SECESSION
Secession in the United States is the idea that some states or regions have the right to withdraw from the federal union and form an independent country.
Secession from the United States was accepted in eleven states (and failed in two others). The seceding states joined to form the Confederate States of America (CSA).
The withdrawal of 11 slave states (states in which slaveholding was legal) from the Union during 1860–61 following the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. Secession precipitated the American Civil War.
| State | Date of Secession |
| South Carolina | December 20, 1860 |
| Mississippi | January 9, 1861 |
| Florida | January 10, 1861 |
| Alabama | January 11, 1861 |
| Georgia | January 19, 1861 |
| Louisiana | January 26, 1861 |
| Texas | February 1, 1861 |
| Virginia | April 17, 1861 |
| Arkansas | May 6, 1861 |
| North Carolina | May 20, 1861 |
| Tennessee | June 8, 1861 |
The Civil War had many causes, and Lincoln’s election on Nov. 6, 1860, made many in the South feel that their cause was never going to be heard. By the early 19th century, the economy in the South had become dependent on one crop, cotton, and the only way that cotton farming was economically viable was through the stolen labor of enslaved people.
Secession had a long history in the United States—but as a threat rather than as an actual dissolution of the Union. Pro-secessionists found philosophical justification for altering or abolishing a government and instituting a new one in the Declaration of Independence. More specifically, those who held that the Union was simply a compact among the states argued that states could secede from that compact just as they had earlier acceded to it.
Suggested Compromise of 1850, in U.S. history, is a series of measures proposed by Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky, and passed by the U.S. Congress to settle several outstanding slavery issues and to avert the threat of dissolution of the Union. The crisis arose from the request of the territory of California (December 3, 1849) to be admitted to the Union with a constitution prohibiting slavery. This compromise did not pass the Senate.
AlmostAnti-slavery Law
In 1820, Congress passed legislation to allow California to join the union as a slave-free state. Also, it prohibited Missouri from buying new slaves and emancipated those 25 years and older. The law did not pass the Senate.
Homestead Act (1862)
Passed on May 20, 1862, the Homestead Act accelerated the settlement of the western territory by granting adult heads of families 160 acres of surveyed public land for a minimal filing fee and five years of continuous residence on that land.
Eligible recipients were either the head of a family or 21 years of age. Thus, U.S. citizens, formerly enslaved people, new immigrants intending to become naturalized, single women, and people of all races were eligible.
The Homestead Act, enacted during the Civil War in 1862, provided that any adult citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. Claimants were required to live on and “improve” their plots by cultivating the land. After five years on the land, the original filer was entitled to the property, free and clear, except for a small registration fee. The title could also be acquired after only a six-month residency and trivial improvements, provided the claimant paid the government $1.25 per acre. After the Civil War, Union soldiers could deduct the time they had served from the residency requirements.
Although this act was included in the Republican party platform of 1860, support for the idea began decades earlier. Even under the Articles of Confederation, before 1787, the distribution of government lands generated much interest and discussion.
The act, however, proved to be no panacea for poverty. Comparatively few laborers and farmers could afford to build a farm or acquire the necessary tools, seeds, and livestock. In the end, most of those who purchased land under the act came from areas quite close to their new homesteads (Iowans moved to Nebraska, Minnesotans to South Dakota, and so on). Unfortunately, the act was framed so ambiguously that it seemed to invite fraud, and early modifications by Congress only compounded the problem. Most of the land went to speculators, cattle owners, miners, loggers, and railroads. Of some 500 million acres dispersed by the General Land Office between 1862 and 1904, only 80 million acres went to homesteaders. Indeed, small farmers acquired more land under the Homestead Act in the 20th century than in the 19th.
Before the Civil War ended, slaveholders received restitution for losing their land; even though, RESTITUTION would give blacks a fair chance at economic wealth and close the wealth gap between blacks and whites.
“It is the way forward.”
To amend for loss, injury, or damages made by the government, nothing was given to former slaves or their descendants; instead. reparations were granted to slaveholders to help maintain the union. The government went back on its promise of 40 acres and a mule due to President Abraham Lincoln’s death. African Americans were freed to be destitute.
Since the birth of this nation, the government has shown good faith to some citizens while others were ignored. The people of the confederate were wrongly granted restitution because they started the civil war, and tried to secede from government-owned land.
The Truth Behind ’40 Acres and a Mule’
War. As the American Army began to seize property in its war with the South, Congress passed the Confiscation Act of 1861. This law allowed the military to seize rebel property, including land and slaves. It reflected the rapidly growing reality of black refugee camps that sprang up around the Union Army.
It was black ministers who changed the hearts and minds of legislators to redistribute the land that the government confiscated from Confederates. Through executive order, 40 acres and a mule were granted to former slaves; however, this order was overturned by Lincoln’s successor sympathized with Confederates and returned their land–to the slaveholders who started the war.
I will discuss reparations for different groups of people and the reasons why.
African-American
Injury: Systemic racism
Loss: Wrongful deaths; no accountability
Reparations: None
Due to systemic racism, the wealth gap between blacks and whites is crater-size. Property or land was taken, destroyed, or prohibited by our government; therefore hereditary wealth was rare in the black community. Because of ruthless financial tactics, prosperous communities, like Greenwood, turned poor; past discriminatory acts affect today’s wealth. Farmers used to own 14% of the land, as of 2021. they own 1%. Redlining is a discriminatory practice that prevents homeownership, economic development, entrepreneurship, and other investments. Also, laws have been passed to suppress the vote.
The government (local, state, federal) looked away knowing this practice devastated communities. The government held nobody responsible for the death and destruction of the prosperous Greenwood district in Oklahoma.
Black Wall is now a low-rent district because the government refused to help the community members rebuild businesses and housing. As of today (100 years), survivors and descendants with prominent members of the community are drawing a spotlight on the problem of no reparations.
