Summary:Post Civil War society questions who gets to have a say in Society, which changes the structure of the United States Government.
Timestamp 4:17: The Republicans created multiple programs that would allow common men to rise, through Federal assistance. This ushered in Federal Taxation, which most notably is the income tax. This triggers the idea that expansion of people allowed to participate and have a say in Society will cost everyone money. This is where the redistribution of wealth concept is born.
Timestamp 9:07: Susan B Anthony challenges that the United States is a Republic, but rather an Oligarchy. She supports her statement with the newfound National Labor Organization. This replaced the previous Labor Unions, which were in trouble due to the War. If a specific Labor Union wasn’t complying, the Employer would report them as against the war effort, and they would be removed.
Timestamp 15:02: The National Labor union is created, and fights for what is seen as radical at the time. These things are a wage base, 8 hour work day, and safe working conditions, during the industrial age is seen as the laborers wanting to level the playing field. This starts the association between workers and money, and how much of it they get.
Timestamp 18:40: Karl Marx begins Chronicling history and Technology from a historical standpoint, but starts a theory called Marxism that is based off of the alienation of workers. The Knights of Labor are introduced shortly after, and promise taking care of your children if you pass and helping bury you. This is an attempt to bring organization to Industrial labor, which is magnified by the Paris Commune in France. These workers took over the city, and referred to themselves as Communards. This is where the term Communist is rooted.
Timestamp 26:40: The Tweed Ring is brought to light by New York City newspapers. They are found to be giving contracts to contractors in exchange for them hiring people, namely immigrants, who promise to vote Democrat to keep the Democratic party in power in New York City. This sheds light on fear of people voting for who will give them free stuff, which echoes the redistribution of Wealth, which is what Andrew Johnson warned against.
Timestamp 30:35: After 1870, the 15th Amendment protects the right to vote for African American men. The legislature of South Carolina has more black people than white people. It is found that the African Americans in South Carolina tend to not vote for anything radical, contrary to popular belief. After the Klu Klux Clan Rises between 1868-1871, in opposition to the 15th Amendment, Grant creates the Department of Justice to assure that federal laws, including the 15th Amendment, are being carried out. Once that occurs, the wealthy white people change their tune from “we don’t like African Americans” to “We don’t mind if they have equal rights, we just mind they are utilizing programs that cause tax paying dollars”. This leads to the concept that allowing Black people to vote is a redistribution of wealth, therefore Communist.
Timestamp 37:45: There is a post war concern that those who are doing well will be affected by the redistribution of wealth which will allow people to move upwards.
Timestamp 44:24 After the Cattle movement starts in the southwest, in an attempt to expand the cotton movement. This results in Texans afraid to go outside because of the mass amount of cattle, which there was an attempt to move out of Texas but they were unable to due to surrounding geography and the War. As a creative solution, a herd of cattle is taken to the Army to feed the troops. This cattle drive is led by desperate men, many confederates, whose only requirements were the ability to ride a horse and hold a gun.
Timestamp 52:53: Eastern Democrats parrot the verbiage of redistribution of wealth through social programs being communist, and in South Carolina they claim it a proletarian society. Those who are not interested in being associated are tempted and encouraged to go westward into this Brave New world of sorts. This is where the image of the Cowboy arises, who fights indigenous people to preserve and protect their land while being left alone from the government. The cowboy turns into the most powerful political image in American history, and glamorizes men and reduces women to either wives or sex workers.
[From wikipedia] Richardson’s first book, The Greatest Nation of the Earth (1997), stemmed from her dissertation at Harvard University. Inspired by Eric Foner’s work on pre-Civil War Republican ideology, Richardson analyzed Republican economic policies during the war. She contended that their efforts to create an activist Federal Government during the Civil War marked a continuation of Republican free labor ideology. These policies, such as war bonds and greenbacks or the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act, revolutionized the role of the Federal Government in the U.S. economy. At the same time, these actions laid the groundwork for the Republican Party’s shift to Big Business after the Civil War.
In this 2001 book, Richardson "focused on the “Northern abandonment of Reconstruction.” Building on the earlier work of C. Vann Woodward, she argued that a more complete understanding of the period required appreciation of class, not only race. As Reconstruction continued into the 1870s and especially the 1880s, Republicans began to view African Americans in the South more from a class perspective and less from the perspective of race that had driven their earlier humanitarianism. In the midst of the labor struggles of the Gilded Age, Republicans came to compare “the demands of the ex-slaves for land, social services, and civil rights” to the demands of white laborers in the North. This ideological shift was the key to Republican abandonment of Reconstruction, as they chose the protection of their economic and business interests over their desire for racial equality." [From wikipedia]
In this 2007 book, "Richardson presented Reconstruction as a national event that impacted all Americans, not just those in the South. She incorporated the West into the discussion of Reconstruction as no predecessor had. Between 1865 and 1900, Americans re-imagined the role of the federal government, calling upon it to promote the well-being of its citizens. However, racism, sexism, and greed divided Americans, and the same people who increasingly benefited from government intervention—white, middle-class Americans—actively excluded African-Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and organized laborers from the newfound bounties of their reconstructed nation." [from wikipedia]
In this book, published in 2010, Richardson "focused on the U.S. Army’s slaughter of Native Americans in South Dakota in 1890. She argued that party politics and opportunism led to Wounded Knee. After a bruising midterm election, President Benjamin Harrison needed to shore up his support. To do so, he turned to The Dakotas, where he replaced seasoned Indian agents with unqualified political allies, who incorrectly assumed that the Ghost Dance Movement presaged war. The Army responded by sending one third of its force in order to avoid spending cuts from Congress. After the event, Republicans tried to paint the massacre as a heroic battle to stifle the resurgent Democrats." [wikipedia]
In this 2014 book, Richardson "extended her study of the Republican Party into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book studied the entire life of the GOP, from its inception in the 1850s through the presidency of George W. Bush. The party’s founders united against the “slave power,” a small group of wealthy white men who controlled all three branches of government. These Republicans articulated a new vision of an America in which all hardworking men could rise. But after the Civil War, Republicans began to emulate what they originally opposed. They tied themselves to powerful bankers and industrialists, sacrificing the well-being of ordinary Americans. A similar process took place after World War II, when Republicans sought to dismantle successful New Deal policies and prop up the wealthy. However, in both cases, reformers within the party were able to return the GOP to its founding vision of equality of opportunity, first Theodore Roosevelt during the Progressive Era, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower, who enforced integration and maintained the New Deal. The Nixon and Reagan administrations have represented yet another fall from the GOP’s founding purpose. It's ironic, Richardson points out, that Republicans treated Barack Obama with an unprecedented level of disrespect, as Obama's rise from humble beginnings to the highest office in the nation embodied the vision of the original Republicans." [wikipedia]
In her most recent publication, Richardson argues "that America was founded with contradicting ideals, with the ideas of liberty, equality, and opportunity on one hand, and slavery and hierarchy on the other. United States victory in the American Civil War should have settled that tension forever, but at the same time that the Civil War was fought, Americans also started moving into the West. In the West, Americans found and expanded upon deep racial hierarchies, meaning that hierarchical values survived in American politics and culture despite the crushing defeat of the pro-slavery Confederacy. Those traditions--a rejection of democracy, an embrace of entrenched wealth, the marginalization of women and people of color--have found a home in modern conservative politics, leaving the tremendous promise of America unfulfilled." [wikipedia]
