“Justice Robert A. Jackson, Dissent in Korematsu v. United States (1944)” pp. 210-214, “The Truman Doctrine (1947)” pp. 218-221, “Walter Lippmann, a Critique of Containment (1947)” pp. 225-228, & “Allen Ginsberg, ‘Howl’ (1955)” pp. 265-267 in Voices of Freedom
ERIC FONER
VOICES OF FREEDOM A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY
“““““““““““”H““““““““““““
VOLUME
2
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VOICES OF FREEDOM
A Documentary History Fif th Edi t ion
V o l u m e 2
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VOICES OF FREEDOM
A Documentary History Fifth Edi t ion
E D I T E D B Y
E R I C F O N E R
� V o l u m e 2
W . W . N O R T O N & C O M P A N Y . N E W Y O R K . L O N D O N
n
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Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011, 2008, 2005 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America
Manufacturing by Maple Press Book design by Antonina Krass Composition by Westchester Book Group
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Foner, Eric, 1943– editor. Title: Voices of freedom: a documentary history / edited by Eric Foner. Description: Fifth edition. | New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references. Identifi ers: LCCN 2016045203 | ISBN 9780393614497 (pbk., v. 1) | ISBN 9780393614503 (pbk., v. 2) Subjects: LCSH: United States—History—Sources. | United States—Politics and government—Sources. Classifi cation: LCC E173 .V645 2016 | DDC 973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016045203
ISBN: 978-0-393-61450-3 (pbk.)
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 wwnorton .com
W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
W. W. Norton & Company has been in de pen dent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton fi rst published lectures delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The fi rm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By midcentury, the two major pil- lars of Norton’s publishing program— trade books and college texts— were fi rmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today— with a staff of four hundred and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year— W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees.
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ERIC FONER is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D. In his teaching and scholarship, he focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and nineteenth- century America. Professor Foner’s publications include Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War ; Tom Paine and Revolutionary America; Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War; Nothing but Freedom: Emancipa- tion and Its Legacy; Reconstruction: American’s Unfi nished Revolution, 1863– 1877; Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Offi ceholders During Reconstruction; The Story of American Freedom; Who Owns His- tory? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World; and Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. His history of Reconstruc- tion won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Parkman Prize. He served as president of the Or ga ni- za tion of American Historians, the American Historical Associa- tion, and the Society of American Historians. His most recent trade publications include The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, which won numerous awards including the Lincoln Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize, and Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad.
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C on t en t s
Preface xv
15
“ W h a t I s F r e e d o m? ” : R e c o n s t r u c t i o n , 1 8 6 5 – 1 8 7 7 95. Petition of Black Residents of Nashville (1865) 1
96. Petition of Committee on Behalf of the Freedmen to
Andrew Johnson (1865) 4
97. The Mississippi Black Code (1865) 7
98. A Sharecropping Contract (1866) 11
99. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Home Life” (ca. 1875) 14