Police brutality is a scourge issue. Nobody is held accountable for black lives lost. Obvious killings are NOT SEEN in reality; therefore, police might be suspended for a while, then return to work as if nothing happened. Some police are fired but re-hired at another station. Finally, police reports may not be truthful. Leading the public, congressmen/women, and other authorities to believe that the suspect was threatening the life of the officer. Police cameras are held from the public due to wrongful death. Distrust builds up in the community.
Died 3/13/2020
Police entered her home (1 a.m.) on a “no-knock” search warrant related to a narcotics investigation. Officers returned fire after Taylor’s boyfriend fired a shot at what he said he believed to be intruders. No drugs were recovered from the apartment. The police overreacted and fired 20 rounds, 8 hit Taylor. The community protested.
Legal resolution: Metro Police Department’s Public Integrity Unit launched an investigation into Taylor’s death in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. No arrest or punishment.
Died 2/23/2020
A retired investigator (Gregory McMichael) and his son (Travis McMichael) shot Mr. Arbery to death. He was jogging in their neighborhood when the retired investigator felt he had to make a citizen arrest because Mr. Arbery looked like the suspect in a string of break-ins. He and his son chased Mr. Arbery, and moments later, after a struggle over the shotgun, Mr. Arbery was killed, shot at least twice.
Died 11/22/2014
This 12-year old boy was fatally shot in Cleveland, Ohio in front of the Cudell Recreation Center. Rice was playing with a replica toy Airsoft gun; the 26-year-old policeman shot him twice almost immediately after arriving on the scene. A surveillance video of the incident was released by the police four days after the shooting. A lawsuit brought against the city of Cleveland by Rice’s family was subsequently settled for $6 million in an effort to reduce taxpayer liabilities.
Legal resolution: Several months later (6/03/2015), the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office declared that they completed their investigation and turned their findings over to the county prosecutor. Several months later, the prosecution presented evidence to a grand jury, which declined to indict, primarily because Rice was drawing what appears to be an actual firearm from his waist as the police arrived.
Indigenous people [Naive Americans]
Injury: Displacement of homeland and property
Loss: Genocide; no accountability
Reparations: Yes
When European settlers arrived in the Americas, historians estimate there were over 10 million Native Americans living there. By 1900, their estimated population was under 300,000. Native Americans were subjected to many different forms of violence, There were several wars, and violence was encouraged; all with the intention of destroying the community. In the late 1800s, blankets from smallpox patients were distributed to Native Americans in order to spread disease.
The federal government ordered its soldiers to forcibly take land from Indigenous people who cultivated the land. This genocide was named “Trail of Tears“ because the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk hundreds of miles bonded, with no food or supplies to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River, most natives died. At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida. By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. White settlers obtained the land to grow cotton.
President Andrew Jackson had long been an advocate of what he called “Indian removal.” The Indian Removal Act, which gave the federal government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom east of the Mississippi for land to the west, in the “Indian colonization zone” that the United States had acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase. (This “Indian territory” was located in present-day Oklahoma.)
The genocide of indigenous peoples is the mass destruction of entire communities of indigenous peoples.[Note 1] Indigenous peoples are understood to be people whose historical and current territory has become occupied by colonial expansion, or the formation of a state by a dominant group such as a colonial power. According to David Maybury-Lewis, imperial and colonial forms of genocide are enacted in two main ways, either through the deliberate clearing of territories of their original inhabitants in order to make them exploitable for purposes of resource extraction or colonial settlements, or through enlisting indigenous peoples as forced laborers in colonial or imperialist projects of resource extraction.[5] The designation of specific events as genocidal is often controversial.[6] A people group may continue to exist, but if it is prevented from perpetuating its group identity by prohibitions of its cultural and religious practices, practices which are the basis of its group identity, this may also be considered a form of genocide.
By 1900, the indigenous population in the Americas declined by more than 80%, and by as much as 98% in some areas. The effects of diseases such as smallpox (natives used blankets from small pox patients), measles and cholera during the first century of colonialism contributed greatly to the death toll, while violence, displacement and warfare by colonizers against the Indians contributed to the death toll in subsequent centuries. Indigenous people north and south were displaced, died of disease, and were killed by Europeans through slavery, rape, and war. In 1491, about 145 million people lived in the western hemisphere. By 1691, the population of indigenous Americans had declined by 90–95 percent, or by around 130 million people.
Native Americans Were Slaughtered in the Name of ‘Civilization’
injury: xenophobic
Damage: Internment camps
Reparations: Yes
Up until the eve of the COVID-19 crisis, the prevailing narrative about Asian Americans was one of the model minority. Whites felt they were the ideal immigrants of color to the United States due to their economic success; however, Asian Americans have long been considered as a threat to a nation that promoted a whites-only immigration policy. They were called a “yellow peril”: unclean and unfit for citizenship in America.
In the late 19th century, white nativists spread xenophobic propaganda about Chinese uncleanliness in San Francisco. This fueled the passage of the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act, the first law in the United States that barred immigration solely based on race. Initially, the act placed a 10-year moratorium on all Chinese migration.
In the early 20th century, American officials in the Philippines, then a formal colony of the U.S., denigrated Filipinos for their supposedly unclean and uncivilized bodies; “tropical diseases” festering in native bodies.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 to incarcerate people under suspicion as enemies to inland internment camps.
While the order also affected German- and Italian-Americans on the East Coast, the vast majority of those incarcerated in 1942 were of Japanese descent. Many of them were naturalized citizens, second-and third-generation Americans. Internees who fought in the celebrated 442nd Regiment were coerced by the United States military to prove their loyalty to a country that locked them up simply for being Japanese.
Resources: Brittanica, National Archives, PBS
