Blog Mirror: The Supreme Court and the president’s pardon power

Supreme Court blogger Amy Howe takes a look at a topic that's been coming up a lot recently, that being the President's power to pardon.  She looks at it from the prospective of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court and the president’s pardon power

The article addresses the topic of whether the President can pardon himself, as he can pardon others for crimes they're not actually convicted of.  My feeling is that he cannot, although as noted, it's an undecided legal issue.

Going out from there and into the controversial, the only existing Presidential pardon of a former President, Gerald Ford's pardon of President Nixon, is in my view one of the great American blunders of the 20th Century, or perhaps in our entire history.  Nixon should have been tried and convicted for his role in covering up the Watergate break-in.  His conviction and sentencing would have stood as an example that Presidents aren't above the law, which Nixon famously stated in an interview that they were.  HIs pardoning suggested that in fact they were, no matter what Ford's intent was.

To go to the really controversial, I feel the same way about figures from the Confederacy who would have been logically subject to criminal charges for their role in rebelling against the United States.  By this I'm not suggesting that they should have tried men down to the enlisted ranks, or even all of the officers.  But they should have tried the principal political figures like Jefferson Davis.  They should also have tried U.S. Army officers who abandoned their commissions to serve in the Confederate forces.  

That's a harsh, Radical Republican (in the terms of the day) view, but that would have chastised a South that was ready to cooperate with the Federal government and it would have kept the Southern aristocracy from regaining control of the region.  It would have put us decades ahead in achieving a more equitable society as well.  It was an opportunity lost.

Indeed, both acts of mercy were opportunities lost, with the merciful forgetting that there really are no "chapters in history".  It's one long book.

Sowing the wind.

It has long been part of the American political canon that what George Washington did for the country should be and must be repeated by his Oval Office successors.

Washington served two terms as the first President under the Constitution.  As he approached the end of his second there was serious debate in some quarters on whether he would step down and out, run again, or just declare himself to be the chief administrator of the country.

He simply retired and went back to public life.

No American President broke that tradition until Franklin Roosevelt kept running, ultimately dying in office.  Controversial at the time, it lead to the Constitutional Amendment prohibiting that.  But Roosevelt's presence in the office was democratic, not judicial.

Now President Trump has shattered that tradition, refusing to concede that he has lost when he did, and resorting to crackpot litigation.  Lawyers who are deeply in Trump's camp have signed on for the effort, including the Attorney General of Texas and Ted Cruz, who offered to argue the Pennsylvania appeal at the Supreme Court level if it got in the door. . . as if that was really supposed to achieve something.* The Republican Party has generally gone along with this.

The real thing that separates democracies from dictatorship is the democratic habit.  That's about it.  Lots of dictators started out as elected officials and then retained office by refusing to step down, manipulating the organs of power in order to make their retention of power appear legitimate.  It's extremely common.

Here the US judicial system has been put a stress test and really held up. The Republican Party has been put to one and has not.  Real questions remain going forward what this will end up causing.

Back in 2016 when Trump secured the GOP nomination I commented here that the GOP would have to live with the implications.  It will, and now the question really is, is there a GOP?  The party has certainly changed from what it was four years ago, and one of the things that has developed is a scary section of belief that the leader's word must be true because he is the leader. Added to that is the additional element that power must be retained as the opponent is unworthy of power, or even traitorous.

That crosses over a political line from supporting democracy to something akin to what fascist parties believed.  At their core they believed that only they were worthy of rule as their opponents were evil.  Indeed that outlook caused a debate in the 1930s on whether or not Communist parties were fascist parties, as that was in essence their belief as well.  It's not that the Soviet Union didn't have elections, it always did.  It's that only the "right" votes counted.

Added to that you can only stress things so many times before they bend.  Due to the disfunction of the American Federal Government since the 1990s the Courts have increasingly become an unelected national legislature.  Chief Justice Roberts complained about this openly in an oral argument just the other day.  Now the Courts are all that is keeping an attempted coup through the courts from succeeding. They're doing a magnificent job of it, but how many times can they keep doing that, and will it now be the case that every one of our national elections is legislated this way.  

If the latter is the case, we're now a second or even third rate nation, protected only by the overabundance of lawyers in our society.  That's a scary situation to be in.

We really don't know where this will lead over the next two to four years.  My suspicion is that the Trump banner will rapidly fade and with it will come a restructuring of the GOP back to a more Buckleyesque part.  If not, it'll split in two into a center right party and an alt right part, neither of which will be able to contend against the largest party in the nation, the Democratic Party.  

"they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind"

The sad thing is that this is pretty conclusive evidence that there is something extremely fractured in American society.  It'd be too early to consign the country to the grave in terms of it being a first rate nation, but the US is fooling itself it believes that there's a quick fix to this.  Donald Trump promised to "make American great again", and he has some economic advances to his credit.  But the political damage now done to the country won't be repaired in four years, eight years, or twelve.  His legacy will be principally defined by an effort to illegitimately hold on to power, just like Richard Nixon's long and distinguished career is defined almost wholly by Watergate.

The country did get over Watergate, of course, although in real ways the reaction to Watergate and what it brought into the nation's politics is responsible for what we're seeing now.  It's certain, retrospectively, that Gerald Ford is partially responsible for what is happening now by his pardoning of Nixon, something that never should have been done.  Nixon should have been tried and convicted for his crimes so as to set a standard and example for the future.

Indeed, Nixon's pardoning is one of the two great American pardoning political mistakes that continues to haunt the nation, the first being the United States decision to decline prosecuting the treasonous Southern figures who lead the rebelling against the country in 1860 to 65.  Just as Washington's peaceful transfer of power set an example that lasted over 200 years, the post Civil War  and post Watergate examples set a precedent that you really can attack the institutions of the country and get away with it.  Trying the Southern rebels for treason would have shocked the Southern population into reform, which they were already inclined towards, in 1865 and have kept their antebellum masters from returning to rule over white and black alike once again.  Trying Nixon would have proved that the President wasn't above the law even when sitting behind the Resolute Desk.  Instead we made heroes out of traitors in the first instance and inserted the concept of near dictatorial powers while in office in the second.  Indeed Nixon openly opined that the President couldn't commit a crime.

But the President can and in a loose non judicial sense a crime against the American political culture is being committed right now and shows ever sense of running right up to the inauguration.  The Atlantic magazine has turned out to be prophetic in what Trump intended to try.  For the most part only the courts, and some brave state Republican officials, have kept this from occurring.  If it had succeeded the result would have been complete anarchy.