100. Frederick Douglass, “The Composite Nation” (1869) 18
101. Robert B. Elliott on Civil Rights (1874) 24
16
A m e r i c a’s G i l d e d A g e , 1 8 7 0 – 1 8 9 0 102. Jorgen and Otto Jorgensen, Homesteading in Montana (1908) 28
103. Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth (1889) 32
104. William Graham Sumner on Social Darwinism (ca. 1880) 35
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105. A Second Declaration of In de pen dence (1879) 40
106. Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879) 42
107. Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (1888) 45
108. Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel (1912) 49
17
F r e e d o m’s B o u n d a r i e s , a t H o m e a n d A b r o a d , 1 8 9 0 – 1 9 0 0
109. The Populist Platform (1892) 52
110. Booker T. Washington, Address at the Atlanta Cotton
Exposition (1895) 57
111. W. E. B. Du Bois, A Critique of Booker T. Washington (1903) 61
112. Ida B. Wells, Crusade for Justice (ca. 1892) 64
113. Frances E. Willard, Women and Temperance (1883) 70
114. Josiah Strong, Our Country (1885) 72
115. Emilio Aguinaldo on American Imperialism in the
Philippines (1899) 74
18
T h e P r o g r e s s i v e E ra , 1 9 0 0 – 1 9 1 6 116. Manuel Gamio on a Mexican- American Family and
American Freedom (ca. 1926) 77
117. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics (1898) 81
118. John A. Ryan, A Living Wage (1912) 84
119. The Industrial Workers of the World and the Free
Speech Fights (1909) 87
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120. Margaret Sanger on “Free Motherhood,” from Woman
and the New Race (1920) 92
121. Mary Church Terrell, “What It Means to Be Colored
in the Capital of the United States” (1906) 96
122. Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom (1912) 100
123. R. G. Ashley, Unions and “The Cause of Liberty” (1910) 103
19
S a f e f o r D e m o c ra c y : T h e U n i t e d S t a t e s a n d Wo r l d Wa r I , 1 9 1 6 – 1 9 2 0
124. Woodrow Wilson, A World “Safe for Democracy” (1917) 105
125. Randolph Bourne, “War Is the Health of the State” (1918) 107
126. A Critique of the Versailles Peace Conference (1919) 112
127. Carrie Chapman Catt, Address to Congress on Women’s
Suffrage (1917) 114
128. Eugene V. Debs, Speech to the Jury (1918) 119
129. Rubie Bond, The Great Migration (1917) 123
130. Marcus Garvey on Africa for the Africans (1921) 127
131. John A. Fitch on the Great Steel Strike (1919) 130
20
F r o m B u s i n e s s C u l t u r e t o G r e a t D e p r e s s i o n : T h e T w e n t i e s , 1 9 2 0 – 1 9 3 2
132. André Siegfried on the “New Society,” from the
Atlantic Monthly (1928) 136
133. The Fight for Civil Liberties (1921) 140
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134. Bartolomeo Vanzetti’s Last Statement in Court (1927) 145
135. Congress Debates Immigration (1921) 147
136. Meyer v. Nebraska and the Meaning of Liberty (1923) 151
137. Alain Locke, The New Negro (1925) 155
138. Elsie Hill and Florence Kelley Debate the Equal Rights
Amendment (1922) 160
21
T h e N e w D e a l , 1 9 3 2– 1 9 4 0 139. Letter to Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins (1937) 163
140. John Steinbeck, The Harvest Gypsies (1936) 166
141. Labor’s Great Upheaval (1937) 168
142. Franklin D. Roo se velt, Speech to the Demo cratic
National Convention (1936) 172
143. Herbert Hoover on the New Deal and Liberty (1936) 175
144. Norman Cousins, “Will Women Lose Their Jobs?” (1939) 178
145. Frank H. Hill on the Indian New Deal (1935) 183
146. W. E. B. Du Bois, “A Negro Nation within a Nation” (1935) 187
22
F i g h t i n g f o r t h e F o u r F r e e d o m s : Wo r l d Wa r I I , 1 9 4 1 – 1 9 4 5
147. Franklin D. Roo se velt on the Four Freedoms (1941) 192
148. Will Durant, Freedom of Worship (1943) 194
149. Henry R. Luce, The American Century (1941) 196
150. Henry A. Wallace on “The Century of the Common Man” (1942) 199
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151. F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944) 202
