Williams Lecture Discussion What is Freedom

8.24.22

What is Freedom? 1865-1877

The Road to War

After Lincoln’s Victory in 1860

• South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas seceded from the Union.

• Created the Confederate States of America: Jefferson Davis as President (Mississippi) and Alexander Stephens (Georgia) as Vice President.

“Our position is thoroughly identified with slavery - the

greatest material interest in the world.”

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

Civil War 1861-1865

❖ A Nation Ripped Apart. ❖ Why Did They Fight? ❖ What Did It All Mean?

Timothy O’Sullivan National Archives

Civil War Legacies ❖ Human: 620,000 dead ❖ Economic: $20 Billion ❖ Political: Republican (North)

ascendancy / Democratic (South) decline

❖ Moral/Spiritual: Anxiety, Disillusionment, Anger, Sectional Divide.

“.. a great gulf between what happened before [the Civil War] in our century and what has happened

since…. It does not seem to me as if I were living in the country in which I was born.” (George Ticknor,

as quoted in Nation of Nations, 2002)

digital file from original photograph. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.08230

Questions ❖ The End of Civil War initiated a new Era of Freedom - but

what did it mean? ❖ Reunification - was a ‘United’ States possible?

❖ New Labor - what would replace slave labor systems previously embedded in the southern psyche?

❖ A New Status - former Enslaved People (4 Million enslaved people before the Civil War); Rebuilding/Reconstructing the South as a whole; the National Government and its responsibilities

❖ Definitions of an American -> Could America change from a “government ‘for white men’ into one ‘for mankind[?]’” as quoted in Foner, The Story of American Freedom, 98

Aftermath

❖ ..”We hoped that in the peace, after such a war, a great expansion would follow in the mind of our country: grand views in every direction - true freedom in politics, in religion, in social science, in thought. But the energy of the nation seems to have expended itself in the war.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, as quoted in Blight, David. Race and Reunion, 38.

http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/art_civil_war/images/fullsize/022.jpg

A New Era

Claiming Freedom A Ride for Liberty - The Fugitive Slaves, March 2, 1862. Eastman

Johnson

• After 1865, with slavery abolished, African Americans actively embraced a new Freedom.

• Family: reunions, bonds, gender roles • Institutions: churches, schools, membership

organizations • Land: notions of ownership and opportunity >

“If I stay here, I’ll never know I’m free.” as quoted in American Horizons, 508.

• Politics: “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.” Frederick Douglass as quoted in Give Me Liberty, 553.

http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/art_civil_war/images/fullsize/ 008.jpg

Reconstruction ❖ Competing Visions of Freedom

❖ “to Reorganize the Southern political system and rebuild shattered public and private institutions.” (Schaller, et al. American Horizons: U.S. History in a Global Context, 507)

❖ Southern way of life, economy, institutions, psyche upended at War's end.

❖ While defeated, the South sought to maintain the previous social order: “the whites seem wholly unable to comprehend that freedom for the negro means the same thing as freedom for them.” Sidney Andrews, northern journalist (1865) as quoted in Foner, The Story of American Freedom, 103.

❖ Free Labor Ideology (North)

❖ Valued capitalism, self-improvement, independent wage earning, economic efficiency.

❖ Free Labor supporters believed slavery was a degraded, inefficient system, that sustained a pampered planter elite, and a repressed enslaved population.

Presidential Reconstruction, 1865-1867

❖ Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)

❖ Assumed the Presidency after Lincoln’s assassination.

❖ Reconstruction Plan:

❖ Offered pardons to white southerners who took a loyalty oath

❖ Provisional southern Governments elected by whites

❖ Former Confederate leaders returned to power

http://cdn.loc.gov/service/pnp/ppmsc/00000/00050v.jpg

Reconstruction ❖ Black Codes - with the first phase of Presidential Reconstruction under

Johnson, the former Confederates in the South established laws that at first were presented as beneficial to African Americans: marriage, property, courts.

