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CIVIL RIGHTS:
An “American Dilemma”
October 7, 1999
The Context of the Civil Rights
Struggle
the American civil war
 civil rights (1863-1875)
 the development of legal segregation (18831896)
 Jim Crow (1900-1950)

The American Civil War

Missouri compromise (1819-21)
– admit free states and slave states to Union in order
to maintain balance in the Senate
– made slavery illegal in new territories north of the
Mason-Dixon line
– slave states could not prohibit the entry of free
blacks
The American Civil War –
Pushing the South Towards War

admission of California in 1850
– guaranteed anti-slavery majority in Congress in
both houses
– pushed the South to become more aggressive
» it would never be more powerful than it was at the
time
» politically or economically
The American Civil War –
Pushing the South Towards War
Southern regional grievances and perception of
Northern hypocrisy
 Southern economic dependence

– Southern agricultural economy vs. Northern
industrial economy
– Southern support for low tariffs; Northern support
for high tariffs
– Southern plantation owners (dependent upon world
prices for cotton) vs. Northern bankers
– divergent interests in railroad policy
The American Civil War –
Pushing the South Towards War

Southern economic dependence on slavery
– slavery was not an old-fashioned institution
» profitability of slavery was dropping until the advent
of the cotton economy
» the resurgence of slavery was a product of the
industrial revolution, new technology, and worldwide
mass markets
» the South became economically dependent upon the
production of cotton which was dependent on slavery
The American Civil War –
Pushing the South Towards War
Southern regional grievances and perception of
Northern hypocrisy
 Southern economic dependence
 Southern beliefs that moral indignation of the
North masked economic motives and plans to
aggrandize Northern political power to further
those interests

The American Civil War –
Pushing the North towards War

Northern predisposition towards blacks
– discrimination against blacks (often universal and
enshrined in statutes)
– initial opposition to anti-slavery movement in North

Northern reaction to Southern aggressiveness
– Supreme Court rules that the Missouri compromise
is unconstitutional (1857)
» contravened 5th amendment
– Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
» federal law enforcing capture and return of escaped slaves
The American Civil War –
Pushing the North towards War

Northern reaction
– Southern aggression made slavery an issue of the
rights and freedoms of northern whites
– slavery must be contained
» abolition required a constitutional amendment which
slave states could block
» Lincoln Republicans proposed to contain slavery
The American Civil War – Going
to War

both sides claimed constitutional legitimacy
– emancipationists
» all people would be equal before the law
– pro-slavery
» states rights

both sides believed they were morally right
The American Civil War – Civil
War and Slavery

slavery and the Union
– 4 slave-owning border states join the Union
» Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware
– Lincoln forced to disavow local emancipation
decrees
» “My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the
Union and it is not either to save or to destroy slavery.
If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I
would do it; and I could save it by freeing all the
slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing
some slaves and leaving others alone I would do that.”
Abraham Lincoln, 1860
The American Civil War – Civil
War and Slavery

slavery and the Confederacy
– Jefferson Davis (Confederate President) argued for
the manumission of slaves willing to fight for the
South
– policy was resisted
– policy adopted in 1865
The American Civil War – Civil
War and Slavery

the Emancipation Proclamation, 1863
– freed slaves only in Confederate states


Civil War ends in 1865
13th Amendment (1865)
– abolishing slavery

14th Amendment (1868)
– prohibitions against state discrimination against any person

15th Amendment (1870)
– right to vote regardless of color or because the person was a
slave
The Beginning of the “American
Dilemma”

the Gettysburg address (1863)
– the ‘great task before us’
» a country dedicated to the proposition that “all men are
created equal”
» “government of the people, by the people, for the people”



including the South
reconstitution of state governments
immediate withdrawal of occupying armies
– new state governments signaled immediately that
blacks would not be treated as equals