152. World War II and Mexican- Americans (1945) 205
153. African-Americans and the Four Freedoms (1944) 208
154. Justice Robert A. Jackson, Dissent in Korematsu v.
United States (1944) 210
23
T h e U n i t e d S t a t e s a n d t h e C o l d Wa r, 1 9 4 5 – 1 9 5 3 155. Declaration of In de pen dence of the Demo cratic Republic
of Vietnam (1945) 215
156. The Truman Doctrine (1947) 218
157. NSC 68 and the Ideological Cold War (1950) 221
158. Walter Lippmann, A Critique of Containment (1947) 225
159. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) 228
160. President’s Commission on Civil Rights,
To Secure These Rights (1947) 234
161. Joseph R. McCarthy on the Attack (1950) 239
162. Margaret Chase Smith, Declaration of Conscience (1950) 242
163. Will Herberg, The American Way of Life (1955) 244
24
A n A f f l u e n t S o c i e ty, 1 9 5 3 – 1 9 6 0 164. Richard M. Nixon, “What Freedom Means to Us” (1959) 248
165. Daniel L. Schorr, “Reconverting Mexican Americans” (1946) 253
166. The Southern Manifesto (1956) 257
167. Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (1962) 259
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168. C. Wright Mills on “Cheerful Robots” (1959) 262
169. Allen Ginsberg, “Howl” (1955) 265
170. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955) 267
25
T h e S i x t i e s , 1 9 6 0 – 1 9 6 8 171. John F. Kennedy, Speech on Civil Rights (1963) 272
172. Malcolm X, The Ballot or the Bullet (1964) 276
173. Barry Goldwater on “Extremism in the Defense
of Liberty” (1964) 280
174. Lyndon B. Johnson, Commencement Address at Howard
University (1965) 284
175. The Port Huron Statement (1962) 288
176. Paul Potter on the Antiwar Movement (1965) 294
177. The National Or ga ni za tion for Women (1966) 296
178. César Chavez, “Letter from Delano” (1969) 300
179. The International 1968 (1968) 304
26
T h e T r i u m p h o f C o n s e r va t i s m , 1 9 6 9 – 1 9 8 8 180. Brochure on the Equal Rights Amendment (1970s) 307
181. Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle (1971) 309
182. The Sagebrush Rebellion (1979) 313
183. Jimmy Carter on Human Rights (1977) 316
184. Jerry Falwell, Listen, America! (1980) 319
185. Phyllis Schlafl y, “The Fraud of the Equal Rights
Amendment” (1972) 324
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186. James Watt, “Environmentalists: A Threat to the Ecol ogy
of the West” (1978) 327
187. Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address (1981) 329
27
F r o m T r i u m p h t o T ra g e d y, 1 9 8 9 – 2 0 0 1 188. Pat Buchanan, Speech to the Republican
National Convention (1992) 332
189. Bill Clinton, Speech on Signing of NAFTA (1993) 334
190. Declaration for Global Democracy (1999) 336
191. The Beijing Declaration on Women (1995) 338
192. Puwat Charukamnoetkanok, “Triple Identity:
My Experience as an Immigrant in America” (1990) 343
28
A N e w C e n t u r y a n d N e w C r i s e s 193. The National Security Strategy of the United States (2002) 349
194. Robert Byrd on the War in Iraq (2003) 352
195. Second Inaugural Address of George W. Bush (2005) 356
196. Archbishop Roger Mahoney, “Called by God to Help” (2006) 359
197. Anthony Kennedy, Opinion of the Court in
Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) 362
198. Security, Liberty, and the War on Terror (2008) 366
199. Barack Obama, Eulogy at Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church (2015) 368
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x v
Pre fa c e
Voices of Freedom is a documentary history of American freedom from the earliest days of Eu ro pean exploration and settlement of the Western Hemi sphere to the pres ent. I have prepared it as a com- panion volume to Give Me Liberty!, my survey textbook of the his- tory of the United States centered on the theme of freedom. This fi fth edition of Voices of Freedom is or ga nized in chapters that corre- spond to those in the fi fth edition of the textbook. But it can also stand in de pen dently as a documentary introduction to the history of American freedom. The two volumes include more than twenty documents not available in the third edition.