Some commentators, at this point in time, have begun to ponder if what is presently occurring goes further than that, however.  It might be a real crime, they're stating, with that crime being sedition.

Sedition, in Federal law, is as follows:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

As can be seen, the elements require two or more people, making it a species of conspiracy, who conspire to overthrow the government or "to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States".  

There's been commentary that this must be an attempt to violently overthrow or hinder, but that's not really clear.  Law is not only in the details, but also in the grammar.  It's perfectly possible to read 18 USC § 2394 to prevent conspiracies to 1) overthrow, or 2) put down, or "destroy by force". That doesn't require the conspiracies to overthrow, put down, or  hinder to require force.

Of course, that question is academic as nobody is going to charge Trump or his confederates with sedition.  And if they did, they'd fail, contrary to what some commentators have argued, as the effort has been pretty open and doesn't look like any sort of conventional conspiracy so much as a rather odd litigation based strategy.  The point, however, is that by sow the winds of the court, the doors are now open to what that may reap.  Some on the left are now openly advocating for trying Trump for something.  

By and large, that would be disastrous for the left unless something really dramatic comes forward post election, which some are speculating will.  That, they argue, is Trump's real reason for trying to hold on to power. The evidence doesn't support that, however.  It appears just to be an effort to hold on to power combined with a disrespect for the American democratic tradition.

Disrespect, of course, won't take a person anywhere without support and it seems pretty clear that the last time a crisis of this type, Watergate, existed neither the public nor the Republican Party were willing to participate in it. Of course, in that case an outright crime had occurred.  Still, being old enough to remember 1973, I can remember Nixon being held in contempt by average people for what he did.

Here we are seeing something else.  People are signing up to be part of this effort.  And that points to something just as troubling.

It wasn't in 2016 that the nation suddenly had a disgruntled populist segment of the country that was voting to light the match to the nation.  That impulse went all the way back to the latter part of Ronald Reagan's administration in the figure of such people as Newt Gingrich.  Starting in the 1970s the blue collar, rust belt, section of the nation began to suffer a decline which nobody made any effort to reverse.  At the same time the American left went from begin a WASP based sort of Episcopal left to an increasingly Hight Ashbury sort of left that had a really strong element of contempt for Western culture and tradition.  The right, in turn, began to give lip service to deep nativist impulses that have always been a feature of American culture even while directly participating in left wing agendas that directly impacted and damaged the people they were pitching to.  Rust Belt denizens who felt that they'd been forgotten and abandoned by both parties and cultural elites were completely correct, they had been.

Hence what we are now seeing with Donald Trump.  Trump is a populist and if he seems a populist in the mold of Huey Long or Fr. Charles Coughlin, it's because he is. Both of those men from the 1930s pitched to the same base and in the same fashion, and if people suspected that they were anti democratic, it was was a suspicion that was merited in the first instance and correct in the second.  Indeed, Trump may be more like Long in his personality that Coughlin, who was more anti democratic but not personally tainted by personal vice.  

That should be really frightening as what that means is that a large demographic really doesn't care if what Trump does in an effort to retain power is democratic or not.  And that's what gave Italy a figure like Mussolini, Spain a figure like Franco, or Portugal Salazar.  They didn't seize power on their own, they obtained it as they were supported by a real base that had lost interest in democracy in the greater sense and who were concerned only about their own agendas, which they believed to be the correct agendas.

What this means is that the incoming President, Joe Biden, has a massive amount of work to do in order to address populist complaints.  Ultimately, all populist movements break upon reality and the key is to address the complaint, or alternatively to completely bury the complaining demographic politically.  Indeed, all totalitarian populist movements ironically achieve that latter result. Portugal went right from a right wing dictatorship to a radical Socialist government with nothing in between. The Spanish Falangist are thing of the political past.  In the US, however, the disgruntled populist demographic is too large to ignore.

Biden has only four years to really get this fixed.  It'll be a big task, but frankly not an impossible one.  To do it, he has to ignore the advice of his supporters who want to treat the nation like a giant sociology petrie dish.  Forcing more left wing ideology down the throats of the public on social issues will cement the populist drift of the GOP and likely bring a rapid end to Democratic power in Congress in 2022.  Biden, who was once a Republican, and who was at one time an observant Catholic, can return to much of his roots and assuage fears while also addressing issues that need to be addressed.  If that's done, he may come out a hero in what is likely to be his single term, and perhaps start to repair the damage being meted out to the country by a President who clearly doesn't respect American political culture.  Or he can ignore that, or just be ineffectual, and make the damage worse.

At some point, however, people who supported this poorly thought out effort to effect a sort of judicial coup will have to come to account.  We can expect them all to have long political careers, but like American politicians who said nice things about the Nazis in the 1930s, and not like the American politicians who said nice things about  the Soviets in the 1940s, they'll need to address it.  With this having been loosed in the hot wind of this election seasons, something is going to be need to send when the wind calms and the weather cools.  It'll be necessary for the country.

*It probably did put an end to speculation that Cruz would make a good Supreme Court justice.  There's no way he'd pass muster now.

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Myths. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau: 

Wyoming Myths. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

Okay, we recently discussed Sacagawea and, in that context, discussed Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.  Surely we have this covered?

Well, mostly. But to complete the story we really need to address Jean Baptiste as, just like his famous mother, he's the subject of a Wyoming myth. And indeed, it's the same myth.

And its illustrative as to both, as the later life of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau is very well known, and demonstrable with finality.  We know where he went to school, what he did as a young man, a middle aged man, and in the context of his times, as an old man.  

And what he did not do is to go to the Wind River Reservation with his very aged mother.

But that's the myth.

It's hard not to feel sad about the life of Jean Baptiste, even though he probably didn't see it as sad himself.  He wasn't even one year old when he was packed by his mother, as slave to his father, across the western half of North America as his famous mother acted as a guide and interpreter for the Corps of Discovery.  He was a young boy when his mother gave him up to William Clark to be educated, and Clark in fact enrolled him in two successive schools, the first a Jesuit school and the second another private school, at great expense.  He was therefore well educated for this time and became even more so when met Duke Friedrich Paul Wihlem of Wurttenberg in 1823 while he was traveling in the United States.  Jean Baptiste was working at a Kaw trading post on the Kansas River at the time.  The Duke was being guided by Toussaint Charbonneau on a trip to the northern plains.  He invited the younger Charbonneau to return to Europe with him, which he did.  He apparently traveled with the Duke in Europe and Africa while his guest.

