Abraham Lincoln was president during the beginning era of Reconstruction and although he did have plans to free more slaves and grant more sweeping freedoms, some groups, such as the Radical Republicans, thought the process was moving along too slow. Eventually, there was some progress made but at the end of the Reconstruction era, the freedoms granted under the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments were not entirely effective. With Reconstruction, slaves were freed and although there were supposed to be radical reforms that would grant them equality, racism persisted and some argue that the anti-slavery goals of the Reconstruction were not fully realized until the Civil Rights era in the 1950s and 1960s when African Americans were finally granted full rights enjoyed by whites rather than the “separate but equal” clause that emerged from Plessy versus Ferguson.

While Reconstruction began with a positive push to grant freedom to blacks in the South, this was not an easy process and there were many complications. For instance, even thought Abraham Lincoln might have been moving too slow for some of the Radical Republicans. His efforts to peacefully reintegrate the Southwithout a great deal of hostility worked, albeit it a little slowly. After his assassination, Andrew Johnson took over and the process became confused and less efficient. Johnson forgave a number of ex-Confederates and did not take the same steady approach as his predecessor did. It was under Johnson that the “black codes” were allowed to be passed which only lowered the status of African Americans and did not give them the right to vote, even if they had fought in the war. It should also be noted that Johnson vetoed passage of a renewal of a new Freedman’s Bureau, which had served as a positive organization for African Americans, which would have allowed free black war veterans to vote. One can only wonder if Reconstruction might have been more successful if only Lincoln had been able to see his patient plan through.

It seems that Johnson had a devastating effect on the initial goals set forth by Lincoln’s vision of Reconstruction. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 would have guaranteed blacks protection and equality yet again; Johnson stepped in and vetoed this as well. Luckily, the veto was eventually blocked, but the fact remains that the leader of the United States had shown himself to not be committed to the ideas of his predecessor. This is a strange set of circumstances because while he was the Vice President for Lincoln, Johnson took a pushy (although not radical) approach to the Reconstruction efforts, yet under the political pressure, he did not carry through with the ideas about freedom that he initially touted.

Although Johnson’s efforts to block some of the bills and movements that might have significantly helped blacks failed, he did have success again when it came time to vote for the Fourteenth Amendment because he used his political influence to block a few of the states from ratifying it, thus blocking the majority and causing the proposal to stagnate. Finally, in 1867, the Reconstruction Act was passed and it seemed, at least for a while, as though there was going to be some success in achieving the goals of Reconstruction since one of the provisions of the Act eliminated some of Johnson’s plans. Reconstruction failed in 1877 as Hayes and the new order of government took over control. Many Confederates were granted amnesty and the many of the goals were no longer pursued. After this time there was no great movement that was politically successful for African Americans and it can easily be argued that Reconstruction died until it was revived again in the twentieth-century Civil Rights era.

The Radical Republicans generally thought that the Reconstruction efforts were moving along too slowly and that the freeing of slaves should take place instantly. Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, wanted to preserve relations with the South after slavery and did not want to generate too much animosity by moving ahead with the plans too drastically. The Radical Republicans also were enemies of the Andrew Johnson and if it were left to them, the hardly anything he did would have passed (or been blocked, such as the Civil Rights Act). The regular Republicans during this time also advocated change with their plans of Reconstruction, but these changes were to meted out over a longer period of time and work harder to treat the South a little more gently. Eventually, the Radical Republicans became carpetbaggers and scalawags and they tried to bring their own politics to the South whereas the Republicans were a bit more conservative in their approach. It was the Radical Republicans who finally led the movement to impeach Johnson and after this time they gained greater numbers in Congress and were able to make some progress before the end of Reconstruction with the 13^th, 14^th, and the 15^th Amendments that Johnson might have otherwise blocked or vetoed.

It does not seem that the United States was too much better off after the end of Reconstruction. While it was certainly positive that the slaves had been freed, even with the new Amendments, they still were treated like second-class citizens. For example, the 14^th Amendment granted civil rights to every citizen, regardless of color, but this almost seems like empty words without the policies or actions to back them up and institutionalize them. In fact, it wasn’t until after the modern Civil Rights movement that these full rights that were supposed to be guaranteed were truly carried out as the “separate but equal” paradigm existed. With the election of Hayes and the move to politics that seemed more committed to helping America’s booming industrial sector, the Reconstruction ideas seemed to have lost some momentum. Again, as stated earlier, it is interesting to consider whether or not Reconstruction would have succeeded if only President Lincoln would have been alive to see it through. With the shift in power to Andrew Johnson, however, the efforts became confused and mired in politics as usual, thus the Reconstruction failed and was never seen to its conclusion. It was up to those fighting for civil rights in what came to be known as the Second Reconstruction, which finalized the ideas that were initially behind the first one after the end of the Civil War.

Other essays and articles in the History Archives related to this topic include :  American History Since 1865: Major Events and Trends  •  The Emancipation Proclamation: Savior or Rhetoric?  •   The Kansas-Nebraska Act Controversy  •    Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects

References

Fleming, Walter L. Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama. New York: Peter Smith, 1949   (1905).

Carter, Dan T. When the war was over: the failure of self-reconstruction in the South, 1865-1867. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1985.

