The Basser/Singer
I play bass and i sing. i write the songs too. i like old punk like The Dead Kennedys, The exploited and such. Fuck rap, preps, hicks, nazi punks, good charlotte, new found glory, mainstream in general, and finally YOUR MOM!
The Drumist
My character for the Civil War Reconstruction Stimulation is Vic Olden. Vic Olden is a black man who fought with the Union and witnessed firsthand the cruel and inhumane treatment of black slaves from the Confederate Army. Because of this, he is very unforgiving and distrusting of the south. Because of this and other reasons I will explain later, Vic Olden believes that The United States should make getting back into the Union very difficult for the south, also Vic Olden believes that pardons for confederate soldiers, officials, and officers who fought against the Union should also be hard to secure. The personal reason why Vic Olden is very supportive of blacks receiving substantially improved social, political, and economic rights is that Vic Olden is an African American himself and this issue affects him directly. Vic Olden also believes that the president should control the entire process of Reconstruction and that Reconstruction should be controlled on a national level.
More in depth reason why Vic Olden believes that the Union should be hard on the confederacy in admitting states and pardoning officers and soldiers is that the Confederacy was unnecessarily cruel with their treatment of Union soldiers they had as their captives. According to “Letter From a Soldier”, published in Harper’s Weekly on February 11th, 1865, Union prisoners of war faced extremely unsanitary conditions, “no proper medical provisions”, and “The Dead Line”, a line that “consisted of a row of stakes driven into the ground—with boards fastened on the top—at a distance of about fifteen feet from the stockade on the inner side. This line was closely watched by a guard, and any prisoner who approached it—and many often unconsciously did, and as, in the crowd, was often unavoidable—was instantly shot dead”. According to this article, Confederate soldiers were rewarded with furloughs for mercilessly killing or wounding a Union soldier for crossing this Dead Line. As you can see, Confederates were barbaric in their treatment of Union soldiers, and the officers and soldiers responsible for committing these inhumane acts should not be easily pardoned and accepted back into the Union.
Vic Olden also believes that blacks should receive substantial political, economic, and social rights. In an editorial titled “The Port Royal Fact” published in Harper’s Weekly on March 15, 1862, it is explained why African Americans, given the right tools, like education, and a means to earn an independent living, “Providence will probably render them the instrument of effecting a revolution which will change the face of American destiny”.
The president should control the process of reconstruction. For it is mentioned in Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty, seen in the December 26th, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly that the Congress has passed laws that said that the “President [is] thereby authorized at any time thereafter by proclamation to extend to persons who may have participated in the existing rebellion, in any State or part thereof, pardon and amnesty, with such exception and at such time, and on such conditions as he may deem expedient for the public welfare”.
The beliefs of Vic Olden are also that Reconstruction should be implemented on a national level. He believes that it will not work if states decide for themselves the terms on which they are admitted back into the Union. In the March 11th, 1865 issue of Harper’s Weekly, an editorial clearly explains that “It is for the Government, not for the rebels, to decide when it may withdraw its troops and when it is no longer in danger from rebellion. This is a point which can not be determined by oaths, but by experience. The Government must decide what tests to employ. It is not bound to remove its troops from a region full of rebels, nor is it to assume that they are loyal because they say so. As the national army advances it recovers the various States. Provisional Governors will be of necessity appointed. They hold by the national authority. They summon the people to an election, and, of necessity, they determine by the same authority who shall vote and under what conditions. This or anarchy is the alternative”.
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