Upon returning to North American he resumed a Western life and worked as a trapper, hunter and guide.  He was later a gold prospector.  In 1866 he died in Oregon after some sort of accident which threw him into a frigid river and left him with pneumonia.  He was 61 years old at the time.

He lived a rich and varied life, and a fairly well documented one. That he died in Oregon is something for which there is no doubt.

None the less, Grace Raymond Hebard placed his death in 1885 on the Wind River Reservation, and the work of Dr. Charles Eastman likewise places him there. And this all dates to the the stories associated with Porivo, and her adult son who entered the Reservation with her.  As with his mother, who died in North Dakota, there is a grave marker for him on the Reservation.

His actual grave is known as to location, and is in Oregon.

As with his famous mother, his reconstructed myth does not serve him well, although unlike his mother he lived a fairly long life.  He would have lived a longer one if the Wyoming myth was correct, but that would not do his life justice.  It was remarkably adventuresome right up to the point of his death, and like his mothers it crossed back and forth between two worlds in a way that makes contemporary readers uncomfortable.

2020 Thanksgiving Reflections.

One of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms paintings used as wartime posters, first coming out in 1943.  They were based on his prewar January 1941 speech advocating for these freedoms. At the time of the speech, and certainly at the time of the war, a lot of people didn't have a freedom from want.

In some prior years I've put up a Thanksgiving Day post. Some years, I don't.

There's a lot of hubris in writing a blog, a principal part of that being the thoughts that 1) you have anything meaningful to say; and 2) anyone cares to read it.  In large part, probably neither of those are true, so no blogger should feel compelled to write an entry.  Still, some years. . . 

For a lot of people, this will be a Thanksgiving like no other. Well, rather, like no other one that that we recall. There are certainly plenty of North American Thanksgivings that more strongly resemble this one than we might imagine. * 

After all, the holiday was already fully established as a European religious observation long before the passengers of the Mayflower put in early as they were out of beer (which is in fact why they put in when they did).  We might imagine those early Thanksgiving celebrants looking like they were out of a Rockwell or Leyendecker illustration, but they likely rarely did.

Clean parents, chubby child. . . probably not very accurate for the early colonial period.  Carrying a matchlock on the way to church might be however, and not because they were going to hunt turkeys on the way home.  Illustration by J. C. Leyendecker from November 1917.

Indeed, a lot of the giving of thanks on days like this from prior eras was probably of a much more to the bone nature. The crop didn't fail, when it looked like it might.  The milk cow didn't bloat up and die.  The Algonquian's simply walked by the village a couple of months ago when it looked like they might attack.  That ship on the horizon wasn't a French one and no Troupes de Marne landed to raise the district.  The Spanish didn't arrive from the south.

Freedom from Fear.  For much of human history, most people lived in fear for at least some of the time.

Part of all of that, on top of it, was dealing with political and physical turmoil.

Smallpox arrived and went leaving people, if they were lucky, scarred for live.  The flu came and when it did people died nearly every time.  Horses kicked people in the ribs and they died in agony a few days later.  Dog and cat bites turned septic.  Tooth infections were caught too late causing fevers that went right to the brain and then on to death.

Storms came with only hours, or minutes, warning.  Hurricanes arrived with no notice.  Tornadoes ripped through villages at random.  Hail destroyed crops.  Early winters froze the crops in the ground. Spring thaws came suddenly and swept animals, houses, and people away.  Snow blocked travel and locked people who still had to work outdoors during the winter indoors.  People got lost, and then were lost forever.  Seafarers disappeared in winter storms and were never heard of again, or if they were they were, their washed up bodies were identified by the patterns in their wool sweaters, unique to individual villages, like dog tags of their day.

And added to that, there was the additional turmoil of vast struggles beyond people's control.  Catholics lived in fear of oppression from Protestants.  Protestant dissenters lived in fear of the Established Church.  Jews lived in fear of everyone.  Forces in England struggled against the Crown and each other and their fights spilled out to their colonies.  Native Americans lived in fear of a European population of an expansive nature that seemed to defy the laws of nature.  Africans lived in fear of slavers and if that fate befell them they thereafter lived in lifelong despair.

Freedom of Worship. Even this American value didn't come about until the scriveners of the Constitution prevented the United States from creating a state religion.  At the time of the Revolution the Congress had declared the Crown's tolerance of Catholicism in Quebec one of the "Intolerable Acts". As late as the Civil War Gen. Grant's General Order No. 11 targeted Jews.

The point is, I guess, that our ancestors endured all of this and made it.

Of course, they endured it better sometimes than in others.  When they lost the ability to at least get along, things got very bad indeed.  The most notable example, probably, came in 1860 to 1865 when Americans had reached the point where their differences could only be solved violently.

When those things got that way, one notable thing was the fragility of civility, order and even common sense.  In bad times Americans have done well if their leaders had a vision, even if disagreed with, and were clear about it, even if the opposition was distinct in that opposition.  A key to it was an overall sense that we were all in this together in spite of those differences.  The US did well as a society in the Great War, even with lots of failings, as it generally agreed with Wilson that something needed to be done in Europe and we had to do it, and even if we disagreed with that, we were all Americans and weren't going to send just our neighbor off to fight.  We did very well in World War Two uniting behind Franklin  Roosevelt and Harry Truman on the concept that we were a democratic nation, united by that, and we were going to bring those values to a world that had forgotten them, even if some wished the war hadn't ever come.  We did pretty well in the Cold War, with the exception of some real distress in the late 40s and early 50s, and again in the late 60s and early 70s, with the idea that we were freedom's sentinel, even if we didn't always like what that meant.

Right now, we're a mess.

We are not united on anything, and we've politicized everything.  And our polarization is massive.

We've been polarized of course before, but it's been sometime since we were this split, or so it would seem. Some would argue that we're really not, and that most are in the middle.

If we aren't mostly in the middle, the problem then becomes the point at which we arrive at a point at which we not only aren't, but we've reached the state where the polarized sides only see forcing their view at all costs upon the other as the solution.

Advanced nations have had that happen before.  Weimar Germany lived in a state of being that started off that way in 1918 and dissolved due to that in 1932.  It wasn't that there were not right wingers who valued democracy over force, or that there were not left wingers who valued democracy over force, but rather that people quit listening to them and opted for the parties that promised to force their views with dominating finality.

That is, of course, sort of what happened in 1860 to us, when one side decided that it had to have its way so much that it would leave to get it, and kill to maintain it.

Surely we're not there yet. But one thing we are is fatigued.  And that's not a good thing.  A lot of people have just had enough. They're worn down by the Pandemic. They're tired of politicians.  They don't want to hear anymore.  It's not that they're disinterested. 