This double-fold situation helped create a climate for sectional and other tensions well before the proposal regarding Kansas was even put forth. In addition to these problems, sectional tensions has been heightened after the Compromise of 1850  engaged people in even more debates about slavery. For a while, this compromise caused the North to think that it had attained a victory and led to some peace among northerners for a while the South stewed over its losses. The North, however, was reminded of the power of the federal government within the realm of slavery with the introduction of the Fugitive Slave act, which again only served to increase sectional debates and conflict.

The main purpose of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act was to open up lands that had once been Indian territory to new settlers under the banner of popular sovereignty. In proposing this, Douglas of course reopened questions about where slavery could exist. In hindsight, many of his aims were quite selfish and it is clear that he did not understand what this act might truly entail. For a politician who was aspiring to one day become president, Douglas was far more concerned with the way his decision would influence both parties to be on his side in the future election. It seemed reasonable at first, after all, he was fulfilling the “admirable” aim of expansionism, which would in turn please those who were looking forward to the development of the transcontinental railroad. On the other hand, he also needed the support of the South as these territories were incredibly important. It probably made a great deal of sense to Douglas to appeal to both parties and it is clear that he did not look ahead to see the potential heightening of sectional conflicts.

The bad decisions on the part of Douglas are not so simply defined and neither are the reactions of the parties. For instance, under the banner of popular sovereignty, Democrats were behind him because they found his presentation of the idea appealing (without thinking clearly about the ultimate result.) The Northerners who backed the idea also were influenced by their blind wish for expansion of the railroad while failing to see that this would introduce even more potent questions about slavery. Actually, with the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, no one seemed to understand the full implications if the Missouri Compromise was changed and slavery was allowed. As a final result, the influx of slave-holding settlers from Missouri clashed with the new influx of settlers from the East. These two groups of settlers who so diametrically opposed that the violence that broke out should have been foreseen.

In addition to the violence in Kansas (which eventually spread) the political situation created by the deep rifts after the Kansas-Nebraska Act were even further enhanced. The parties who had been at least somewhat cohesive found themselves split in half, with the North and Southern interests on either side. Great anger was present, especially with the people of the North and the Southern response to this anger (as well as the political climate in general) sparked outrage in several metropolitan areas and by the end, completely ripped the party system to shreds. It was this severe political disruption that eventually led the South to secede and it would not be for many years that these conflicts between North and South were resolved. Furthermore, it seems quite easy to suggest that without the controversy over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Civil War might never have taken place. Because of the almost instant political disruption and the debate over new lands with so many interests vying for a top position, the South’s withdraw seemed the only solution. While some could argue that there was already enough tension before this event that war would be inevitable, it is more reasonable to state that because of the political breakdown, any chances of mediation or a brokered peace would have been impossible. Although it is quite controversial to state this, given the evidence in “Out of Many” the Kansas-Nebraska act was, in many ways, the first “shot” fired before the South even ever seceded.

Other essays and articles in the History Archives related to this topic include :  Overview of the Reconstruction Era  •  Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects  •   American History Since 1865: Major Events and Trends  •   The Emancipation Proclamation: Savior or Rhetoric?  •   Analysis, Review, and Summary of Jesse James, Last Rebel of the Civil War by T.J. Stiles

The thesis of Stile’s book is best put one scholar who summarizes that, “Jesse James was an intensely political postwar neo-Confederate terrorist rather than a social bandit or just a plain thug” (Fellman 1485). According to T.J. Stiles in his biography of Jesse James,  “Jesse James, Last Rebel of the Civil War”, the banditry and “Robin Hood” image that has come to be associated with Jesse James was the result of careful media manipulation both by Jesse James himself and a fellow Confederate sympathizer, the journalist John Newman Edwards.

In Stile’s view, there was little to be found innocuous about Jesse James, particularly in terms of the reasons for his violence. He was not out to steal from the rich and give to the poor but was instead focused on furthering his ideas about slavery and the Confederate cause, even though the Civil War had ended. The fact that he was born and raised in Missouri, which was the center of great (and often violent) conflict about Confederate versus Union ideology had much to do with his later actions. His older brother, Frank joined the Bushwhackers and then later took part in the massacre in Kansas in which many lives were lost on both sides. Like his brother, James felt there was enough at stake in Missouri to kill over and took part in the bloody Centrailia Massacre, during which several Union soldiers on their way back to the North were slaughtered. With these facts in mind, it is impossible to see Jesse James as a hero bandit of the West, but rather as a violent and merciless killer for Southern causes. His story, at least as related by T.J. Stiles in “Jesse James : Last Rebel of the Civil War”, demonstrates how there was still a vital population of people in Missouri and elsewhere who were not ready to see the conclusion and aftermath of the Civil War.

It is most revealing to consider Jesse James in context of his position as a Confederate sympathizer living in a Missouri that was heavily divided. As James came of age, the Confederacy had admitted defeat and the slow first stages of Reconstruction were getting underway. Though the Union troops may have been notorious for being savage in battle, the Confederates fought honorably although, “the one great exception was the fighting in Missouri, the ‘border state’ which had a powerful pro-Confederate minority. There the fighting was irregular, brutal, and internecine” (Hall 315). Shortly after the war, the Radicals, who were an aggressively anti-Confederate party, took control of the state of Missouri and refused to allow any Confederates from taking part in elections or from having a political seat. Naturally, this infuriated Confederate sympathizers and it was around this time that Jesse James began his career as a bandit. Aside from robbing banks and committing acts that history has seen as a more general form of banditry, Jesse James had the kind of political slant to his actions that have caused writers such as Stiles to call him a “terrorist” as opposed to a common bandit.

