Download Responce Assignment

Brian G. Rallison
Professor Tamora Hoskisson
HIST 1070-053
February 3, 2013
RESPONSE ASSIGNMENT NUMBER TWO
UNITS SIX THROUGH EIGHT
1.
Q. According to the lecture, the film (Slavery & the Making of America, Episode 3:
Seeds of Destruction), and our class discussion (if applicable), why did the Union brake
up? Explain.
A. The answer to the question above is very simple, the evils of slavery… or was it? My
original understanding was the break up of the Union had to do with the moral
implications of racism. However, the lecture and film spoke of an economic climate that
had more to do with it that I once understood.
By 1808, Congress had abolished the importation of new slaves from Africa. Shortly
after, four new states that allowed slavery joined the Union. The increased profitability
of cotton because of the earlier invention of the Cotton Gin, created a need for more
slave labor. Slaves became increasingly more valuable. The Northerners, who were
abolishing slavery, were selling their slaves to the Southerners at huge profits. The
Southerners needed the slaves to help grow and harvest the cotton. Cotton became the
most valuable and greatest export of the nation at the time, “And that made slaves the
most valuable thing in the nation beside the land itself,” said Jim Horton, one of the
historians from the film.
In addition, while slavery was expanding in the South, the Northerners were
abolishing it, not just because of growing morality against slavery, but because of the
North’s of labor; free labor. Free labor is the labor of freemen, as distinguished from
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that of slaves. The nation was becoming two separate and distinct societies in many
ways that also included economically. The North with its approach of people that choose
freely where they worked, whom they married and where citizens of the United States; at
least the white male population were. In addition, the film explained that the majority of
Northerners were prejudiced against the Blacks just as the Southerners were. However,
the South had an approach of labor of Black/Africans that had no say in what they did
and were treated and exploded like machines or cattle ‘owned’ by people that often times
physically abused them. Even the Supreme Court of the United States said the Blacks,
because of their race, were not persons or citizens in the eyes of the law.
As you would suspect, the Southern slave owners were becoming incredibly rich.
Moreover, because of their wealth, they were also gaining political power. Nevertheless,
the Southerners were not the only one making a profit on the slaves. Northerners got
their fair share of wealth because of the textile industry from the slave-produced cotton.
Even many of today’s Wall Street and insurance firms got their start from the slavery
driven cotton business. It seems to me that when it came to the United States, it
concern had more to do with what was going ‘into their pocket’ than what was so wrong
with the morality of enslaving another human being.
According to the film and the lecture, the whole business of exploding people for the
purpose of economic gain and the fear of the South loosing their slaves was the major
cause of the break up of the Union that eventually drew this nation into a civil war. The
personal accounts of Harriet Jacobs, Louis Hughes and Solomon Northup resound in
my heart even today. I so appreciate the white Americans, right along with many of the
free Blacks, which risked their lives and helped the slaves fight for freedom. It is hard
for me even to write the words of the historian, Jim Horton, when he refers to slave
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auctions in Washington, D.C. and says, “Think about the contradiction. Here you have
the federal capital of the United States, the nation dedicated to the proposition of
human freedom tolerating, profiting from the selling of human beings into
bondage.” (Bolding added)
2.
Q. Compare the experiences of the immigrants featured in the Chicago film with the
experience of immigrants depicted in the New York film. What was similar and/or
different in their experiences? Why? Explain.
A. Both “New York: A Documentary Film” and “Chicago: City of the Century”
depicted people that had left their homeland looking for a better world with more
freedoms for both themselves and their families. Much to their surprise, the streets of
America were not paved with gold and life was not going to be as easy as they thought.
The Chicago film described that the ethnic groups would create small ‘villages’ inside
each city. There would be a “little Ireland, a little Germany, a little Poland,” and so
forth. It was interesting for me to hear that people would not even know what country
they were in because they would walk down a street and no one was speaking English.