They're tired.

So perhaps we can look back on those early North American Thanksgivings here a bit.  The crops didn't fail.  The North Koreans didn't attack South Korea. The Chinese didn't invade Taiwan.  The Russians didn't suddenly decide they wanted Poland back.

And yes, a lot of us fell ill, some will never fully recover, and some have died. That will continue on.  But as tragic as that is, we've had their better times and our prior health, and as grim as it is, it serves as a reminder that our path through here is temporary, and if, in the words of the old country song, we "don't have a home in this world anymore", well we never had a perfect one.

Freedom of speech, something which most people have not had except on a local level since at least the point at which society became advanced, but which is an American hallmark.

Related threads:

Thanksgiving Reflections

A Thanksgiving Passing

Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

*Thanksgiving isn't really a North American holiday any more than its just an American one, in the larger sense, and this confusing entry here reflects that.  I'm mostly referring to the United States in this entry, and the predecessor English colonies, but not exclusively, as can be seen by text above that's more applicable to other areas.

The First Supreme Court. Who were they, and how many of them were there?

There were only six.  That number was set by the 1789 act establishing the Court.

The original Supreme Court heard very very few cases and much of its initial duties surrounded organizing the Court. The cases it heard were important, but the justices themselves had extensive extra obligations as they were also circuit judges, riding a circuit, for circuit courts.

John Jay was the first Chief Justice.  He served for six  years and went on to become Governor of New York.  He as confirmed in 1801 for a second term as Chief Justice, and declined it.

He lived for a long time after his retirement from politics, dying at age 84.

Jay was an opponent of slavery, although like many early opponents, had actually held slaves at one point in his life while still opposing slavery.

Scottish born James Wilson served until his death by way of a stroke at age 55.  He was one of the architects of the office of the Presidency.

His office did not cause him to escape misfortune and he spent his final years in poverty.

William Cushing served until his death at age 78.  He was the last Supreme Court Justice to wear a wig.  He was nominated to be Chief Justice and approved by the Senate, but declined the appointment. 

John Blair stepped down after five years on the Court, living another few years and dying at age 68.

John Rutledge  attained the position of Chief Justice on an interim appointment but he was subsequently rejected by the Senate. That and controversy surrounding his criticism of the Jay Treaty wrecked him and he stepped down prior to dying at age 60.

British born James Iredell maintained the position until his death at age 48, a death partially brought on by the burdens of riding circuit.

In 1801 the number of justices was reduced to five in an effort by outgoing President John Adams to limit Thomas Jefferson, his successors, picks.  That didn't last long and by 1807 the statutory number was seven, when a seventh judicial district was added. In 1837 it went to nine, by which time there were nine districts.  In 1863 it went to ten as there were ten districts.  In 1866 it was scaled back to seven, but then in 1869 it was put back to nine.

September 1, 1920. Lebanon, Submarines, and Chicago.

The flag of Greater Lebanon featuring the Lebanese cedar and the French tricolor.

 

On this day in 1920, Greater Lebanon came into existence as a French administrative unit.

Syria had attempted to define Lebanon as an administrative Syrian unit in its short lived state that was brought to an end by France in 1920.  It's origins went back to the 1860s when European powers entered into a series of treaties with the Ottoman Empire in an effort to protect the Christian population of the region which has been subject to religious violence.  The boundaries of the state were larger than those originally regarded as Lebanese and were based upon the map featured here yesterday. The expanded boundaries were created in order to attempt to give the region, which was anticipated as having statehood in the future, a large enough territory to have some sort of economic base.

The League of Nations would approve the creation of the entity in 1923 and it was declared to be the Republic of Lebanon in 1926 while still under French administration.  It's status became a matter of contest during World War Two when the French Vichy administration allowed the Germans to transport arms through Syria to be used against British forces in the Middle East.  Free French General Charles de Gaulle declared it to be independent in 1941, under pressure from the Allies to do so, in a move that would have been legally questionable.  

On November 8, 1943 Lebanon held elections for an independent government and declared the League of Nations mandate over it to be terminated, which brought immediate Free French reaction in the form of arresting the government.  However, on November 22, 1943 they were released under Allied pressure. The French left in December 1946, at which point both Syria and Lebanon had been admitted as founding members of the United Nations.  No formal end of the mandate was ever declared.

Flag of Lebanon.

Lebanon has always had a troubled existence and its independence has not changed that.  Regarded as a bright spot in the Middle East in the immediate post war world, regional violence has made the tiny state highly unstable and its religiously and ethnically diverse population have not always gotten along well since that time, with civil war dominating the 1970s and 1980s.  Created as a state that was specifically to be a home for Maronite Arab Christians, members of the Catholic church whose branch dates back to Christianity's early days, demographic changes in the country, including a high immigration rate to the West (although Lebanese also have the highest return from immigration rate in the world) and an influx of Shia's have made the original political informal balance unstable.  

This is a story that has a tangential impact on me, as one of my late uncle's was half Lebanese and half Irish by descent.  His mother was Lebanese although I've lost track of whether she was born in Lebanon (I think she was) or the United States.  Her parents had brought the entire family over when she was young.  She had met and married her husband in Nebraska, but in latter years the extended family had a significant presence in Casper Wyoming where there was a small Lebanese immigrant community.  

This reminds me that many of the divides that are commonly assumed to exist in the U.S. really don't in the way they're sometimes understood to.  In Catholic communities the mixing of people of highly diverse ethnicity is frankly common.

France, for its part, which has taken an interest in the region dating back to the Middle Ages continues to do so today.

On the same day the USS S-5, an American submarine, sank accidentally when a crewman failed to close a value, and in attempting to rectify the mistake, jammed it open.  No lives were lost.  It was refloated, but sank again on September 3 while under tow.

Sonar image of the S-5 today.

The S-5 was just going into service when the accident occured.  She was an S Class submarine, which was a new type adopted during World War One but which came too late for any of the class to see service during the war.  A fair number of them remained in service when World War Two broke out and saw service, in spite of being dated, in both the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy.  Thirteen of the boats served all the way through the war for the U.S. Navy, with all but one decommissioned in October, 1945. The last remaining one in service was decommissioned a year later.

A killing in Chicago was attributed, by the killer, to widespread firearms carrying in Wyoming.

The details, at least as known at the time, were that wealthy real estate broker Gerald Stack was visiting Chicago when he pulled a pistol to use it to pistol whip a man, a discharged marine, who had insulted a woman in the bar.  A tussle resulted and Stack claimed that the gun discharged several times, killing the other party.