The ideology behind many of the crimes Jesse James and his fellow “terrorists” was fiercely Confederate and with the help of journalist John Newman Edwards, James was able to express the political motivations behind his acts. This is significant because it showed how the media was being used to serve particular political ends and shape one’s image, even in early post-Civil War America. The same “spin” is created today and serves much the same purpose. Stiles is careful to discuss the way James and Edwards created a public image and constantly reminds readers of the differences between the “real” versus constructed Jesse James.

          In this biography of Jesse James,  “Jesse James, Last Rebel of the Civil War” T.J. Stiles seems obsessed with the notion that a terrorist who is no different than Osama Bin Laden has been given such credence in popular American culture as a bandit with a heart of gold. He goes out of his way to show how Jesse James was a product of a legacy of violence which was spawned first by his slaveholding Confederate family and extended by the aftermath of the Missouri Compromise. As a matter of fact, the Missouri Compromise,Bloody Kansas, and other major events that followed only served to heighten sectional violence and hatred. Although Stiles does not state it directly, one of the underlying ideas about the book in terms of history is that James was merely a product of a series of failed efforts to bring Union and Confederates together. James, like many of his fellow criminals (and certainly his brother Frank who saw more of the War firsthand) was representative of the ineffectiveness of the final peace at Appamatox. Simply by declaring the war as over did not ensure that the country would settle into the Reconstruction era peacefully. James and his comrades represented those Confederates who were not ready to admit defeat. In sum, his image as a hero or at least notorious outlaw of the Old West is shot down as mere legend which has, at least in part, been constructed by early journalists and writers. In fact, as Stiles reveals in “Jesse James, Last Rebel of the Civil War” , Jesse James had nothing to do with cowboys and Indians but had everything to do with attempts to secure slavery in Missouri.

Other essays and articles in the History Archives related to this topic include :  The Kansas-Nebraska Act Controversy  • American History Since 1865: Major Events and Trends  •    Overview of the Reconstruction Era   •  Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects

References

Fellman, Michael. “Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War.” Journal of American History 91.4 (2005): 1485.

Hall, M. “Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War (Book).” Contemporary Review 282.1648.

Stiles, T.J. Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. New York; Vintage. 2002.

Peter Wood’s book, Black Majority: Negroes in South Carolina from 1670 to the Stono Rebellion,published in 1974 by Alfred Knopf (New York) details the history of black slaves in South Carolina. This history presented by Peter Wood in Black Majority: Negroes in South Carolina from 1670 to the Stono Rebellion is not only unique because it focuses on one colony or state, but because the slave population of South Carolina existed under specific circumstances that allowed it to grow as a community apart from whites. The introduction of rice and its subsequent planting by slaves was one of the keys to the early success of isolated black communities and the population rose accordingly. According to Peter Wood inBlack Majority: Negroes in South Carolina from 1670 to the Stono Rebellion, “during precisely those two decades after 1695 when rice production took permanent hold in South Carolina, the African portion of the population drew equal to, and then surpassed, the European portion (36). Furthermore, disease resistance as a result of the sickle cell trait was also an important element in the population growth and although some of these African slaves did suffer from ailments and diseases but not to quite the same degree as white populations in the area.

These factors couple with the fact that many whites avoided the low-lying areas where the stagnating water of the rice and indigo fields were allowed for a distinct black community to develop in these areas of South Carolina. Furthermore, a unique language, Gullah, emerged which combined English and African language and defined this population. As Peter Wood suggests in Black Majority: Negroes in South Carolina from 1670 to the Stono Rebellion, along with the development of a distinct language apart from that of the whites, there was an increasing amount of social organization among these slaves and eventually the tensions between the whites and blacks grew more pronounced. The culmination of these tensions resulted in the Stono Uprising and provides the closing event for Peter Wood’s book. In sum, the thesis of the book is based on the idea of the majority. Peter Wood goes through great lengths to reveal the many conditions that eventually allowed the slaves to posses the majority of the population before finally exploring what the results were of the majority.

The book has dual main points that come together in the end with a massive uprising. First of all, In Black Majority: Negroes in South Carolina from 1670 to the Stono Rebellion Peter Wood concentrates much of the first section on how these Africans rose to the majority in the region. “Black slaves were present in the South Carolina colony from the years of its founding, and by the second generation they constituted a majority of the population” (xiv). According to Peter Wood in Black Majority: Negroes in South Carolina from 1670 to the Stono Rebellion, the reasons for this dominance in population was in part due their resistance to diseases that white settlers were falling victim to, especially those plaguing the stagnant water of the low-lying areas where these slaves remained. This population growth was initially aided by the cultivation of rice and “during precisely those two decades after 1695 when rice production took permanent hold in South Carolina, the African portion of the population drew equal to, and then surpassed, the European portion (36). This centralized and large population allowed for greater organization and by the time of the first revolts and uprisings, these African “pioneers” had already developed a system of language (Gullah) and a community of their own. “There was a tendency toward social, and occasionally economic, self-sufficiency among blacks as their numbers expanded. A voluntary separation from the white community went along with denser population, wider contacts, and increasingly independent living quarters” (195). By the time of the Stono Rebellion, white fears about this community and the subsequent sense of community that these blacks had seemed to make such an uprising almost inevitable. In sum, Wood concentrates mostly on how these African slaves became the majority through certain conditions (disease resistance and location for example) and how this solidarity led to the culmination of black and white relations in South Carolina. As Wood succinctly states, “The episode, [Stono Rebellion] if hardly major in its own right, seemed to symbolize the critical impasse in which Carolina’s English colonists now found themselves” (308). Though he points out that this was not necessarily a landmark in American history, he has done an excellent job of defining rebellion in wide terms and included elements such as environment, for instance, which might be overlooked in a cursory study of slave uprisings in the United States.