No idea is more fundamental to Americans’ sense of themselves as individuals and as a nation than freedom, or liberty, with which it is almost always used interchangeably. The Declaration of In de- pen dence lists liberty among mankind’s inalienable rights; the Constitution announces as its purpose to secure liberty’s blessings. “ Every man in the street, white, black, red or yellow,” wrote the educator and statesman Ralph Bunche in 1940, “knows that this is ‘the land of the free’ . . . ‘the cradle of liberty.’ ”
The very universality of the idea of freedom, however, can be misleading. Freedom is not a fi xed, timeless category with a single unchanging defi nition. Rather, the history of the United States is, in part, a story of debates, disagreements, and strug gles over freedom. Crises such as the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Cold
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War have permanently transformed the idea of freedom. So too have demands by vari ous groups of Americans for greater freedom as they understood it.
In choosing the documents for Voices of Freedom, I have attempted to convey the multifaceted history of this compelling and contested idea. The documents refl ect how Americans at dif fer ent points in our history have defi ned freedom as an overarching idea, or have understood some of its many dimensions, including po liti cal, reli- gious, economic, and personal freedom. For each chapter, I have tried to select documents that highlight the specifi c discussions of freedom that occurred during that time period, and some of the divergent interpretations of freedom at each point in our history. I hope that students will gain an appreciation of how the idea of freedom has expanded over time, and how it has been extended into more and more areas of Americans’ lives. But at the same time, the documents suggest how freedom for some Americans has, at vari ous times in our history, rested on lack of freedom— slavery, inden- tured servitude, the subordinate position of women— for others.
The documents that follow refl ect the kinds of historical develop- ments that have shaped and reshaped the idea of freedom, including war, economic change, territorial expansion, social protest move- ments, and international involvement. The se lections try to convey a sense of the rich cast of characters who have contributed to the history of American freedom. They include presidential proclama- tions and letters by runaway slaves, famous court cases and obscure manifestos, ideas dominant in a par tic u lar era and those of radicals and dissenters. They range from advertisements in colonial news- papers seeking the return of runaway indentured servants and slaves to debates in the early twentieth century over the defi nition of economic freedom, the controversy over the proposed Equal Rights Amendment for women, and recent Supreme Court decisions deal- ing with the balance between liberty and security in war time.
I have been particularly attentive to how battles at the bound- aries of freedom— the efforts of racial minorities, women, and
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others to secure greater freedom— have deepened and transformed the concept and extended it into new realms. In addition, in this fi fth edition I have included a number of new documents that illus- trate how the history of the western United States, and more partic- ularly the borderlands area of the Southwest, have affected the evolution of the idea of freedom. These include the Texas Declara- tion of In de pen dence of 1836, a reminiscence about homesteading in the West in the late nineteenth century, a report on the status of Mexican- Americans in the aftermath of World War II, and an explanation of the so- called Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s.
All of the documents in this collection are “primary sources”— that is, they were written or spoken by men and women enmeshed in the events of the past, rather than by later historians. They there- fore offer students the opportunity to encounter ideas about free- dom in the actual words of participants in the drama of American history. Some of the documents are reproduced in their entirety. Most are excerpts from longer interviews, articles, or books. In edit- ing the documents, I have tried to remain faithful to the original purpose of the author, while highlighting the portion of the text that deals directly with one or another aspect of freedom. In most cases, I have reproduced the wording of the original texts exactly. But I have modernized the spelling and punctuation of some early documents to make them more understandable to the modern reader. Each document is preceded by a brief introduction that places it in historical context and is followed by two questions that highlight key ele ments of the argument and may help to focus students’ thinking about the issues raised by the author.
A number of these documents were suggested by students in a U.S. history class at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, taught by Professor David Hsiung. I am very grateful to these stu- dents, who responded enthusiastically to an assignment by Profes- sor Hsiung that asked them to locate documents that might be included in this edition of Voices of Freedom and to justify their choices with historical arguments. Some of the documents are
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included in the online exhibition, “Preserving American Freedom,” created by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Taken together, the documents in these volumes suggest the ways in which American freedom has changed and expanded over time. But they also remind us that American history is not simply a narrative of continual pro gress toward greater and greater freedom. While freedom can be achieved, it may also be reduced or rescinded. It can never be taken for granted.
