Civil War ends and an attempt at racial justice was attempted. How did things get so completely flawed?
Swing Around the Circle by Michael Doyle A country brought to ruin sought salvation From a barren wasteland in need of transformation Businesses and plantations brought to nothing Freedmen freed but the dusty road was not the something Needed.. yet the Freedman's Bureau offered little While the North's economy was more in the middle And looking toward wealth drove a Golden Spike in Promontory While the gaping inequality between transformed history So many questions to be settled in the Reconstruction Some would settle for nothing less than Southern destruction Lincoln's view had focused on healthy reincorporation While he sought simple loyalty, others pursued restitution It was a matter of regaining the proper relations Returning the South back into the bosom of our nation It was hoped that there would be less resentment And more the focus on working toward contentment On attending Our American Cousin, Lincoln was shot dead John Wilkes Booth emptied his derringer into his head Declaring Lincoln a tyrant, Booth brought disaster to his cause For next to come for the South would be tyrannical laws After this assassination the national mood was dark and angry Democrat Andrew Johnson succeeded Lincoln in the presidency Coming from humble Tennessean origins into prominence Johnson had less love for freedom and was lacking in eloquence The planter war had done little for poor yeomanry Riling against all elites, Johnson didn't seek prosperity The Radical Republicans recoiled against reincorporation But this was perhaps due to the failure to meet Southern obligations With elected senators who were facing charges of treason The Republicans would not seat these men for that good reason And instead convened a harsh Bureau of Reconstruction Johnson's failure to support civil rights brought his destruction With Johnson's diminished effectiveness Congress rose Up as a force to support the 14th Amendment they proposed Serving to make each freedman a full rights citizen It obligated the states to uphold the rights of these citizens This began the process of which was called 'incorporation' Requiring federal civil rights to be those for all in our nation Johnson argued his case in a swing and circle noose around his neck Nearly bringing his presidency to a near complete and ending wreck Congress wielded its power against Lincoln's preferred edicts Breaking up the conquered South into five military districts Requiring the 14th Amendment's fully complete ratification And tried to legally bar Johnson's removal of Secretary Stanton Cross wielding the executive power in this predicament Directly resulted in Johnson's 1868 punitive impeachment When this tensive policy was set into its final note Johnson's presidency was saved by only one vote As though it was in some sort of symbolic recant The Republicans succeeded in voting in Ulysses S. Grant And still despite the 15th Amendment, carpetbaggers came to power And joined with Southern Scalawags to govern this hour The Forty Acres and a Mule did not ever quite materialize As the sharecroppers and such were harshly marginalized They became a kind of peonage proxy in place of outright slavery Known by any other name in this huge misstep of history Northern idealism was replaced with an aching weariness The past war world was given to peaceful contrariness Old loyalties began too, in their natural inclination The South was home of past presidents that had their reassertion 1876's election of Hayes was a matter of mass corruption That resulted in the final blow through its distinction Slurs and irrelevancies were what won the casting that day While Hayes' supporters waved a bloody shirt along the way Black America too their anguish watched freedom slip away A different future had promised for a much brighter day The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were duly kept But, for true racial justice, America surely wept (c) March 31, 2020 Michael Doyle All Rights Reserved