In addition, the Chicago film showed how the ethnic churches and saloons became
more than just a place to get an adult beverage. The saloons became what I would call
the local community center; a place to read newspapers, to hear the local gossip, find
work and it even became to some their only known address. Immigrants quickly learned
that they had to rely on each other to survive.
The attitude of the people that ended up in Chicago is what helped them prosper.
They all seemed to have a great sense of their identity. Although they did not want to
forget they were they were from, they understood to survive they needed to work hard
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and become Americanized. Even their church schools were teaching their children the
American way of life and the social manners they needed to get good jobs. The Chicago
immigrants would get jobs, make money and move into better houses. The different
ethic groups would develop their own building and loans associations and would lend
money to their own people to obtain mortgages. They believed there was opportunity
for those that worked hard.
On the other hand, for the immigrants in New York, it seems that by leaving their
homeland they had jumped from the frying pan right into the fire. The New York film
conveyed that New York City was the richest cities in the world; but it also included the
poorest of the poor. The film could have been an American of a dreadful, dark narrative
out of a Charles Dickens’ novel; however, it was an depiction of a classic twentieth
century book How the Other Half Life by Jacob Riis. Housing and living conditions for
the poor in New York were more than horrific. In comparison to the housing in
Chicago, it looked like the Plaza Hotel to me when paralleled to the unsafe, unhealthy,
rat infested tenements that the of New York City endured. How could one think of
better oneself when one in five children died? The only thing that was comparable
between the two films is that both cities had immigrates that were looking for a better
life.
3.
Q. Read Interview with President McKinley (1899) and Aguinaldo’s case against the
United States (1899) and answer the following question. How persuasive is McKinley’s
account of how and why he decided to annex the Philippines? Why does Aguinaldo
think that the United States is betraying its own values? How do these documents reflect
different definitions of liberty in the wake of the Spanish-American War?
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A. According to the “Interview with President McKinley” (1899), I think there are a few
important items to observe concerning this interview. First, President McKinley
audience was a group of Methodist Church leaders. Secondly, it is important to
understand that he had been already been criticized about his decision to annex the
Philippines.
I am not sure this was the only time President McKinley spoke of the justification of
his decision concerning the Philippines. Due to who this audience was, leaders of a
major Protestant Christian tradition, I believe he said what he needed to convince his
intended listeners that he was justified in doing what he did. “Uplift and civilize and
Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them...” said
President McKinley. Then the President reports that he went to bed and slept soundly.
Now, if that is not confirmation of doing the will of God, what is? It reminds me of
some of the rationalizations for the deadly Crusades. (I am sure his remarks went over
very well for the Methodist Church leaders to feel reassured that the mostly Roman
Catholic nation would be “Christianized.”)
In reflecting at my point of view, his argument was very weak and poorly thought
out. He rationalizes the loss of liberty of a nation due to the fact that it “would be bad
business and discreditable.” Even worse in my eyes is to understand that the Filipinos
had already started to rule themselves patterned after the United States Constitution
despite President McKinley telling the group of church leaders that “they were unfit for
self government.” One could call this interview a plea for support.
In contrast, Emilio Aguinaldo article intelligently articulated the contradiction of the
American occupation of the Philippine Islands. Aguinaldo’s article is well thought out
and expresses a valid point that a “promise” made to the Filipinos, who were fighting for
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their liberty and have the United States to “aid and protect [them] in [their] attempt to
form a government on the principles and after the model of the government of the
United States…” I do not seem to think how the United States would have appreciated
if when the U.S. asked the French government to assist us in our Revolutionary War
against the British Crown, for the French to “take” the U.S. as an annex of France.
Other than having nicer bread, I am quite sure that the United States would have had a
similar concern that Emilio Aguinaldo did! Once again, the United States had betrayed
their own values of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” From the mouth of
President McKinley himself about the Spanish-American War, “Cuba ought to be free
and independent, and the government should be turned over to the Cuban people.”
Strangely enough, for some reason the Cubans deserved liberty, but the Filipinos did not.
