Opinion of Reconstruction

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It really screwed over the South for 150 years and counting. Surely there was a better way.

Seceding from the union screwed over the south much more

And the Republican agenda of protectionism would have screwed the South over if they'd stayed. The landowning elites may have primarily concerned with slavery, but ordinary, non-slaveholding Southerners had good reason to want out of a Union that was willing to plunder their economy for the benefit of Northern industrial interests.

That is ironic because beginning in the 1880's is when the iron and steel of Alabama was developed courtesy of northern investment and over the next decade or more is when the textile mills began to move South as well. Development that was hindered by the dominance of slavery and the effect it had of diverting investment capital and hindering the developments of industry, technology, and transportation in the region, not to mention population growth and job creation. Its hard to paint the south as the victims of Northern protectionists trying to save themselves from tarrifs when they are by extension of their act further preserving a gov't propped up insitution of Slavery that was doing far more to hinder the economy and deprive those non slaveownders of jobs.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Wouldn't you also say the emense gov't support required to prop up slavery was a form of protectionism? Not to mention also the violation of freedom caused by the fact that poor white farmers were practically conscripted to catch runaways and/or would be called upon as part of the militia in the event of a slave revolt. A slave society is by definition a police state by necessity of the fear of slave revolts. It was a crime to advocate against slavery in many Southern states as well as you get closer to the Civil War on that very basis as well.