Questions were raised about why Stack was packing heat, and he attributed that to the custom in Wyoming.

A question can actually be raised to the extent to which Stack's statement was accurate, and it would take somebody with more time to really find out. Certainly, firearms weren't uncommon in Wyoming and in 1920 it would still have been probable that many people in rural areas went about armed, and indeed, that's still the case.  Indeed Wyoming train robber Bill Carlisle attributed part of his reason for moving to Wyoming to the fact that firearms were common and therefore you could always hunt for food if you were out of work, a statement that was apparently untrue as he took up train robbery.

Carrying firearms in town, however, wasn't universal anywhere in the West as so often believed and had actually been illegal in some Wyoming towns in the late 19th Century, although I don't know the status of that in 1920. Certainly one other murder earlier in 1920 which we've also featured here also featured a girl and a bar, showed the parties to have ready access to firearms.  

An interesting aspect of both of these stories is the alcohol aspect of them.  By this time, alcohol had been illegal for awhile, and yet it was clearly showing up.  That fact is often oddly overlooked in the story of American violence, which has dramatically declined in recent years.  When it occurs, it tends to occur between people who know each other and when they don't know each other, it's like automobile accidents. . . booze or drugs show up.  Nobody seems to ever really ponder the latter.

Carrying a handgun in Chicago in 1920 doesn't strike me as a bad idea, given that the town has been notoriously violent since its earliest days and still is. Some would argue that carrying in Chicago today would be a good idea, and should be more widely allowed than it is.

It's also interesting how often the age old mix of men and women and a contest between men over women show up at any time as the roots source of such events.

Today In Wyoming's History: Ft. Halleck, sort of. Near Elk Mountain Wyoming

Today In Wyoming's History: Ft. Halleck, sort of. Near Elk Mountain Wyoming:

Ft. Halleck, sort of. Near Elk Mountain Wyoming

Where Ft. Halleck was, from a great distance.

This set of photographs attempts to record something from a very great distance, and with the improper lenses.   I really should have known better, quite frankly, and forgot to bring the lense that would have been ideal.  None the less, looking straight up the center of this photograph, you'll see where Ft. Halleck once was.

The post was located at the base of Elk Mountain on the Overland Trail, that "shortcut" alternative to the Oregon Trail that shaved miles, at the expense of convenience and risk.  Ft. Halleck was built in 1862 to reduce the risk.  Whomever located the post must have done so in the summer, as placing a post on this location would seem, almost by definition, to express a degree of ignorance as to what the winters here are like.

 The area to the northeast of where Ft. Halleck once was.

The fort was only occupied until 1866, although it was a major post during that time.  Ft. Sanders, outside the present city of Laramie, made the unnecessary and to add to that, Sanders was in a more livable 

Of course, by that time the Union Pacific was also progressing through the area, and that would soon render the Overland Trail obsolete.  While not on an identical path the Overland Trail and the Union Pacific approximated each others routes and, very shortly, troops would be able to travel by rail.

As that occured, it would also be the case that guarding the railroad would become a more important function for the Army, and forts soon came to be placed on it.

Elk Mountain

And, therefore, Ft. Halleck was abandoned.

A Checkerboard Blunder?

Note:  This was teed up to run prior to the Governor's recent announcement confirming that the land had, in fact, been sold to another party.

This is one of those stories where I feel that I've really missed something

For the basic outline of what this is about, in the 1860s Congress gave a big swatch of property to the Union Pacific Railroad in an every other section pattern.  That is, every other square mile, for several miles north and south of the railroad, was given to the Union Pacific.  The huge swatch of territory involved in this goes all the way across Wyoming and into Nebraska, Utah, and Colorado.

It's big.

It's referred to as a "checkerboard" because that's the pattern it has on the ground, all across the state and into neighboring states.

Part  of the UP checkerboard down around Medicine Bow.

It also effectively blocked up land in Wyoming along the path like nothing else.  The United States retained the other parts of the checkerboard for homesteading, but due to a variety of factors, much of it was never claimed by homestead entrants.  And while the thought was that the UP would sell the land to agriculturalist and thereby be helped in recouping its investment, much of it was never sold either.  Indeed, if you could homestead in the neighboring section for free, why would you buy from the UP?

Not that the UP didn't benefit.  It did.  It leased the surface to ranchers and, over time, the land proved to be rich in mineral wealth, particularly coal, oil and natural gas.  The UP made a bundle on it in that fashion.

Ultimately the UP's mineral branch separated and became another company, Anadarko Petroleum.  A few  years ago Anadarko pulled out of Wyoming to concentrate on the Permian Basin in Texas. When it did, it sold the checkerboard to Occidental Petroleum.  It went into debt to purchase it.

Occidental has been in financial trouble in recent years, which doesn't make it unique in the oil and gas industry by any means, and it is now seeking to sell the checkerboard itself.

Enter the State of Wyoming.

Or maybe not.

Somehow the land was made available to the State, and Governor Gordon went before the legislature in the last session to seek approval to make an offer to Occidental.  At that time opposition developed to the purchase, although I frankly don't understand it.  The money was coming from the permanent mineral trust fund and was regarded as an investment.  But conservative criticism developed ranging from the land costing too much to this simply being something the state shouldn't be getting into.

I frankly thought the criticism was wrong headed right from the start.  Or, looking at it perhaps more realistically, far too short sighted.  The state would make its money back over time without a doubt. And the value of the land will go up with out a doubt.  Weighting the cost in the short term makes sense if you are a human being, and in the case of most legislatures that means you are going to be dead in 20 or so years, but it doesn't make sense if you are a  political entity that will live on and on.

It simply doesn't..

Which has nothing to do with why I think this was a great idea.

And has everything, I suspect, to do with why some people think it was a horrible idea.

More on that in a moment.

When the legislature first heard of it, it approved it in the House right away, and then the opposition became organized and it bogged down. 

Much of the questioning at that point was centered on the price.  Frankly, to most outsiders familiar with land values the prices being discussed looked really good.  I.e., it looked like the state as about to get a great deal. But comments were made, as are sometimes heard from the ill informed, which seem to assume that ranch land values are frozen in the 1950s.  It's odd.

Following that, Governor Gordon withdrew it from legislative consideration taking the position that he could act without legislative approval, which may be correct in this instance.  Nobody challenged that.

Well, now somebody else is bidding.

Much Anticipated Wyoming Bid To Purchase Occidental Land "On Hold"

And it looks like they, whoever they are, will get it.

