with us as it thought proper, except our freedom could not be compromised; also if 10% of the rebels took a loyalty oath in any rebel state, that state would be re-admitted to the Union, with certain minor exceptions for high ranking civil and military officers; and their real property--their abandoned lands-- was restored to them! The freedmen got nothing but bare freedom itself. (And today folks sardonically wonder why we're still behind; and make silly sounds about "closing this or that the gap!") Give us our spoils of war that we earned, when we saved the Union and won the war with 200,000 black soldiers and sailors! We got cheated out of our share of land, money, property, equality, due process of law and liberty! This "let them up easy" proclamation by Lincoln nullified the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War itself!