The objective of this book seems to provide a definition of slavery in South Carolina and retell the events traced back from the first black slaves in the state (and Barbados for that matter) and chronologically lead up to the Stono Rebellion. In providing such a framework, the author has done a magnificent job and the book could almost read as a narrative. One of the strong points of the book is that it relies heavily on primary sources such as legal and political tracts as well as quotes from men and women who lived in South Carolina throughout the period this book covers. Unfortunately, while such primary sources are an overall positive addition to the text, there were often far more descriptions of what white people were going through than what the subject of the book, the African Americans in South Carolina, were dealing with. While it is obvious that there is drastically less evidence in terms of writing left over from these black residents of the state, it was easy to forget about them since so much of the evidence was based on white observation. Again, this is a tricky aspect of the book to criticize since there obviously was not enough written by these black residents, and although there a few enlightening interviews with relatives of these first residents, it is not enough to present the whole picture. In fact, it would seem that Wood could have relayed the same thesis with simply what he had from white settlers in the region. At times the narrative got bogged down with discussion about the whites when the reader was expecting to learn more about an aspect of the black culture that was developing in these localized and highly populated black areas. It is a shame that there is not more evidence from that area to buffer Wood’s argument, but there is only limited information available, of course. Aside from this occasional lack of focus on the subject, it is difficult to find fault with Wood’s ideas since they seem rooted in fact and are relayed in a very straightforward fashion without much abstract conjecture. In short, the strong point of this book would be its logical organization and basis in fact and the weak point is certainly the fact that the primary source evidence that is, for the most part, only from whites, is overused and clouds the main objective.

Black Majority: Negroes in South Carolina from 1670 to the Stono Rebellion is not a book one might normally pick up to read unless they had a keen interest in either the history of South Carolina or the Stono Rebellion (or have been assigned a summary, analysis, or literature review), but this was a surprisingly engaging text. First of all, it explored the more environmental factors leading to the population increase and followed this natural progression of events through until it seemed as though the Rebellion was only option left. The evidence made the violence depicted near the end seem not only justified but as though it had been meant to happen from the very first settlement of whites and blacks in the area. Although it might not be the most grounded approach—thinking of this book as a testament to the destiny, the way Wood writes makes it easy to see the connections that span across this whole period and how the final outcome is the ultimate sum. This is a book I might recommend to a friend if they were conducting specialized study in African American or Southern history but it is almost too narrow for general consumption. While I am glad I had the opportunity to read it and feel as though I gained a great deal of insight, especially into the early history of slavery in a southern state such as South Carolina, this might be knowledge that is too specific to fit into daily academic debates. I might also recommend this book to friends who seriously consider writing about history for an academic market because of the level of strong organization. Even though Wood tends to get a little bogged down in peripheral evidence, it is clear that this book was painstakingly researched and employed a wide variety of sources and this in itself makes it a model of writing about history. Overall, this was an interesting read about the unique history of slavery and community in South Carolina.

Other essays and articles in the History Archives related to this topic include :  Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects   •    The Emancipation Proclamation: Savior or Rhetoric?    •    Slavery in Brazil and The Quilombo at Palmares

Before this debate about the Emancipation Proclamation begins, it is necessary to offer a few historical insights. The purpose of the Civil War, at least from a Northerners standpoint, was to eradicate slavery and regain the Union of the states, partially for the economic benefits of having such a union. Several Southern states had broken off and formed the Confederacy and this, with the issue of slavery for the Confederacy at the forefront, led to the War. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which stated that all the slaves in Confederate territories be granted their freedom. In reality, the Emancipation Proclamation did not have a significant impact on slavery and only a few slaves were actually freed as a result of this decree. Slaves in Border States such as Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland were not a part of the emancipation either since they were part of the Union or it was shown that as long as an area fought for the Union, slavery was still legal. In many ways then, it is clear that the Emancipation Proclamation was something of a farce. It is cloaked in the language of equality and freedom, but in fact, the legal power of it is very limited and its true (and far more sinister) purposes are now fodder for scholarly debate. While this essay will not attempt to support the presuppositions of Bennett in stating that Lincoln was a racist from the beginning and wished for relocation or extermination, it will examine the broader and less contestable issues at the heart of his debate as well as address Lincoln’s documents on the level of language. His feelings about this treatise to free the slaves is filled with ideals and even clichés, but knowing the anticlimactic ending to the Proclamation causes on to examine the grandiose ideas expressed by Lincoln under a harsher light.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation sounded like a convincing and grand demand for the end of slavery in the South, it’s role as merely a political document is clear in the language. The Emancipation Proclamation has the sound and quality of language of a legal and binding tract, consider the beginning, which states, “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom” (Emancipation Proclamation 1863). The heavy-handed wording and unmistakably legal tone to this document make it clear that the military and war are equally important in this announcement. It is not until later that the President makes it clear about the issues of rights and freedoms, but instead seems more focused on the role of the “military and naval authority” and more importantly, he directly addresses the “rebellion” as one of the first elements.

