Radical Republicans
Trump was nearly assassinated on Saturday, July 13, 2024. This would have thrown the Republican Party into disarray, because the the president has become like a Roman Emperor over the past century, progressively replacing the political power of the Senate. For long term success, Republicans need to dominate Congress so that it doesn’t matter if a Democrat is president, because the House and Senate can over ride a presidential veto and impeach the president if they don’t like him. In fact, we have precedent for Congress dominating the president. Following the Civil War, Radical Republicans took over the federal government while a Democrat was president.
The War Between the States (1861-1865) was between North and South, but it was as much between Democrat and Republican as anything else. The Republican Party was only formed in 1854 to represent Northern political interests: No slavery out West (white man’s country), high tariffs to defend Northern industry from competition (that the South wanted lowered), and for federal taxes to be spent on Northern internal improvements. Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, inciting Southern secession and eventually Northern invasion to ensure that the South paid taxes to the North.[1]
Following the conquest of the Confederate States of America, Lincoln was assassinated and his Vice President, Democrat Andrew Johnson, assumed the office of the presidency. Though they were of different political parties, they had run together under the National Union Party to indicate leniency to Southerners following their conquest.
According the the White House’s excerpt on President Johnson,[2]
“During the secession crisis, Johnson remained in the Senate even when Tennessee seceded, which made him a hero in the North and a traitor in the eyes of most Southerners. In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor of Tennessee, and Johnson used the state as a laboratory for reconstruction. In 1864 the Republicans, contending that their National Union Party was for all loyal men, nominated Johnson, a Southerner and a Democrat, for Vice President.
After Lincoln’s death, President Johnson proceeded to reconstruct the former Confederate States while Congress was not in session in 1865. He pardoned all who would take an oath of allegiance, but required leaders and men of wealth to obtain special Presidential pardons.”
Lincoln himself was a white supremacist who only started emancipating slaves in the CSA, but not the USA, because Southerners would not surrender. That is why West Virginia joined the USA as a slave state per the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri were all slave states in the USA during the war.[3]
The Radical Republicans, notably Thaddeus Stevens in the House and Charles Sumner in the Senate, did not want leniency. They wanted to punish the South for the sins of slavery. 6 months after the war, they were instrumental in passing the 13th Amendment to end slavery in December of 1865, the 14th Amendment in 1868, and the 15th Amendment in 1870. The Amendments were used to justify the military occupation of the South to defend the rights of newly freed slaves who were being re-enslaved for alleged crimes, per the criminal exception for slavery in the 13th Amendment (Black Codes).
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” -13th Amendment
For example, black people could be arrested for not having a job or for being armed, and then get leased out by the state to work on their former slave master’s plantation as punishment for their “crime.”
According to the American Battlefield Trust,[4]
“Overall, Johnson vetoed 21 bills passed by Congress, including many that were geared toward establishing rights for Blacks. However, because the Radicals controlled Congress, they successfully overruled 15 of Johnson’s vetoes, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. Eventually, the Radicals in the House of Representatives were successful in impeaching President Johnson, but he was acquitted in the Senate by 1 vote.”
For background, in the bicameral Congress of the USA, the House can vote to impeach the president, the Senate holds the trial, and the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court presides as judge. If convicted, they can expel the president from office and replace him with the Vice President. The can impeach the VP too.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the precursor to the 14th and 15th Amendments. The Reconstruction Act of 1867 was more harsh to the South than Johnson had wanted. The 4 Reconstruction Acts from 1867 to 1868 divided the former Confederacy into 5 military districts, except for Johnson’s home state of Tennessee. The act gave the president the power to install a military dictator in each district, replaced due process with a military tribunal, only allowed for the conquered states to rejoin the union if they adopted a new Constitution approved by the adult men who swore loyalty to the USA, and ratified the 14th Amendment. Acceptance of the 14th Amendment essentially gave the Radical Republicans permission to rule the Southern states from Congress, nominally to defend the rights of newly freed slaves.[5][6]
This caused strife between disenfranchised Southerner soldiers who would not swear loyalty to the Radical Republican controlled US Congress and many former slaves who could now vote per the Civil Rights Act. The white supremecist Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was founded by former Confederate army officers who were concerned that they could not vote while being occupied by a foreign military, many of whom were former black slaves who now voted Republican. The Radical Republicans were employing the classic Roman tactic of allying yourself with a weak faction (formerly freed slaves) to rule over the stronger faction (former Confederates). Divide et impera is not a recipe for racial harmony.*
Eventually, Northerners would get tired of Reconstruction. The USA were simply a racist, white supremacist country back then. For example, the KKK was allegedly disbanded in 1868, but was reformed in 1915 as a white supremacist organization for the entire USA. It was most popular up North. As soon as US troops withdrew from the South in the Compromise of 1877, Jim Crow began. Jim Crow was defacto slavery for black people, when they couldn’t vote and would be arrested for “crimes,” to then work in a chain gang. It was slavery by another name.[7]
The lesson here is two-fold:
The separation of powers in the Constitution was designed so that the president could never turn into a dictator for long.
