Download Allen 1 James Allen Humanities 11 P. Lopez/P. Holder 29

Allen 1
James Allen
Humanities 11
P. Lopez/P. Holder
29 September 2010
The Stain of Slavery Removed
“We don’t allow niggers in here!” Imagine walking into a church, of all places, and
hearing that. Visualize, after the service is over, hearing the reverend or some other clergy
announce the names of runaway slaves, so that anyone who found them could lawfully “kill and
destroy such slaves by such ways and means as he, she, or they shall think fit…” (qtd. in Miller
95). Envision roaming around on a farm, taking in the sight of neat rows of stark white cotton,
contrasted against a brilliant blue sky, and all of a sudden hearing the crack of a whip followed
by a woman crying out in utter anguish and pain, saying, “Have mercy! Oh! Have mercy!”
Picture strolling down the street and seeing a crowd of people surrounding a thick column of
smoke. A closer look reveals the half burned body of a black slave. Now imagine being used to
seeing and hearing things like that on a regular basis (Miller 95).
Ever since the first African slaves were imported into Virginia by a Dutch merchant ship
to provide cheap labor, slavery and racism against black people has left a huge stain on the
United States’ history. In the introduction to American Slavery, James Miller refers to it as one
of the “great national scars” that “disfigure[s] America’s historical record” (Miller 17). Samuel
Johnson, a British author, once said, “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among
the drivers of Negroes?” He went as far to say, “I am willing to love all mankind, except an
American” (Rubin). The great flaw of slavery and racism in the United States’ history has not
only been emphasized by individuals, but by foreign governments as well. For example, the U.S.
openly condemned the Soviet Union for its political and religious repression, imprisonment in
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the gulags, forced labor, and mass murders. Then, an even greater hypocritical 1950s Soviet
anti-American propaganda poster was created by the Russians, containing the caption “And you
are lynching Negroes!” in retort to the United States’ criticism and condemnation.
Among the chorus of writers, intellectuals, and other white citizens in the west, few black
voices were heard during slavery’s early years. However, the voice of Frederick Douglass is one
that is known and recognized by many. Douglass was six years old when he was walked by his
grandmother 12 miles to a Chesapeake Bay plantation. He said that he had cried himself to sleep
that night because he had been torn away from “the only home I ever had,” which wasn’t even
with his parents—he had been living with his grandmother. He then said, “[it was] my first
introduction to the realities of slavery” (qtd. In Miller 454). After 14 years of his life came and
went, Douglass escaped his bondage and joined the abolitionist movement as a “fearless enemy
of the slave owner and the hypocrite” (454). Frederick stated,
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? To him, your celebration is
a sham… your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery… There is not a
nation on the Earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the
people of the United States at this very hour (454).
These powerful words, spoken from the six-foot-tall African American man, were
shocking to the crowds that came to hear him. Some came to gawk at him and others came to
jeer, but all of them listened nonetheless—and they came by the thousands (Miller 454). The
voice of Sojourner Truth, a prominent African American woman, summed up the situation of all
blacks in the U.S. in this poem:
I am pleading for my people—
A poor, down-trodden race,
Who dwell in freedom’s boasted land
With no abiding place.
I am pleading that my people
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May have their rights restored,
For they have long been toiling
And yet have no reward (463).
Although there were many people in the U.S. who were racist and just plain cruel
towards African Americans, there were also people that treated the slaves with respect for the
simple fact that they were human beings. Those people that stood up for the oppressed and, in
some cases, even put themselves in harm’s way, are the ones who helped the U.S. eventually
redeem itself from the atrocities that had occurred on its land. One of these individuals, probably
the most widely referenced, is Abraham Lincoln. He is known for passing the Emancipation
Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation, however, only freed some of the slaves because
of the separation between the Union and Confederate states. Nonetheless, it inspired political
figures such as James Mitchell Ashley to begin work on legislation that eventually became the
13th Amendment and because of that, all of the slaves were eventually freed.
