Andrew Johnson

Part 3 of a new series identifying those responsible for the corruption of the constitution and capitalism.

The 17th President of the United States was an established racist. He vetoed Civil Rights bill, allowed for the Jim Crow Laws, and set up american racism that would last a hundred years. He cited decentralization as an argument against his actions (many states were not represented when the Civil Rights Bill passed Congress), but what he said in private makes it clear that this was not so.

Many consider him to be one of the worst presidents of the United States.

His Crimes

This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men.

The founders believed that “all (of mankind) are created equal”. However, instead of properly reconstructing the Union, he made a mess of things.

Next in the series: Theodore Roosevelt

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Part 2 of a new series identifying those responsible for the corruption of the constitution and capitalism.

Though Stowe has recently been painted as a loving abolitionist, her lies lead to a brutal war which ultimately made black life worse.

Her Crimes

Lincoln acknowledged Stowe as the monger of the Civil War:

 So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!

She was raised by abolitionists. She was born in Connecticut, and spent a little time in Ohio before moving to Maine. She never saw slavery herself; she knew only what her parents had told her.

Angered by the Fugitive Slave Act, she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book depicted slavery as cruel and masters as evil demons. While some actually were, and doubtless the slaves she had talked to had had such masters, it is most unlikely that the large majority of slave owners were cruel. In fact, southerners rejected Uncle Tom’s Cabin, calling it slanderous and a misrepresentation.

However, Yankees who had not actually seen slave life were moved by its imagery. The abolitionist movement spread, causing many Yankees to hate the South, and angering many southerners.

The result of this sectionism was secession, which would have included much of the West as well as the South if Lincoln had not taken action to stop Western legislatures from voting on secession (proving once again that slavery did not cause the Civil War, but it did contribute to the sectional divide that did).

Before Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Civil War was avoidable, and after long enough, slavery would have ended peacefully. Instead, the forced emancipation lead to only sharecropping and grudges that would lead to racism and segregation.

Next in this glorious series: Andrew Johnson.