this bears repeating:

Sherman & Marx both were right: the southern oligarchy needed to be burnt to the ground & the confederacy dismantled completely.

and what's outrageous is that the way to maximize the damage and make sure that secessionist slaveocracy would never rise again would have been by liquidating all their assets and paying out reparations to every single formerly enslaved man, woman, and child. and to given them enough for future generations.

yet here we are.