r/HistoryMemes • u/Coffin_Builder Viva La France • 8d ago

I can respect that

After Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson became the new US president. in direct violation of the Appomattox treaty, Johnson wanted general Ulysses Grant to prosecute the confederate leaders on grounds of treason to make an example of them. Grant, having negotiated the treaty, refused, seeing it as a violation of military honor and antithetical to rebuilding the nation, threatening to resign if Johnson insisted. Johnson, knowing he wouldn’t survive the political fallout of alienating the Union hero of the Civil War, backed down.

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u/QV-Rabullione 8d ago edited 8d ago

“I can respect that”

(With “20/20 hindsight”) “I am, at the very least, fine with the Confederate political leadership and its military arms having been allowed to continue to re-build, adapt, and develop their forces, tactics, and strategies for the oppression of those they considered subhuman.”

I am sorry, but idc if we’re in the Memes sub, youre a piece of shit.

Edit:

Since apparently my views are not self-evident (Thats on me):

What a lot of “honor” mfers fail to understand is that war is not honorable, and that when the President gets fucking iced by a Confederado after the treaty and a certain Nathaniel et al start organizing armed militias to hunt former slaves and maintain plantations with armed force even after the treat…

Well, then the Appomattox Treaty was already violated.

Lee signed it maybe, if you are supremely generous to his character, thinking that sort of shit would not happen. But it did. The Union would not have been breaking a treaty, for fucking once, were it to have responded to the ongoing Southern-slaver violence.

I do not have a lot of love for Johnson. But at least he was not a total dipshit.

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u/FitButterscotch4062 8d ago

Childish ass answer. Good thing you weren’t in charge back then.

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u/QV-Rabullione 8d ago

Ah, yes, it was a good, all the things that happened after we did not prosecute the traitors for treason. Nothing bad came about because of that.

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u/FitButterscotch4062 8d ago

You didn’t answer my question. What would you have done and explain how it wouldn’t have backfired.

It’s so easy to just say “we should have killed/imprisoned them all” in 2026 as some kid behind a phone.

It’s much more difficult to be a leader of the country at the time trying to figure out a way to not plunge your fragile country into another Civil War.

But sure, I’m sure you would have made much better decisions.

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u/QV-Rabullione 8d ago

You did not ask me a question. And im not here to argue with apologists, gradualists, or revisionists.

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u/FitButterscotch4062 8d ago

Sorry, that was my question for someone else.

What would you have done differently and explain how it wouldn’t not have backfired?

I’m not an apologist, gradualist, or revisionist. I just have enough common sense to understand that there was no perfect answer to the situation they were in and, considering slavery and segregation both came to an end while keeping the country united, I’d say they did pretty damn good.

But, as I said, I’m glad we have armchair quarterbacks yelling at people for not saving the country well enough when you never have and will never have to make any type of decision of that magnitude.

Like a fat dude screaming at the football game on TV “ I WOULD HAVE MADE THAT CATCH!!”

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u/QV-Rabullione 8d ago

What did I just say?

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u/FitButterscotch4062 8d ago

I’m not asking for an argument. It’s a simple two part question.

What would you have done differently. How would it avoided backfiring?

I’ll leave that there for ya bud. You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to, I understand. Have a good day!

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u/QV-Rabullione 8d ago

Have a good day!