Some are rejoicing, including some whose rejoicing I can't grasp.  Take into account, for example, the statement from the Powder River Basin Resource Council:

Powder River Statement on Wyoming’s Failed Occidental Petroleum Land Bid

Powder River Basin Resource Council says Wyoming has been saved from a potentially serious financial blunder.

Powder River Basin Resource Council expressed optimism that Wyoming’s bid for millions of acres of land and mineral rights has apparently failed. Occidental Petroleum (OXY) is negotiating with another bidder instead.

“Luckily, Wyoming seems to have dodged a bullet, and escaped what was shaping up to be a very costly investment mistake – sinking maybe a billion dollars of public money into land and minerals. This ill-conceived use of our state’s “permanent” investment funds would have broken an elementary investing rule of sovereign wealth funds, by doubling down on Wyoming’s primary source of existing revenue. And that mistake would have been magnified in this economy where our foundational revenues are sinking fast,” said Bob LeResche, Powder River Board member.

“We remain concerned that there has never been transparency from the state in this process. The Administration and a few insiders hatched this idea behind closed doors, and the Governor vetoed legislation that required public review. The only reason we know what little we do is that the public, organizations such as Powder River, and the press forced disclosure of how a few politicians and bureaucrats were intending to spend Wyoming’s Permanent Mineral Trust Fund. It is unfortunate that the government has wasted so much time and so much money on this speculative deal.

“This so called ‘bold bid’ looks more like we may have averted a bold blunder. We hope that now our government can concentrate on its real job, such as diversifying our economy, slowing the plunge in our revenues, and revising our unsustainable tax structure. And we hope that the managers of our assets can improve their returns without resorting to further unconventional investments like ‘the biggest land purchase in state history.’”

That statement makes their view clear, but I still don't get it.

Here's why.

That big swath of land right through the middle of the state which is effectively off limits to average people.

Because every other section is private, the public land can't be legally accessed.

Now, not all that land remains in Occidental hands.  Some sections were ones in which Occidental only owns the mineral estate.  But that's still worth a lot.

But the fact that Occidental is the surface owner of a lot of it, and every other section was public lands, essentially meant that you simply couldn't get to the public lands.  It's not legal to "step over a corner", as so many Wyomingites believed at one time, and a decreasing number continue to believe.

This would have changed all that.

I frankly can't see a downside to this sale.  Perhaps we're about to enter a new energy realm in which coal and oil don't matter anymore, although that's presuming a lot, and the mineral estate will suddenly be worthless.  Okay, if that's the case, the economic value of the land would be hugely reduced.  But most analysts think that petroleum will continue to matter for a long time.  Even the most optimistic environmentalist would generally conceded that petrochemicals will matter for a long time, and for that reason petroleum will matter for a long time.  

And the land has value beyond that.  It has leasing value for grazing, and it has logging value in some places.

But most of all, in my view, it has hunting, fishing and camping value.  

And that value could have gone on and on.

But now, that opportunity will be lost .

Depicting Jesse James

There is very little to admire about Jesse James, and yet Americans for generations have.

Jesse James, 1876.

James, as everyone knows, was the Missouri born leader of what was essentially a family, and indeed an ethnic, gang based in Missouri that successfully operated for a time in the Post Civil War Missouri region.  James and his siblings had been exposed to extreme violence as Confederate guerillas during the war and were endowed with the "Little Dixie" region of Missouri's views on the world, none of which would draw sympathy from many people today, but which allowed them to operate relatively safely in the region in spite of their criminal activities due to the feeling that they were, in some ways, continuing the Southern cause.  Those views didn't hold up everywhere in Missouri and they certainly didn't outside of the state, which brought the end of the gang following an extremely failed attempt to raid a bank in Northfield Minnesota.

In spite of the fact that James-Younger gang is not admirable in any sense, they've been the topic of fascination of Americans since their very own time and therefore have been the subject of numerous movies.  Indeed, there are at least twenty screen depiction of James and his gang including one television series from 1965-66.  Numerous Americans claim to be related or descendant from James no matter how dubious their claims may be and, just like for Butch Cassidy, plenty of people claim that James didn't die from a bullet to the back of the head fired by Bob Ford in 1882.  He did.

I haven't seen most of the films that portray James, but there are three that really stand out that a lot of people have seen and which are worth mentioning.  I'll deal with them here, in chronological order.

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid is a 1972 film limited to the raid on Northfield Minnesota and the events leading up to it.  It has a notable cast, including a young Robert Duvall as James and Cliff Robertson as Cole Younger.  It's a fictionalized version of the raid containing fanciful and strained elements but it's really notable for Duvall's portray of James as a homicidal maniac.  It's worth watching for that reason as Duvall, in a portrayal that perhaps could be regarded as an example of an early anti Western, portrays a really disturbing James which served to strip him from the heroic portrayal that was more common up until then.  Robertson, however, steals the show with a really eclectic portrayal of an intellectually curious Younger.

The film isn't bad in terms of material details.

Returning, however, to a more sympathetic portrayal is the sweeping 1980 The Long Riders which is really unique for casting actors who were in fact brothers to play characters in the true story who were actually brothers.  While this film is only eight years later than The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid it placed really close attention to material details and has the look and feel of mid 19th Century Missouri right.  

As noted, the film made use of actual siblings, with the Keach bothers playing the James brothers, the Caradine brothers playing the Younger brothers, the Quaids playing the Miller brothers, and the Guests playing Bob and Charley Ford.  In some odd way that makes the film feel that much more accurate.

This film starts before the Northfield Minnesota Raid and also features James Whitmore, Jr. as a Pinkerton agent.  It concludes with Ford's killing of James.

As does the 2007 film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.  The awkwardly long title of the film in some ways sets this film up nicely for what it is, a beautifully filmed and very accurate movie which starts after the Northfield Minnesota Raid and deals with the gang and its central post raid figures.  Extremely moody and presented almost like a narrated book, Brad Pitt's portrayal of James as a highly intelligent, charismatic, and mentally deranged figure is brilliant.  Casely Affleck's Robert Ford is really the main focus of the film and his portrayal of James "assassin" is likewise brilliantly done.  The portrayals are so effective that they risk actually defining the real individuals, which may not be fair in context.

This film is superb on material details and it has the look and feel of mid 19th Century Missouri, and then briefly late 19th Century Colorado, just right.  The film concludes with the death of Bob Ford, showing how its focus is really on the Ford character, not on James.  In some ways its a subtle morality tale which none of the other James movies are.  If a person was going to watch just one of these films, this one would be the one to watch.

The missed opportunity. 40 Acres and a Mule.