Eric Foner
x v i i i P r e f a c e
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VOICES OF FREEDOM
A Documentary History Fif th Edi t ion
V o l u m e 2
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C H A P T E R 1 5
“ Wha t I s F r e ed om?” : R e c ons t ru c t i o n , 1 8 65 – 1 8 7 7
95. Petition of Black Residents of Nashville (1865)
Source: Newspaper clipping enclosed in Col. R. D. Mussey to Capt. C. P. Brown, January 23, 1865, Letters Received, ser. 925, Department of the Cumberland, U.S. Army Continental Commands, National Archives.
At the request of military governor Andrew Johnson, Lincoln exempted Tennessee from the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 (although many slaves in the state gained their freedom by serving in the Union army). In January 1865, a state convention was held to complete the work of abolition. A group of free blacks of Nashville sent a petition to the dele- gates, asking for immediate action to end slavery and granting black men the right to vote (which free blacks had enjoyed in the state until 1835). The document emphasized their loyalty to the Union, their natu- ral right to freedom, and their willingness to take on the responsibilities of citizenship. The document offers a revealing snapshot of black con- sciousness at the dawn of Reconstruction.
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2 Vo i c e s o f F r e e d o m
To the Union Convention of Tennessee Assembled in the Capitol at Nashville, January 9th, 1865:
We the undersigned petitioners, American citizens of African descent, natives and residents of Tennessee, and devoted friends of the great National cause, do most respectfully ask a patient hearing of your honorable body in regard to matters deeply affecting the future condition of our unfortunate and long suffering race.
First of all, however, we would say that words are too weak to tell how profoundly grateful we are to the Federal Government for the good work of freedom which it is gradually carry ing forward; and for the Emancipation Proclamation which has set free all the slaves in some of the rebellious States, as well as many of the slaves in Tennessee.
After two hundred years of bondage and suffering a returning sense of justice has awakened the great body of the American peo- ple to make amends for the unprovoked wrongs committed against us for over two hundred years.
Your petitioners would ask you to complete the work begun by the nation at large, and abolish the last vestige of slavery by the express words of your organic law.
Many masters in Tennessee whose slaves have left them, will cer- tainly make every effort to bring them back to bondage after the reor ga ni za tion of the State government, unless slavery be expressly abolished by the Constitution.
We hold that freedom is the natural right of all men, which they themselves have no more right to give or barter away, than they have to sell their honor, their wives, or their children.
We claim to be men belonging to the great human family, descended from one great God, who is the common Father of all, and who bestowed on all races and tribes the priceless right of freedom. Of this right, for no offence of ours, we have long been cruelly deprived, and the common voice of the wise and good of all coun- tries, has remonstrated against our enslavement, as one of the great- est crimes in all history.
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“ W h a t I s F r e e d o m ? ” 3
We claim freedom, as our natural right, and ask that in harmony and co- operation with the nation at large, you should cut up by the roots the system of slavery, which is not only a wrong to us, but the source of all the evil which at present affl icts the State. For slavery, corrupt itself, corrupted nearly all, also, around it, so that it has infl uenced nearly all the slave States to rebel against the Federal Government, in order to set up a government of pirates under which slavery might be perpetrated.
In the contest between the nation and slavery, our unfortunate people have sided, by instinct, with the former. We have little for- tune to devote to the national cause, for a hard fate has hitherto forced us to live in poverty, but we do devote to its success, our hopes, our toils, our whole heart, our sacred honor, and our lives. We will work, pray, live, and, if need be, die for the Union, as cheerfully as ever a white patriot died for his country. The color of our skin does not lesson in the least degree, our love either for God or for the land of our birth.
We are proud to point your honorable body to the fact, that so far as our knowledge extends, not a negro traitor has made his appear- ance since the begining of this wicked rebellion. . . .
Devoted as we are to the principles of justice, of love to all men, and of equal rights on which our Government is based, and which make it the hope of the world. We know the burdens of citizenship, and are ready to bear them. We know the duties of the good citizen, and are ready to perform them cheerfully, and would ask to be put in a position in which we can discharge them more effectually. We do not ask for the privilege of citizenship, wishing to shun the obli- gations imposed by it.