To begin to understand why there was such a huge difference and separation between the
Union (North) and the Confederacy (South), one must first look at the different opinions that
people held. As always, there are at least two opposing opinions on any controversial topic. In
the South, “the slave code of every slave State, denies that slaves are “persons,” and describes
them as… property” (Ashley 625). The Democrats who lived in those states coined the phrase
“The Constitution as it is, the Union as it was, and the niggers where they are” in support of the
ongoing war, and in opposition of the Emancipation Proclamation. The people who held this
ideology were known as “Copperheads” and included, besides “white Americans,” German and
Irish Americans (Heidler 499). They were the ones who said that Lincoln “…had entirely gone
too far. That he had exceeded all proper definitions of the constitutional role of the president of
the United States…” They even accused him of being a “tyrant” and a “dictator” (Criticisms).
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It must be noted that these criticisms didn’t only come from the average Copperhead,
either. They came from Joel Parker, the governor of New Jersey, from some people in the North,
and from politicians and legislature from Lincoln’s home state of Illinois. Even General George
McClellan, who was appointed to head the Union armies in the east by Lincoln, openly opposed
him and the Emancipation Proclamation. He wrote, “Military power should not be allowed to
interfere with the relations of servitude, either by supporting or impairing the authority of the
master…” His sentiments were clearly displayed in part of a letter he wrote to Lincoln:
“…understand one thing clearly—not only will we abstain from all such interference but we will
on the contrary with an iron hand, crush any attempted insurrection…” McClellan quickly
realized that he had overstepped his boundaries and was circumventing the President’s authority,
so he quickly apologized in another letter (Sears 79).
On the other hand, many people also criticized Lincoln and the Emancipation
Proclamation for being, in their opinion, weak, and not doing enough. One example of this is
found in an 1862 publication in the London Times. It relegated the preliminary Emancipation
Proclamation as meaningless and said, “Where he has no power Mr. Lincoln will set the Negroes
free; where he retains power he will consider them as slaves,” meaning that, in their opinion, he
had authorized the Proclamation only to appease the abolitionists and appear to free the slaves
(Mintz). However, James McPherson, author of the book Battle Cry of Freedom, pointed out
that the statement was unfair and inaccurate because Lincoln did not have the constitutional
right, even as Commander in Chief, to abolish slavery in the Union or Union occupied states—
only the slaves in Confederate controlled territory could be freed because of Lincoln’s war
prerogatives.
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Had Old Abe stepped over the boundaries of the constitution, he would have had an even
bigger problem than the one he was currently facing. In other words, the Union might have
turned against him as well, as there were also people in the North who did not entirely support
Lincoln and his efforts (again, even McClellan, appointed by Lincoln as a General in the
Northern Army, didn’t support him). Instead, he made the wise decision of only declaring free
the slaves that were in Confederate territory because as Commander in Chief of the United
States, he only had the power to issue a military order (in this case, it was the Emancipation
Proclamation) addressing the enemy. In addition to that, there were many differences between
state and federal authority. This means that even as President Lincoln did not have the power to
overrule state laws and free the slaves that were in Union territory or states under Union control.
In any case, the Proclamation did free thousands of slaves the very day that it went into
effect. This occurred in the following Confederate states: North Carolina, South Carolina,
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, and Arkansas (the only state that it
did not affect was the State of Texas, although it was listed in the Proclamation). A total of
about 20,000 slaves were freed on the first of January 1863 (the date that the second executive
order of the Emancipation Proclamation was issued). W.E.B. Du Bois, an avid civil rights
activist, said, “Abraham Lincoln was perhaps [one of] the greatest figures of the nineteenth
century… And I love him not because he was perfect but because he was not and yet triumphed.”
He also went on to say that Lincoln “…rose to be a great and good man and the noblest friend of
the slave,” which meant a great deal coming from a prominent African American such as Du
Bois.
Something else that must be noted is that the Emancipation Proclamation provided the
legal framework that would later enable the freedom of nearly all four million slaves that were in
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the United States—about 12.7% of the total population at the time (U.S. Census). Part of the text
of the Proclamation states, “and all slaves of such person found or being within any place
occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be
deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as
slaves.” Part of the text of the 13th Amendment reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude… shall exist within the United States…” The correlation between the two documents
is obvious, even though the Emancipation was more conditional and was geared towards
unifying the United States through the abolition of slavery.