❖ However, these Codes targeted newly freed-people with the goal of severely restricting their freedom, rights, and ability to seek improvement.

❖ Punishment for ‘vagrancy’ was imprisonment, and hiring out to landowners.

❖ Denied basic rights of citizenship and political participation and sought to uphold white control

❖ Results: Narrow view of Freedom; Response from Freed-people; Response from Northern Radical Republicans.

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpbh.00460

Thaddeus Stevens Radical Republicans

• strict control of the South • anti-slavery / abolitionist • defended the Freedmen’s Bureau (1865)

Congress vs. President Johnson • Johnson Veto of Civil Rights Bill (1866) • Congress Overrides Johnson Veto: Federal Power • Impeachment of Johnson: Tenure of Office Act

Radical Reconstruction • South divided into 5 military districts • Black suffrage/voting for readmission to Union

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c28709

Charles Sumner

Reconstruction Amendments ❖ Thirteenth Amendment (1865) - Neither slavery nor involuntary

servitude … shall exist within the United States

❖ Fourteenth Amendment (1868) - All persons born or naturalized in the United States … are citizens of the United States

❖ Fifteenth Amendment (1870) - The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States .. on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude *women were excluded, however, and it did not prevent literacy tests.

❖ “The laws and amendments of Reconstruction repudiated the idea that citizenship was an

entitlement of whites alone. (as quoted in Foner, Give Me Liberty, 570.)

Frederick Douglass

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a18122/

http://blackhistory.harpweek.com/7Illustrations/!ListOfIllusLevelOne.htm

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/pga.01767/

Asserting Freedom

Education

The importance of educational opportunities for formerly enslaved people cannot be

overstated.

❖ Public Schools: By 1867, 40% of African American children enrolled. ❖ aided by the Freedmen’s Bureau

❖ Fisk University (1866) ❖ Alabama State University (1867) ❖ Hampton University (1868)

http://blackhistory.harpweek.com/7Illustrations/! ListOfIllusLevelOne.htm

Asserting Freedom

Politics

Hiram Revels ❖ First African American to serve in

the United States Senate (1870) ❖ Black political representation

throughout the South after the Civil War

❖ Created a more level playing field - temporarily

❖ Leaders, ministers, teachers, organizers

https://blogs.loc.gov/law/files/2015/01/ SenatorHiramRhoadesRevels.jpg

Reconstruction

❖ Between 1865 and 1877, profound change occurred in the United States. Ideas and expressions of Freedom transformed. Citizenship expanded, as did access to previously denied public opportunities.

❖ The role of the Federal Government also expanded, and served to increase power for some, while representing a distinct enemy for others.

Reconstruction-Era Amendments: “the underlying principles - that the federal

government possessed the power to define and protect citizens’ rights, and that blacks were

equal members of the body politic - were striking departures in American law.” Foner, The

Story of American Freedom, 106

As profound as these changes were, they did not erase the lingering reasons the Civil War was fought. Nor could they fully defend against the widespread

rejection of their ideals.

Reconstruction

Ku Klux Klan

Pulaksi, Tennessee - 1865 “It is rapidly organizing wherever the insolent

negro, the malignant white traitor to his race and the infamous squatter are plotting to make the

South utterly unfit for the residence of the decent white man…It is purely defensive, and for the protection of the white race…It will arrest the progress of that secret negro conspiracy which

has for its object the establishment of negro domination.” Memphis Newspaper, 1868 (as

quoted in American Horizons: U.S. History in a Global Context, 529)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mississippi_ku_klux.jpg

Responses

❖ “The cut above represents the fate in store for those great pests of Southern society - the carpet bagger and scallawag..” (The Independent Monitor, September 1, 1868 - Tuscaloosa, Alabama)

❖ Threat to the recently elected President (from Ohio) of the University of Alabama

http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/ref/collection/photo/id/ 20005

Election of U.S. Grant (1869-1877) ❖ 1868 - After the battles between Congress

and President Johnson, former Union Commander Ulysses S. Grant was elected President.