Near 200,000 of our brethren are to- day performing military duty in the ranks of the Union army. Thousands of them have already died in battle, or perished by a cruel martyrdom for the sake of the Union, and we are ready and willing to sacrifi ce more. But what higher order of citizen is there than the soldier? or who has a greater trust confi ded to his hands? If we are called on to do military duty against the
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4 Vo i c e s o f F r e e d o m
rebel armies in the fi eld, why should we be denied the privilege of voting against rebel citizens at the ballot- box? The latter is as neces- sary to save the Government as the former. . . .
This is not a Demo cratic Government if a numerous, law- abiding, industrious, and useful class of citizens, born and bred on the soil, are to be treated as aliens and enemies, as an inferior degraded class, who must have no voice in the Government which they support, protect and defend, with all their heart, soul, mind, and body, both in peace and war.
Questions
1. Why do the petitioners place so much emphasis on their loyalty to the
Union cause during the war?
2. What understanding of American history and the nation’s future do the
petitioners convey?
96. Petition of Committee on Behalf of the Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865)
Source: Henry Bram et al. to the President of the United States, October 28, 1865, P-27, 1865, Letters Received (series 15), Washington Headquarters, Freedmen’s Bureau Papers, National Archives.
By June 1865, some 40,000 freedpeople had been settled on “Sherman land” in South Carolina and Georgia, in accordance with Special Field Order 15. That summer, however, President Andrew Johnson, who had succeeded Lincoln, ordered nearly all land in federal hands returned to its former own ers. In October, O. O. Howard, head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, traveled to the Sea Islands to inform blacks of the new policy.
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Howard was greeted with disbelief and protest. A committee drew up petitions to Howard and President Johnson. Their petition to the presi- dent pointed out that the government had encouraged them to occupy the land and affi rmed that they were ready to purchase it if given the opportunity. Johnson rejected the former slaves’ plea. And, throughout the South, because no land distribution took place, the vast majority of rural freedpeople remained poor and without property during Reconstruction.
Edisto Island S.C. Oct 28th, 1865.
To the President of these United States. We the freedmen of Edisto Island South Carolina have learned From you through Major General O O Howard commissioner of the Freedmans Bureau. with deep sor- row and Painful hearts of the possibility of government restoring These lands to the former own ers. We are well aware Of the many perplexing and trying questions that burden Your mind, and do there- fore pray to god (the preserver of all and who has through our Late and beloved President (Lincoln) proclamation and the war made Us A free people) that he may guide you in making Your decisions, and give you that wisdom that Cometh from above to settle these great and Impor- tant Questions for the best interests of the country and the Colored race: Here is where secession was born and Nurtured Here is were we have toiled nearly all Our lives as slaves and were treated like dumb Driven cattle, This is our home, we have made These lands what they are. we were the only true and Loyal people that were found in poses- sion of these Lands. we have been always ready to strike for Liberty and humanity yea to fi ght if needs be To preserve this glorious union. Shall not we who Are freedman and have been always true to this Union have the same rights as are enjoyed by Others? Have we broken any Law of these United States? Have we forfi eted our rights of property In Land?— If not then! are not our rights as A free people and good citi- zens of these United States To be considered before the rights of those who were Found in rebellion against this good and just Government
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(and now being conquered) come (as they Seem) with penitent hearts and beg forgiveness For past offences and also ask if their lands Cannot be restored to them are these rebellious Spirits to be reinstated in their possessions And we who have been abused and oppressed For many long years not to be allowed the Privilege of purchasing land But be sub- ject To the will of these large Land own ers? God forbid, Land monop- oly is injurious to the advancement of the course of freedom, and if Government Does not make some provision by which we as Freed- men can obtain A Homestead, we have Not bettered our condition.
