CIVIL RIGHTS: An “American Dilemma”

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 (1883-1896) • 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

CIVIL RIGHTS: An “American Dilemma”