"The end of the line of one hundred thirty Negro farmers with mule teams who are buying their cotton seed and other supplies cooperatively at Roanoke Farms, North Carolina."  1938.

Every once and a while in  history you can look back on a specific event and know exactly when the opportunity to cause a different historical outcome was lost.  It's rare, but it does occur.

And eschewing Radical Reconstruction following the Civil War is one such example, the tragic consequences of which we are still living with today.

That opinion, which I've held for a very long time, has not been a popular one in American history for the reason, I'd submit, that the compromise of the 1870s followed by the renewed rise of Southern aristocracy and the glorification of the "Lost Cause" worked an inaccurate historical revision on it, or at least upon its attitude.  Suffice it to say, most historians have tended to herald the demise of Radical Reconstruction following the Lincoln assassination and have taken the position instead that Lincoln wouldn't have approved of it, and as the great reuniter, he would have done what Andrew Johnson did . . . reconstruction, but not so radical.

I'm not so sure.  Lincoln was a shrewd man, something often forgotten about him.  A man willing to endure the war that he did may have been willing to thrown in with the radicals in his final term and forced the conclusion of the effort that was started in 1860.  There are, of course, reasons to believe that he would not have taken that path, he was after all acting in a conciliatory way as the war ended, but there are reasons to believe the opposite  He was a shrewd politician, and one of conviction, who had proven unusually willing to endure extreme hardship in order to obtain a goal. Would any other newly elected President have been willing to take the country into a Civil War in 1860 without any effort to placate the states attempting departure?

We'll never know, of course, but we can wonder and truly not know.  We can know, however, that not following through with the goals of the Radical Republicans was a mistake.

A huge mistake.

The Radicals would have taken steps to reform, in the true sense of the word, the South politically, economically and socially (and for all practical purposes in that order, while simultaneously). That would have meant politically disenfranchising the treasonous portion of the white Southern population while enfranchising the blacks, but it would have meant far more than that.  Indeed, the one good bit of evidence that Lincoln would have gone with the Radicals is that politically enfranchising the former slave population in fact did occur during Lincoln's late administration and it continued on during Johnson's.  Blacks were made citizens and given the right to vote, even achieving a majority black government in South Carolina for a time.

But it also would have meant, in some form, putting the black population into the economic shoes formerly owned by the treasonous planter class who dominated the South economically and politically. And that would have meant busting up the plantations and distributing land to the freed slaves.

And that idea was definitely around by the mid point in the Civil War.  Indeed, it was definitely circulating around in the Army, which had occasionally taken a liberating view towards slaves even early in the war.  It was expressed in the sentiment that caused General William T. Sherman to issue Special Field Order Number 15, which read:

Special Field Orders No. 15.

Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, In the Field, Savannah, Ga., January 16, 1865.

I. The islands from Charleston south, the abandoned rice-fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the Saint Johns River, Fla., are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the BLACKS now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States.

II. At Beaufort, Hilton Head, Savannah, Fernandina, Saint Augustine, and Jacksonville the blacks may remain in their chosen or accustomed vocations; but on the islands, and in the settlements hereafter to be established, no white person whatever, unless military officers and soldiers detailed for duty, will be permitted to reside; and the sole and exclusive management of affairs will be left to the freed people themselves, subject only to the United States military authority and the acts of Congress. By the laws of war and orders of the President of the United States the negro is free, and must be dealt with as such. He cannot be subjected to conscription or forced military service, save by the written orders of the highest military authority of the Department, under such regulations as the President or Congress may prescribe; domestic servants, blacksmiths, carpenters, and other mechanics will be free to select their own work and residence, but the young and able-bodied negroes must be encouraged to enlist as soldiers in the service of the United States, to contribute their share toward maintaining their own freedom and securing their rights as citizens of the United States. Negroes so enlisted will be organized into companies, battalions, and regiments, under the orders of the United States military authorities, and will be paid, fed, and clothed according to law. The bounties paid on enlistment may, with the consent of the recruit, go to assist his family and settlement in procuring agricultural implements, seed, tools, boats, clothing, and other articles necessary for their livelihood.

III. Whenever three respectable negroes, heads of families, shall desire to settle on land, and shall have selected for that purpose an island, or a locality clearly defined within the limits above designated, the inspector of settlements and plantations will himself, or by such sub-ordinate officer as he may appoint, give them a license to settle such island or district, and afford them such assistance as he can to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement. The three parties named will subdivide the land, under the supervision of the inspector, among themselves and such others as may choose to settle near them, so that each family shall have a plot of not more than forty acres of tillable ground, and when it borders on some water channel with not more than 800 feet water front, in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford them protection until such time as they can protect themselves or until Congress shall regulate their title. The quartermaster may, on the requisition of the inspector of settlements and plantations, place at the disposal of the inspector one or more of the captured steamers to ply between the settlements and one or more of the commercial points, heretofore named in orders, to afford the settlers the opportunity to supply their necessary wants and to sell the products of their land and labor.

IV. Whenever a negro has enlisted in the military service of the United States he may locate his family in any one of the settlements at pleasure and acquire a homestead and all other rights and privileges of a settler as though present in person. In like manner negroes may settle their families and engage on board the gunboats, or in fishing, or in the navigation of the inland waters, without losing any claim to land or other advantages derived from this system. But no one, unless an actual settler as above defined, or unless absent on Government service, will be entitled to claim any right to land or property in any settlement by virtue of these orders.

V. In order to carry out this system of settlement a general officer will be detailed as inspector of settlements and plantations, whose duty it shall be to visit the settlements, to regulate their police and general management, and who will furnish personally to each head of a family, subject to the approval of the President of the United States, a possessory title in writing, giving as near as possible the description of boundaries, and who shall adjust all claims or conflicts that may arise under the same, subject to the like approval, treating such titles altogether as possessory. The same general officer will also be charged with the enlistment and organization of the negro recruits and protecting their interests while absent from their settlements, and will be governed by the rules and regulations prescribed by the War Department for such purpose.

VI. Brig. Gen. R. Saxton is hereby appointed inspector of settlements and plantations and will at once enter on the performance of his duties. No change is intended or desired in the settlement now on Beaufort Island, nor will any rights to property heretofore acquired be affected thereby.

By order of Maj. Gen. W. T. Sherman:

L. N. DAYTON, Assistant Adjutant-General.

— William T. Sherman, Military Division of the Mississippi; 1865 series - Special Field Order 15, January 16, 1865.