We have been encouraged by Government to take Up these lands in small tracts, receiving Certifi cates of the same— we have thus far Taken Sixteen thousand (16000) acres of Land here on This Island. We are ready to pay for this land When Government calls for it. and now after What has been done will the good and just government take from us all this right and make us Subject to the will of those who have cheated and Oppressed us for many years God Forbid!
We the freedmen of this Island and of the State of South Carolina— Do therefore petition to you as the President of these United States, that some provisions be made by which Every colored man can pur- chase land. and Hold it as his own. We wish to have A home if It be but A few acres. without some provision is Made our future is sad to look upon. yess our Situation is dangerous. we therefore look to you In this trying hour as A true friend of the poor and Neglected race. for protection and Equal Rights. with the privilege of purchasing A Homestead— A Homestead right here in the Heart of South Carolina.
We pray that God will direct your heart in Making such provision for us as freedmen which Will tend to united these states together stronger Than ever before— May God bless you in the Administra- tion of your duties as the President Of these United States is the humble prayer Of us all.—
In behalf of the Freedmen Henry Bram Committee Ishmael Moultrie. yates. Sampson
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Questions
1. How important is it for the petitioners to obtain land on Edisto Island,
as opposed to elsewhere in the country?
2. What do they think is the relationship between owning land and free-
dom?
97. The Mississippi Black Code (1865)
Source: Walter L. Fleming, ed., Documentary History of Reconstruction (Cleveland, 1906– 1907), Vol. 1, pp. 281– 90.
During 1865, Andrew Johnson put into effect his own plan of Reconstruc- tion, establishing procedures whereby new governments, elected by white voters only, would be created in the South. Among the fi rst laws passed by the new governments were the Black Codes, which attempted to regulate the lives of the former slaves. These laws granted the freedpeople certain rights, such as legalized marriage, own ership of property, and limited access to the courts. But they denied them the right to testify in court in cases that only involved whites, serve on juries or in state militias, or to vote. And in response to planters’ demands that the freedpeople be required to work on the plantations, the Black Codes declared that those who failed to sign yearly labor contracts could be arrested and hired out to white landowners. The Black Codes indicated how the white South would regulate black freedom if given a free hand by the federal government. But they so completely violated free labor principles that they discredited Johnson’s Reconstruction policy among northern Republicans.
Vagrant Law
Sec. 2. . . . All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this State, over the age of eigh teen years, found on the second Monday in January,
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1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawfully assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time, and all white persons so assembling themselves with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, on terms of equality, or living in adultery or fornication with a freed woman, free negro or mulatto, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fi ned in a sum not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro, or mulatto, fi fty dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and imprisoned at the discretion of the court, the free negro not exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six months. . . .
Sec. 7. . . . If any freedman, free negro, or mulatto shall fail or refuse to pay any tax levied according to the provisions of the sixth section of this act, it shall be prima facie evidence of vagrancy, and it shall be the duty of the sheriff to arrest such freedman, free negro, or mulatto or such person refusing or neglecting to pay such tax, and proceed at once to hire for the shortest time such delinquent tax- payer to any one who will pay the said tax, with accruing costs, giving preference to the employer, if there be one.
Civil Rights of Freedmen
Sec. 1. . . . That all freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes may sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded, in all the courts of law and equity of this State, and may acquire personal property, and choses in action, by descent or purchase, and may dispose of the same in the same manner and to the same extent that white persons may: Provided, That the provisions of this section shall not be so construed as to allow any freedman, free negro, or mulatto to rent or lease any lands or tene- ments except in incorporated cities or towns. . . .
Sec. 2. . . . All freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes may inter- marry with each other, in the same manner and under the same regu- lations that are provided by law for white persons: Provided, That the clerk of probate shall keep separate rec ords of the same.