Blowback. Do not be harsh in victory.
If Constitutional Republicans can learn those lessons, then it won’t matter if a RINO or Democrat is president, because they will simply execute the laws of Congress per the Constitution, through whom the people of the USA control the government.
In restoring the Constitution/Bill of Rights, the politicians responsible for violating the Constitution and/or attempting to assassinate Trump should be held to account, but the useful idiots should be forgiven. We don’t need to be harsh in victory. We don’t need a second Reconstruction to result in paramilitary blowback.
For example, in Mississippi, the Democrats and Republicans still largely reflect the two warring sides of Reconstruction, but with the parties flipped. Now, Democrats support a strong Federal government helping black people and Republicans prefer a small government that doesn’t submit to the US Congress for internal affairs. Ironically, the politicians in both parties now support Jim Crow laws and Black Codes through the drug war, in violation of the 5th, 9th, and 14th Amendments against both whites and blacks. So, while the KKK may no longer exist today, their policies still persist. A political re-alignment is coming.
If Radical Republicans take control of Congress today and enforce the Bill of Rights against not only the president but also against Mississippi’s drug war via the 14th Amendment, then that would be a huge victory for Constitutional Republicans and Mississippians against modern Jim Crow. The 14th Amendment was made just for that:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
If a group of Radical Republicans take 2/3 of Congress for a veto-proof majority, then they could restore the Constitution as the supreme law of the land and impeach the president for disobeying the law.
Trump was nearly assassinated on Saturday, July 13, 2024. This would have thrown the Republican Party into disarray, because the the president has become like a Roman Emperor, progressively replacing the political power of the Senate. For long term success, Republicans need to dominate Congress so that it doesn’t matter if a New York City Democrat is president, because the House and Senate can over ride a presidential veto and impeach the president if they don’t like him.
*A notable exception to divide et impera not resulting in racial harmony is the alleged original Grand Wizard of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was one of the most effective and famous generals in the Confederacy. He was studied by generals in both World Wars, notably German General Erwin Rommel. While never legally being tied to the KKK, he allegedly disbanded the Klan around 1868 because they had turned into terrorists. The KKK with which people are familiar today is really a neo-KKK, founded in 1915.[8]
On July 5, 1875 Forrest spoke to the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association, a fraternal organization of black Southerners in Memphis, Tennessee. He said,[9][10]
“Ladies and Gentlemen I accept the flowers as a memento of reconciliation between the white and colored races of the southern states. I accept it more particularly as it comes from a colored lady, for if there is any one on God's earth who loves the ladies I believe it is myself. ( Immense applause and laughter.)
I came here with the jeers of some white people, who think that I am doing wrong. I believe I can exert some influence, and do much to assist the people in strengthening fraternal relations, and shall do all in my power to elevate every man to depress none. (Applause.)
I want to elevate you to take positions in law offices, in stores, on farms, and wherever you are capable of going. I have not said anything about politics today. I don't propose to say anything about politics. You have a right to elect whom you please; vote for the man you think best, and I think, when that is done, you and I are freemen. Do as you consider right and honest in electing men for office.
I did not come here to make you a long speech, although invited to do so by you. I am not much of a speaker, and my business prevented me from preparing myself. I came to meet you as friends, and welcome you to the white people. I want you to come nearer to us. When I can serve you I will do so. We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in sentiment. Many things have been said about me which are wrong, and which white and black persons here, who stood by me through the war, can contradict. Go to work, be industrious, live honestly and act truly, and when you are oppressed I'll come to your relief. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for this opportunity you have afforded me to be with you, and to assure you that I am with you in heart and in hand. (Prolonged applause.)”
Sources:
[1]https://www.hamiltonmobley.com/blog/g03kltqjyuqzg56sr0rbw9jdgcdun0
[2]https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/andrew-johnson/
[3]https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/debate1.htm
“Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, but this is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution of slavery and the black race. This is the whole of it, and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. [Laughter.] I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. [Great applause.]”
[4]https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/radical-republicans
[5]https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/reconstruction-acts/
[6]https://www.britannica.com/topic/Reconstruction-Acts
[7]https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/ku-klux-klan
[8]https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1351&context=etd
[9]http://www.tennessee-scv.org/ForrestHistSociety/forrest_speech.html