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Edited on Mon Feb-13-06 09:29 PM by RoyGBiv
If so, it's not really a "boo hoo" thing. It's more of a "this is the basis of what took place" thing, and the fact of the rather sudden and overwhelming downturn in economic fortunes in the South, while not anyone's fault but the same wealthy Southerners who had lost all their capital, was a large part of the foundation of what took place. You'll find quite a large bit of examination of this and its effects on the South during and after Reconstruction in every major study of the era. People like Eric Foner, who helped with this documentary and wrote what is widely considered the standard study of the era, are certainly no apologists.
One of the commentators, David Blight, did an excellent study called _Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory_ that lends some elements to this show. It focuses heavily on how white Americans shaped their own memories of the war, its causes, and its effects in such a way that the hard-won freedoms of the formerly enslaved population were intentionally taken away, with the acquiescence and at times overt assistance of the white North in the name of reconciliation and good business. It started early. A meeting at White Sulphur Springs, for example, saw many former Confederate generals and politicians, among them RE Lee, get together with Union generals and officials to plan out a course of action that would help rebuild the Democratic party and maintain white supremacy in the face of so-called Radical Republican measures then being pushed through Congress.
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