What Sherman ordered had a limited application, but others had a broader one in mind. And Sherman had seen something and appreciated it which made his act no only charitable, but political.  His armies had just marched across the American South from west to east and he'd seen nearly all of the Southern heartland.  He well knew that the economic power of the South was completely vested in large plantations and that the plantations and the planters are what had supported, and caused, the war.  Deprive the planters of their slaves and the Southern cause was over.

Indeed, most Southern soldiers were yeomen, which provided in some ways the ultimately irony of the Southern fight.  Yeomen by and large did not own slaves, although a few did. Their lives were marked by fierce independence and they were more or less aligned against everyone but their immediate families and neighbors.  Their stalwart independent frames of mind made them good soldiers in combat but also made them unreliable as well, figuring into both the length of the Southern war against the odds and the high desertion rate of the Southern armies, and even some instances of outright rebellion of various regions, West Virginia being the most notable, against the Confederacy.  In the antebellum period the yeomanry had been hostile to blacks but their hostility was not merely racist (it certainly was in part) but economic, viewing blacks as economic implements used against them by their real class enemies, the planters.

There was real hope in the post war period that enfranchising blacks with land would convert them to yeomanry and even the yeomanry seems to have grasped that in some places, forming tentative alliances in the post Reconstruction period with blacks as the planter class reasserted itself and disenfranchised everyone else.  In the immediate post war period, however, the real opportunity was presented, and lost.

Radical Republicans would have redistributed the planter landholdings to freed slaves. The logic was inescapable to everyone.  Plantations had been built and worked on forced black labor.  They would not have existed but for it. Deprive them of it, and they wouldn't exist.  Moreover, as that labor was forced it could be regarded as stolen, with the reparation of the worked land as compensation for the theft.

Most of the Southern black population had farming skills in an era when most Americans were farmers. What they lacked was land, animals and implements.  Lost to the modern American romantic notion of "homesteading", building up sufficient resources in order to start a farm was very difficult and nobody just simply "did it".  Homesteaders often took years building up sufficient assets in order to strike out on their own even when supported by paying employment or (farming) families.  Freed blacks in the South had, at best, their household possessions at the time they were freed.  They were universally poor.

Hence the "40 acres and a mule" ideal. What that really meant was the vesting of 40 acres, the basic American agricultural unit, and a mule, the most durable farm animal and one that could be used for planting and transportation.  Inherent in that phrase was the provision of basic implements.  All of these were readily available in the South and capable of quick obtainment and distribution.

What was needed in order to do that was a legal vehicle to accomplish and the will to do it.  Both were lacking.

Legally,. the problem was the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution which provide that people's property simply can't be taken.  There are exceptions, of course, such as Eminem domain, but they they still require that the land taken be taken with "just compensation" to the owners.  Therefore if we can imagine a way in which the land would have been taken from planters we still have to imagine one in which the planters would have been compensated for it.

That might not, however, be as difficult to imagine as we might think.  For one thing, while it would have been a huge investment on the part of the United States, the land's value in 1865 wasn't what it was in 1860.  Purchasing plantations at fair market value, all that would have been owed, would have been getting a heck of a deal at the time.  Like Tara in Gone With The Wind, that land was a mess by the end of the war.

But more radical means may have been available as well.

The South would never have attempted to break away from the Union but for slavery. The slave holding class saw slavery as vital to the economy of the South (this turned out not to be true) and thought the elimination of slavery would destroy the Southern economy.  No matter how it was dressed up, that was the underlying basis for it all.  Most Southerners, as noted, were farmers but most weren't slaveholders. Balancing that out, it should be noted, there were a lot of mid sized farmers that owned a small number of slaves but who still worked their own lands. Not all slaveholders, in other words, owned large plantations.  Indeed, there were slaveholders who were not in agriculture at all, although most were.  But production agriculture based upon slave labor was the economic backbone of the South.

Political power in the South was very unbalanced in addition.  Whereas Jefferson, a slaveholder, could imagine in the late 1700s a republic in which most voters were free yeomanry, in reality the slave-holding class held the political reins.  Yeomanry, the most numerous class (outside of South Carolina) did not.  Everywhere, of course, blacks held no political power at all, which made the Southern claim of the Civil War that their departure from the Union represented the will of the people a lie.  The people's will didn't include, rather obviously, the will of the black residents.  In South Carolina, the majority of those residents were black.

This is all noted as there were no Southern states where support for succession wasn't backed by the slaveholding class directly and there were few planters who weren't connected, in some fashion, with the South's war against the nation.  Given that, they were implicated in treason, if we accept that reason not only included fighting in a rebel army against the nation, but serving in a rebel legislature or rebel government, or giving material support to the rebellion.  It would have been few in that class who could have really escaped being implicated in the war against the United States.

Now, a person can't be tried for treason simply because he was on the losing side of a rebellion in terms of his residents or regional residence. But the United States didn't bother attempting to try anyone for treason at all.  Treason, at that time, was a capitol offense.  Executing those who had committed it seriously would have been allowable under the law, but would not have been a wise thing to do.  But trying those, like Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis, who made war against their country and sentencing them to long prison sentences would have been warranted.  Indeed, Davis was held in anticipation of just such a trial, and a jury pool, half black and half white, raised in anticipation of that, before he was released.  In fairness, part of the reason he was not tried was a fear that succession would be held to be legal, a fear that was relieved in 1869 when the Supreme Court held it was not.

Lee and Davis both lost their plantations in fact, and others did as well. But what did not occur was the mass acquisition of them by the United States for redistribution to the freed slaves.  Freed blacks were well aware that land was economic freedom and none the less pursued it, but given their lack of resources they could never acquire it in the same volume that white southerners could and did.  Starting in the 1910s they began to give up and move out of the South, with the result that changed a situation in which 90% of blacks lived in the South in 1910, a figure that had held steady since 1790, to its current figure of just over 50%, which was reached in the 1970s.

Had blacks been able to acquire farmland in the 1860s, as they hoped to do, this history would undoubtedly have been radically different.  The breakup of the Southern plantation economy would have destroyed the planter class as an economic and political base, and vested it in a black and white yeoman class instead.  This is not to say that black and white yeomanry would have suddenly existed in harmony. Southern whites of all classes were hostile to blacks and steeped in generations of racism.  Northern whites, for that matter, held strong racist views.  But Southern yeomanry had shown an acclimation for appreciating their political position and making alliances accordingly.  It's not impossible to imagine them doing that fairly rapidly in the late 19th Century.

Of course history didn't take this path.  Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 and Andrew Johnson, surviving an attempt at impeachment, took the country down the road he thought Lincoln would have wanted to travel. Reconstruction was attempted, but not of the radical variety.

An opportunity was lost.