Moreover, the concluding part of this first paragraph is a very wide-ranging view of what freedom is and it seems that Lincoln is suggesting radical change—as though Americans would wake up the next day and suddenly see a world of racial equality. At the risk of sounding like Bennett, it does seem as though Lincoln knew that these demands were unrealistic, so instead he focused the attention of the grand Enlightenment ideals of freedom before making the “exceptions to rule” that would prove the Emancipation Proclamation to not be as revolutionary as it sounded since very few slaves would actually be freed. The clincher comes closer to the end of the document when, after getting the listeners or readers envisioning grand and widespread equality, it is stated that everyone will be free “except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued” (1863). These “minor” exceptions would be one of the many issues related to the perceived deception involved with the Proclamation and are the most useful when forming an argument about how the Proclamation was simply a political tract rather than a revolutionary leap forward for slaves.

Although Bennett’s book may be a little too radical for some, he does make a number of interesting points. For example he states, “What Lincoln did–and it was so clever that we ought to stop calling him honest Abe—was to ‘free’ slaves in Confederate-held territory where he couldn’t free them and to leave them in slavery in Union-held territory where he could have freed them” (Bennett 64). For the purposes of politics, if Bennett’s theory that he offers a mere summary of in “Forced into Glory” is correct, this would have been a brilliant move by Lincoln—it would have won him the further support of his party and not caused too many waves in either the North or the South, especially if people were able to see right away that there was something missing logistically-speaking from the equation—the ability within the document to truly grant power. While Lincoln comes across as seeming highly dedicated to spreading freedom and equality in the Emancipation Proclamation, which was, of course, a very public document, his private letters reveal more ambivalence about the issue of slavery versus more immediate political concerns. In his “Letter to Horace Greeley” (1862) Lincoln, who already had a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation formed, said, “My paramount object is to save the Union, and is not to either save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could do it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.” The primary goal in this letter shows that Lincoln, much like Bennett suggests, is using slavery for political purposes and it is merely the “issue of the day” rather than a cause that he seems genuinely committed to. Lincoln closes this set of thoughts by stating, “What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union” (1862).

The Emancipation Proclamation was an attempt to disguise Lincoln’s political desires since in other letters and speeches he is, at best, lukewarm about the issue of slavery. This pattern is broken slightly by Lincoln’sLetter to James C. Conkling, in which he defends his views about the emancipation of slaves by countering the opposition. “You say you will not fight to free Negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time, then, for you to declare you will not fight to free Negroes” (Letter to James C. Conkling 1863). It is clear in the rebuttal that Lincoln does have strong feelings, but they many of his points are not simply based upon the benevolent notion of helping free the blacks, but are infused with greater political purpose. While it does seem that history may have led many to believe in the common image of Lincoln as a savior to the country, this may not be an entirely correct assumption. Although Bennett’s book makes some convincing arguments that might lead one to believe that he was Lincoln was a complete racist, relying simply on his opinions would also be a fallacy. After a review of Lincoln’s documents with Bennett’s thoughts in the background, it is clear that the Emancipation Proclamation was not as simple as it may have seemed at first and in fact, Lincoln had other motives that were more political in nature than they were humanitarian.

Other essays and articles in the Main Archives related to this topic include :  Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects  •  The Kansas-Nebraska Act Controversy   •   Discussion of Black Majority: Negroes in South Carolina From 1670 to the Stono Rebellion by Peter Wood    •  The Influence of the Enlightenment on The Formation of the United States  •  Overview of the Reconstruction Era

Jazz the novel by Toni Morrison, like the origins of jazz music itself, is situated primarily in the 1920s, and its focal point is Harlem, New York. Establishing a sense of place, as well as the mood that pervades it and the characters that populate it, is crucial to the “plot” of the jazz tune, whether with or without lyrics, and the same is true for Morrison’s novel. In the novel, Morrison describes “the city,” New York City, in vivid and descriptive visual terms. The narrator says in one of the important quotes from “Jazz” by Toni Morrison, “I’m crazy about this City. Daylight slants like a razor cutting the buildings in half. In the top half I see looking faces…Below is shadow where any blasé thing takes place….” (Morrison 5). This speech is not normal speech that one uses to communicate; it is highly visual, imagistic, and sonorous. The speaker does not necessarily hurry to proceed from this description to the next point; she riffs on her meditation about the City for as long as she likes, and only then does she proceed with her narrative. This narrative technique in “Jazz” by Toni Morrison is unusual for literature, but is entirely familiar to the genre of jazz music, which wanders and improvises, plays with the relationships between sounds, and juxtaposes seemingly incongruent musical ideas in innovative ways. In Jazz, Morrison does the same.