❖ 15th Amendment Passes Under Grant

❖ 1871/72: Grant Administration moves against the Ku Klux Klan to attempt an end to terror and violence across the South

❖ 1875 - 2nd Civil Rights Act as the last formal Reconstruction legislation.

❖ No real enforcement.

❖ Financial Depression and Southern violence left many Northern reformers tired and finished with Reconstruction

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/nation/jb_nation_grant_1_e.html

Compromise of 1877

❖ 1876 Election between Rutherford B. Hayes (R) and Samuel Tilden (D)

❖ Disputed votes led to special commission to resolve the contest.

❖ Hayes is declared winner / southern Democrats demand concessions.

❖ Result: Republicans agree to withdraw Federal troops from the South, thus formally ending Reconstruction.

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/93510088/

Yellow Fever Epidemic - 1878

❖ “Ultimately, the actions of whites and blacks during the epidemic showed that the biracial civic nationalism of the era of radical Reconstruction had almost completely evaporated, and two ‘nations’ were rapidly and painfully developing within the United States: one white, one black.” (Edward Blum, Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion,

and American Nationalism, 1865-1898. Pg. 148)

Memphis and Shelby County Room, Memphis Public Library & Information Center. https://cdm16108.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p13039coll5/id/956

An Unfinished Revolution ❖ North preoccupied with industrialization, railroads, diversified

economy.

❖ Republican governments end in the South / Toward a Solid South.

❖ Black Codes and the rise of Jim Crow.

❖ Southern ‘Home Rule’ tied to a system of racial hierarchy.

❖ No real Land-Reform: Freedmen lacked enduring economic and political power.

❖ National Spirit of Reunion.

❖ A Revolution left Unfinished?

Modern America ❖ Between 1870 and 1900, the United States joined a core

industrialization movement that transformed this country and the world.

❖ Railroads laid the foundation for increased industrial development - Time / Manufacturing / Management

❖ Corporations - Stock / Marketing Techniques / Mass Production / Vertical Integration

❖ Growth and Development of a Consumer Culture

❖ Immigration, Growth of US Cities, Westward Expansion

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/uploads/2009/07/us_wealth_1872.jpg

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/henry-w-grady-1850-1889

http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist111/industrial.html

A “New South” ❖ Henry Grady / southern Redeemers advocated for a New

South charged by industry, growth of cities, and diversified agriculture.

❖ South relied too heavily on slavery and cotton before the War.

❖ Reunification, racial harmony (and control), and capitalist virtue - to rid the South of the burdens of War, but not apologize for its causes.

❖ Advertised southern land area, natural resources, and superior climate.

Southern Industry ❖ Textile Mills - By 1900, over 400 mills in southern

states employed 100,000 men, women, and children.

❖ Lumber - Southern lands accounted for approx. 60% of American timber resources.

❖ Tobacco - American Tobacco Company led the cigarette industry by 1890.

❖ Mining and Steel - Birmingham (1871) was ideal site for steel production / but ultimately needed external support for sustained operation

“New South”

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/business-economy/textile-industry

Southern Industry - takeaway ❖ While railroads, industry, and urban development occurred in this

New South period, it did not mirror the scale in the North because:

❖ Southern Industry largely based on processing raw material / not finishing

❖ It employed unskilled labor and pay was low

❖ It contributed to development of small towns/cities; not large, centralized urban centers

❖ It relied on external (Northern/Foreign) capital investments

❖ Exceptions: *Cotton

“New South”

Lost Cause ❖ Beliefs

❖ Confederacy was constitutional / Secession was constitutional / Southern leaders fought to uphold both principles

❖ The South was not defeated per se / It faced greater numbers and resources in the North

❖ Confederacy was a Christian society / Defense upheld this order / Slavery was a ‘Christianizing’ and thus positive or necessary force

https://www.theclio.com/web/entry?id=12004

1890 Unveiling - Richmond Monument Avenue