James Mitchell Ashley, a Republican Representative from Ohio and an active
abolitionist, was also committed to freeing the slaves and restoring the union. He was elected to
the House of Representatives of the 36th United States Congress as well as the four succeeding
Congresses. When asked if he had converted to the “doctrine of universal amnesty and universal
suffrage” he said:
No sir; I do not know that I have ever been in favor of that doctrine. As a
practical man, however, I want to see the Union restored; and if the members of
the opposition would come to this question with the earnestness of the men of
New England and the men of the West, the work of restoration would have been
accomplished before now (Ashley 433).
His desire for the Union restored was evident, as well as his desire to abolish slavery—
even from an early age. Ashley said during his speech in the House of Representatives on May
29, 1866, “When about eleven years of age, I was greatly shocked and my feelings outraged…
Before I was twenty years of age, I had drawn up a plan to aid slaves and purchase their freedom,
and to provide by statute law against a repetition of such villainy…” He went on to say, I do not
agree that capital shall own labor, North or South, nor in any country on God’s green earth”
(Ashley 621). James Ashley was not all talk and no action—he was one of the co-authors of the
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original 13th amendment. It was passed by the Senate by a vote of 38 to 6, but it did not go
through the House. Ashley introduced the bill again, and Lincoln took an active role in making
sure that the bill was added to the upcoming Presidential elections. The bill was passed through
the House on January 21, 1865, by a vote of 119 to 56.
Although there were cruel and merciless people who did not give others the very justice
that they cried out for, there were others such as Ashley and Lincoln who did what was right.
Although the beginning of the legal process to free the slaves had some other motives behind it
besides pure abolition, it did free many slaves and paved the way for an even greater reform that
lasts to this day. Although slavery, racism, cruelty and bitterness have stained the history of the
United States of America (along with all other parts of the world), it must be noted that massive
efforts have been made by Americans, for Americans to correct the wrong and free the
oppressed. America has picked itself up from the day that the first African American slaves
were imported in 1619, to the day when the first African American was sworn in as President of
the United States of American in 2009, 390 years later.
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Works Cited
Ashley, James Mitchell. Impartial suffrage the only safe basis of Reconstruction: speech of Hon.
James M. Ashley of Ohio, in the House of Representatives, May 29, 1866. Washington:
Congressional Globe Office , 1866.
Ashley, James Mitchell, and Benjamin William Arnett. Duplicate Copy of the Souvenir from the
Afro-American League of Tennessee to Hon. James M. Ashley of Ohio. Tennessee: AfroAmerican League of Tennessee, 1893. Print.
Criticisms of the Emancipation Proclamation. Perf. Allen Guelzo. YouTube. The Gilder
Lehrman Institute of American History, 17 Apr. 2009. Web. 28 Sept. 2010.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O69Kaq_Onrg>.
Du Bois, W.E.B. "Again, Lincoln." (1922). TeachingAmericanHistory.org. Ashland University.
Web. 29 Sept. 2010. <http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?
document=555>.
Heidler, David Stephen, Jeanne T. Heidler, and David J. Coles. Encyclopedia of the American
Civil War: a Political, Social, and Military History. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2000.
Print.
Jones, Shannon. “The Enduring Significance of the Emancipation Proclamation.” World
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jun2004/linc-j02.shtml>.
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: the Civil War Era. New York: Oxford
UP, 1988. Print.
Miller, James. The Complete History of American Slavery. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 2001.
Print. The Complete History of.
Mintz, Steven. Digital History. University of Houston, 2007. Web. 29 Sept. 2010.
<http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/bsol/bsol_part8.cfm>.
“New Policies Emerge under Reconstruction (Overview).” The American Mosaic: The African
American Experience.ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 16 Sept. 2010.
http://africanamerican.abc-clio.com/
“Our Documents - 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of
Slavery (1865).” OurDocuments.gov. United States Government, 14 Jan. 1999. Web. 16
Sept. 2010. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=40
Poulter, Keith. “Slaves Immediately Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.” North & South
Magazine 2001. Print.
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Rubin, Judy C. “The Five Stages of Anti-Americanism.” FPRI.org. Foreign Policy Research
Institute, 4 Sept. 2004. Web. 30 Sept. 2010. <http://www.fpri.org/enotes/
20040904.americawar.colprubin.5stagesantiamericanism.html>.
Sears, Stephen W. George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon. New York: Da Capo, 1999.
Print.
U.S. Census, 1860, Population, pp. 598-599
Wolf, William J. Lincoln's Religion. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1970. Print.