There are other elements of speech in Jazz that are reminiscent of the musical genre yet represent an experimental foray for literature. Consider, for example, that the characters do not always speak in formal or complete sentences. At times, there are just enough words to convey a general idea or impression, and the reader must fill in any perceived gaps. The astute reader picks up on this fact on the very first page of the novel when scanning through the quotes from this first part. The narrator is describing a woman and she adds, “Know her husband, too” (Morrison 1). The absence of the subject, “I,” mimics colloquial speech; extraneous details are omitted and the reader has to pick up the narrative “beat” or lose the novel’s rhythm completely. “Proper” English is rejected as false in this novel; instead, Toni Morrison’s characters must express themselves with their own authentic voices, even at the possible expense of losing the reader. In a sense, like jazz music, the creative act of production becomes more important than the fact that the work will be received by an audience.

Both Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X devote an extensive amount of detail to describing the processes by which they learned to read and write, and, as important, the obstacles that they confronted in order to do so. Douglass explains that he had to acquire his reading and writing skills surreptitiously and, in one of the important quotes from “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” regarding literacy, it is said, He “had no regular teacher” (para. 1), and his owner and his mistress consider slavery and education to be incompatible. Douglass equates illiteracy with living in a “mental darkness” (para. 1), and from an early age, he devotes himself to learning first how to read and then how to write by appealing to the kindness and the egos of young white boys, whom he challenges to word duels. Just as with Malcolm X, Douglass thrills at the challenges of learning to read and write and sees this as part of the road to his salvation from the “mental darkness” that once enslaved him. Similarly, Malcolm X responds to his intense passion to learn to read by creating the conditions that made such learning possible despite challenging circumstances. While in prison, Malcolm X teaches himself to read by going through the dictionary page by page. In order to concretize what he has learned, he copies every single page, and years later, he can recall words and images that astonished him. He explained in one of the important quotes from “The Autobiography of Malcolm X“, “I’d never realized so many words existed! I didn’t know which words I needed to learn” (para. 6). Both of Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass understood the power of language and as their progressed toward their goals of fluency, each was amazed at his ability and in awe at the opportunities afforded by such skills.

Both Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X sense that words can be powerful agents of both a personal as well as a vast social change. In their autobiographies, both men offer homage to the texts that opened their minds and shaped their perspectives on social conditions and politics. Douglass is deeply moved by an exchange between a slave and his master in The Columbian Orator; Malcolm X is equally provoked by a number of books on a wide range of subjects. He starts with a history of Africans and African Americans, acknowledging the influence of seminal texts such as  The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B DuBois and Woodson’s Negro History. Then, he branches out and begins to learn about oppression throughout the world; the historical and sociological texts that he reads give him a broad social consciousness that shaped his political thoughts and actions. By harnessing the power of the written word and literacy, both Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass are able to understand their lives within the context of the experiences of others and can thus go on to share with others this same gift.

Between these two essays, both men also recognize that white people in positions of power find their command of language to be threatening and both writers also recognize that becoming educated makes them the targets of fury and outrage. Douglass describes his otherwise kind mistress in one of theimportant quotes from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass as “rush[ing] at me with a face made all up of fury, and snatch[ing] from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension” (para. 2) as he is caught learning to read the same books her children do. Similarly,  Malcolm X was fully aware of his verbal agility, observing that he was “the most articulate hustler out there [on the streets],” (para. 3). Yet he is humbled by the realization that when it came to writing, he was bereft of the skills necessary to convey his ideas as convincingly as he knew he was capable of. He acknowledges that speech is a crucial part of how people perceive and relate to one another, and he states that “Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or those who read something I’ve said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade” (para. 3).

Ultimately, as this thesis statement for “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and Frederick Douglass narratives makes clear, both Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X convey how crucial the processes of learning how to read and write were to their personal development and the definition of their social consciousness and their role in the abolition and civil rights movements, respectively. Words, they explain, have the power to move people, transform people and, more importantly, to liberate them. Malcolm X explains that “I never had been so truly free in my life” (para. 11) and“reading had changed forever the course of my life…. [T]he ability to read awoke inside me some long dor­mant craving to be mentally alive” (para. 40).The persistent importance and centrality of both of these works to African American literature, in particular, and American literature, in general, affirm the authors’ conclusions. Reading and writing become agents for personal and social liberation, as ideas are learned, shared, and acted upon.

Other articles in our Literature Archives related to this topic include : Freedom, Liberty, and Meaning in the Slave Narrative: Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Olaudah Equiano  •   Opposing Representations of Christianity in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass   •     The Incompatibility of Education and Slavery in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass    •   Analysis of “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes    •    The Role of Education and Literacy in Slave Narratives (Douglass, Washington, Equiano)    •     Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects

Both Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X devote an extensive amount of detail to describing the processes by which they learned to read and write, and, as important, the obstacles that they confronted in order to do so. Douglass explains that he had to acquire his reading and writing skills surreptitiously and, in one of the important quotes from “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” regarding literacy, it is said, He “had no regular teacher” (para. 1), and his owner and his mistress consider slavery and education to be incompatible. Douglass equates illiteracy with living in a “mental darkness” (para. 1), and from an early age, he devotes himself to learning first how to read and then how to write by appealing to the kindness and the egos of young white boys, whom he challenges to word duels. Just as with Malcolm X, Douglass thrills at the challenges of learning to read and write and sees this as part of the road to his salvation from the “mental darkness” that once enslaved him. Similarly, Malcolm X responds to his intense passion to learn to read by creating the conditions that made such learning possible despite challenging circumstances. While in prison, Malcolm X teaches himself to read by going through the dictionary page by page. In order to concretize what he has learned, he copies every single page, and years later, he can recall words and images that astonished him. He explained in one of the important quotes from “The Autobiography of Malcolm X“, “I’d never realized so many words existed! I didn’t know which words I needed to learn” (para. 6). Both of Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass understood the power of language and as their progressed toward their goals of fluency, each was amazed at his ability and in awe at the opportunities afforded by such skills.

Both Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X sense that words can be powerful agents of both a personal as well as a vast social change. In their autobiographies, both men offer homage to the texts that opened their minds and shaped their perspectives on social conditions and politics. Douglass is deeply moved by an exchange between a slave and his master in The Columbian Orator; Malcolm X is equally provoked by a number of books on a wide range of subjects. He starts with a history of Africans and African Americans, acknowledging the influence of seminal texts such as  The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B DuBois and Woodson’s Negro History. Then, he branches out and begins to learn about oppression throughout the world; the historical and sociological texts that he reads give him a broad social consciousness that shaped his political thoughts and actions. By harnessing the power of the written word and literacy, both Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass are able to understand their lives within the context of the experiences of others and can thus go on to share with others this same gift.

Between these two essays, both men also recognize that white people in positions of power find their command of language to be threatening and both writers also recognize that becoming educated makes them the targets of fury and outrage. Douglass describes his otherwise kind mistress in one of theimportant quotes from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass as “rush[ing] at me with a face made all up of fury, and snatch[ing] from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension” (para. 2) as he is caught learning to read the same books her children do. Similarly,  Malcolm X was fully aware of his verbal agility, observing that he was “the most articulate hustler out there [on the streets],” (para. 3). Yet he is humbled by the realization that when it came to writing, he was bereft of the skills necessary to convey his ideas as convincingly as he knew he was capable of. He acknowledges that speech is a crucial part of how people perceive and relate to one another, and he states that “Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or those who read something I’ve said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade” (para. 3).

Ultimately, as this thesis statement for “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and Frederick Douglass narratives makes clear, both Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X convey how crucial the processes of learning how to read and write were to their personal development and the definition of their social consciousness and their role in the abolition and civil rights movements, respectively. Words, they explain, have the power to move people, transform people and, more importantly, to liberate them. Malcolm X explains that “I never had been so truly free in my life” (para. 11) and“reading had changed forever the course of my life…. [T]he ability to read awoke inside me some long dor­mant craving to be mentally alive” (para. 40).The persistent importance and centrality of both of these works to African American literature, in particular, and American literature, in general, affirm the authors’ conclusions. Reading and writing become agents for personal and social liberation, as ideas are learned, shared, and acted upon.

Other articles in our Literature Archives related to this topic include : Freedom, Liberty, and Meaning in the Slave Narrative: Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Olaudah Equiano  •   Opposing Representations of Christianity in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass   •     The Incompatibility of Education and Slavery in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass    •   Analysis of “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes    •    The Role of Education and Literacy in Slave Narratives (Douglass, Washington, Equiano)    •     Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects

In the short first stanza, the speaker in the poem by Langston Hughes states that he has “known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.” From this early point in the point in the poem, images of the canals of veins that run throughout the human body as well as similar images of rivers that wind around and are shaped like veins form our understanding that this poem is about more than blood or water, it is about roots and circuits. Like veins or rivers, roots run deep and twist irregularly through the medium in which they are planted. The ancient rivers the speaker talks of are like the blood in veins or the roots under trees because they provide sustenance and can give and support life. This is later supported when the speaker discusses early civilizations that thrived off the river system, thus the theme of “roots” has a dual meaning.

Although that will be addressed later in this analysis of “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes, it is important to point out that after the first stanza there is a sentence that stands by itself for emphasis that simply states in one of the more important lines in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” This stand-alone line prefaces the issues that will be discussed in the following lines and makes the reader see that rivers are not like the long probing roots of a tree or human veins, but rivers are similar to the soul and, like Hughes’ quest for identity, never ending. When the speaker says that his soul is deep like the rivers, he is saying that because of this almost organic connection with the earth, he thrives and can understand. It is also significant that he says his soul has “grown” deep like the rivers since the idea that it “grows” further emphasizes the organic nature of knowledge and one’s soul. Like tree roots that extend far into the earth, the speaker is “nourished” by roots, both in physical terms (the rivers and human veins) as well as in the metaphorical sense.