Personal Comment:
With regards to the involvement with the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States
of American, now more commonly known as the Episcopal Church: It saddens me that we as
Americans and, more so, that my own faith tradition had been involved with such heinous and evil
acts against a people based upon their race. I can only be grateful that the Episcopal Church had
starting to try to make amends for what our forbearers have done. I thought you might find the
following article interesting.
Episcopal Church apologizes for its role in slaver y
Written by Religion News Service
October 7, 2008
In an unprecedented public act of remorse for centuries of support for slavery, the
Episcopal Church on Saturday (Oct. 4) held a dramatic service of repentance at one of the
nation's first black churches.
Punctuated with the sound of a gong and the sung refrain of "Lord have mercy, Christ have
mercy," the service began with a "Litany of Offense and Apology" detailing the ways that
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the denomination participated in human captivity, segregation and discrimination.
More than 500 worshippers, a multicultural sea of faces, spilled over into the aisles of the
African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, founded in 1792 by Absalom Jones, a former
slave and the denomination's first black priest.
"Through it all, people of privilege looked the other way, and too few found the courage to
question inhuman ideas, words, practices or laws," said Episcopal Presiding Bishop
Katharine Jefferts Schori.
"We and they ignored the image of Christ in our neighbors."
Several of America's founding fathers - most notably George Washington - were
Episcopalians and slave owners, and many of the nation's most historic and prominent
steeples were built by wealthy donors who made their fortunes on the back of slave labor.
Yet Episcopalians were one of the few U.S. churches that managed to stay intact as the Civil
War split Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists into northern and southern branches over
the issue of slavery.
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the United
States. Last June, the U.S. House of Representatives issued its own apology for slavery.
"Apology and acknowledgment are an incredibly important part of the process of coming
to terms with history," said Katrina Browne, whose recent film, "Traces of the Trade,"
explores the wealth accumulated by her Episcopal ancestors in Rhode Island through the
slave trade.
The service, and the day of workshops that preceded it, were the result of a resolution
passed at the Episcopalians' 2006 General Convention that called slavery a "sin" and a
betrayal of the "humanity of all persons."
The 2006 resolution asked dioceses to research instances in which they have been complicit
or profited from it, and asked the presiding bishop to hold a "Day of Repentance." Each
diocesan cathedral was also asked to hold its own service of repentance.
A number of African American participants emphasized that however moving the event, it
was only one step in an effort to redress denominational and social inequities.
Noting that another General Convention resolution addresses oppression of "all people of
color victimized by society over the past 300 years," Canon Ed Rodman, a professor at
Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., added that "until the whole story is told
and everybody's voice has been heard we cannot begin the process of reconciliation."
"It is one thing to repent of our sin, but another to turn around and go in the right
direction," said Franklin Turner, retired Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania.
"I don't think it's what the church does inside the church," added the Rev. Isaac Miller,
rector of the historic Episcopal Church of the Advocate in North Philadelphia. "It's about
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what happens afterwards."
Everett Worthington, a professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University and
a researcher in forgiveness, said public apologies can help usher in "some manner of justice
back into a situation where there has been injustice."
Such apologies may narrow an individual's "injustice gap" - the space between the way
someone would like to see an issue resolved, and the way they actually see it being resolved,
he added.
The Rev. David Pettee, who oversees ministerial credentialing for the Unitarian Universalist
Association, said he has also located slave owners and African and Native American
ancestors in his own Rhode Island family tree.
"I was impressed by having the Episcopal Church make this move, and I personally hope
that at some point we (the Unitarian Universalists) arrive at an act of redemption and
apology," Pettee said after the service.
A joint resolution passed in 2001 by the UCC's General Synod and the General Assembly
of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) called upon the United States government to
"issue a national apology for participating in and supporting the kidnapping, exporting and
enslaving of people of African descent."
The joint resolution also encouraged congregations, regions, ministries and national
assemblies to "join in active study and education on issues dealing with reparations for
slavery."
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