This poetry analysis of “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” shifts gears along with the poem by Langston Hughes in a new section. The third section changes the tone of the poem since it reverts to the first-person perspective. Although the reader knows it is impossible for one person to have lived in so many places and time periods at once, it is understood that the “I” being used is meant to represent hundreds of thousands of voices from the past to the present. The speaker says, “I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young / I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled it me to sleep” which makes the reader aware that the “ancient rivers” spoken of before are the “roots” both in terms of history as well as physically. The theme of rivers is continued in the following lines where the speaker details looking along the Nile and then hearing singing in Mississippi and New Orleans and it is clear that these are locations of particular importance in African and African-American history. The speaker seems to be equating survival with the rivers since, like veins and roots, the rivers provide nutrients (also in the metaphorical sense) necessary to survival and growth. Underlying all of these statements about rivers is the theme of roots. These rivers are all in separate locations and though they are like individual trees with separate root systems, they are of the same variety and can support and give life. Along with this idea is the fact that the roots of African and African-American history are not only within the people or the overarching soul of a group of people, but that they are within the souls that “have grown deep like the rivers” they have thrived along for centuries.

After the speaker has highlighted the many rivers important to the “roots” of the souls of people, there is another line break, which seems to be separated for added emphasis. The speaker states, “I’ve known rivers / Ancient, dusky rivers” and the whole theme of the roots of knowing and understanding are brought full circle. Just as when the speaker said his soul had “grown” deep, in this separated section when he says, “I’ve known” rivers he is making a reference to the roots of knowledge. Trees have been associated with knowledge from as early on as the Bible (the Tree of Knowledge) and the theme of roots he invokes here not only addresses the roots of history, circuits, and the soul, but also of knowledge and understanding. This knowledge he refers to is more akin to omniscient cultural knowledge and identity and the roots, which are fed by the metaphorical river and maintained by the human veins and bloodlines of generations. The speaker ends the poem with the repeated phrase, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers” and after reading the stanzas that followed after the first time he stated it, the meaning is both clearer and more complex since we realize so many issues of history, the soul, culture, and understanding are being discussed.

Other articles in our Literature Archives related to this topic include :  Multicultural Writers and the Quest for Identity (Langston Hughes Discussed)    •   Analysis and Summary of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass    •  Freedom, Liberty, and Meaning in the Slave Narrative: Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Olaudah Equiano   •    Comparison of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and the Autobiography of Malcolm X       •     The Role of Education and Literacy in Slave Narratives (Douglass, Washington, Equiano)     •     Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects

In his autobiography, “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”,  Douglass often lapses into assertions that the condition of slavery and education are incompatible for slaves. Throughout the text he is constantly oscillating between an intense desire to become more educated and gaining literacy and wanting to give up hope entirely. At one point in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, he states in one of theimportant quotes from “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” “I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but offered no ladder upon which to get out” (61). For Douglass, finally being able to read and understand more fully the implications of slavery sometimes served to make him more miserable as he came to comprehend the hopelessness of the situation for himself and other slaves. To make matters more complex, acquiring his education was a constant battle since he had to remain secretive since it was “unlawful to teach a slave to read” (20). With the sense that the world was against his pursuit to learn, Douglass seemed to suffer as a result of his education and literacy as it became more advanced.

Once he had achieved his goal of learning to read and write well and become literate, he glimpsed a whole new world, which made the one he existed in even harder to bear. At times, he suffers from hopelessness and questions the value of his education, especially because he feels condemned to live within the system of slavery. After being under the cruel and watchful eye of Mr. Covey, Douglass states,  “My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died: the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute” (48). In other words, slavery and education are incompatible because the system itself (with backbreaking, mind-numbing labor) does not allow the slaves the mental and even physical freedom necessary to make any use of education. Instead, whatever knowledge has been attained might just fester in the slave’s mind and make him or her even unhappier with the conditions and treatment than before. Unfortunately, when Douglass begins to lose hope in his education and its value, the words of the slave owner inevitably come to mind when it is said, “as to himself, it [education] could do him no good, but a great deal of harm” (69). While the reader may shudder at relating to Covey or any of the other cruel masters, this is one point that is sometimes confirmed, especially when Douglass is unhappy as a result of his learning.

In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, when Douglass puts forth the notion that education and slavery are incompatible with one another, he is not only referring to his own situation, but that of the slave owners as well. At one point, Covey states, “if you give a nigger an inch, he will take a mile” (78). Douglass echoes this sentiment while he learns to read and tells the reader that his mistress “had given me an inch and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell” (81). To the slave owner, the prospect of an educated slave was a dangerous notion since he would be more “unmanageable” than those without learning. This proves to be true and is played out as Douglass reaches the pinnacle and finally acts out violently. It is by far in the best interest of the slave owner to keep the slaves ignorant of concepts of freedom or education because it might not only make them wistful, and thoughtful, but by proxy, less useful to them as slaves. In order to keep slavery as a stable institution, it was important for many of the slave owners in the text to make educating a slave something that could be punished. Well-meaning slave owners were heavily criticized for assisting a slave in his or her education and the fact that it was illegal to teach a slave to read indicates the danger the white slave-owning establishment sees as inherent to education.  In other words, by their fierce protection of the practices of education, the slave owners were implicitly admitting that through education lay some kind of freedom, some way of circumventing their otherwise absolute power.

Other essays and articles in our Literature Archives that might interest you include :  Analysis and Summary of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass     •   Major Themes in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass   •   Opposing Representations of Christianity in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass   •  The Importance of Education and Literacy in Slave Narratives   Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects    •     Comparison of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and the Autobiography of Malcolm X 

 • For more background, be sure to view this full analysis and summary of “The Narrative of Frederick Douglass” •