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Sec. 3. . . . All freedmen, free negroes, or mulattoes who do now and have herebefore lived and cohabited together as husband and wife shall be taken and held in law as legally married, and the issue shall be taken and held as legitimate for all purposes; that it shall not be lawful for any freedman, free negro, or mulatto to intermarry with any white person; nor for any white person to intermarry with any freedman, free negro, or mulatto; and any person who shall so intermarry, shall be deemed guilty of felony, and on conviction thereof shall be confi ned in the State penitentiary for life; and those shall be deemed freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes who are of pure negro blood, and those descended from a negro to the third gen- eration, inclusive, though one ancestor in each generation may have been a white person.
Sec. 4. . . . In addition to cases in which freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes are now by law competent witnesses, freedmen, free negroes, or mulattoes shall be competent in civil cases, when a party or parties to the suit, either plaintiff or plaintiffs, defendant or defen- dants; also in cases where freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes is or are either plaintiff or plaintiffs, defendant or defendants, and a white person or white persons, is or are the opposing party or par- ties, plaintiff or plaintiffs, defendant or defendants. They shall also be competent witnesses in all criminal prosecutions where the crime charged is alleged to have been committed by a white person upon or against the person or property of a freedman, free negro, or mulatto: Provided, that in all cases said witnesses shall be examined in open court, on the stand; except, however, they may be examined before the grand jury, and shall in all cases be subject to the rules and tests of the common law as to competency and credibility.
Sec. 5. . . . Every freedman, free negro, and mulatto shall, on the second Monday of January, one thousand eight hundred and sixty- six and annually thereafter, have a lawful home or employment, and shall have written evidence thereof. . . .
Sec. 6. . . . All contracts for labor made with freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes for a longer period than one month shall be in writing,
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and in duplicate, attested and read to said freedman, free negro, or mulatto by a beat, city or county offi cer, or two disinterested white persons of the county in which the labor is to be performed, of which each party shall have one; and said contracts shall be taken and held as entire contracts, and if the laborer shall quit the ser vice of the employer before the expiration of his term of ser vice, without good cause, he shall forfeit his wages for that year up to the time of quitting.
Sec. 7. . . . Every civil offi cer shall, and every person may, arrest and carry back to his or her legal employer any freedman, free negro, or mulatto who shall have quit the ser vice of his or her employer before the expiration of his or her term of ser vice without good cause. . . . Provided, that said arrested party, after being so returned, may appeal to the justice of the peace or member of the board of police of the county, who, on notice to the alleged employer, shall try summarily whether said appellant is legally employed by the alleged employer, and has good cause to quit said employer; either party shall have the right of appeal to the county court, pending which the alleged deserter shall be remanded to the alleged employer or other- wise disposed of, as shall be right and just; and the decision of the county court shall be fi nal.
Certain Offenses of Freedmen
Sec. 1. . . . That no freedman, free negro or mulatto, not in the mili- tary ser vice of the United States government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry fi rearms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk or bowie knife, and on conviction thereof in the county court shall be punished by fi ne, not exceeding ten dollars, and pay the costs of such proceed- ings, and all such arms or ammunition shall be forfeited to the informer. . . .
Sec. 2. . . . Any freedman, free negro, or mulatto committing riots, routs, affrays, trespasses, malicious mischief, cruel treatment to animals, seditious speeches, insulting gestures, language, or acts, or assaults on any person, disturbance of the peace, exercising the func-
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tion of a minister of the Gospel without a license from some regu- larly or ga nized church, vending spirituous or intoxicating liquors, or committing any other misdemeanor, the punishment of which is not specifi cally provided for by law, shall, upon conviction thereof in the county court, be fi ned not less than ten dollars, and not more than one hundred dollars, and may be imprisoned at the discretion of the court, not exceeding thirty days.
Sec. 3. . . . If any white person shall sell, lend, or give to any freed- man, free negro, or mulatto any fi re- arms, dirk or bowie knife, or ammunition, or any spirituous or intoxicating liquors, such person or persons so offending, upon conviction thereof in the county court of his or her county, shall be fi ned not exceeding fi fty dollars, and may be imprisoned, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding thirty days. . . .
Sec. 5. . . . If any freedman, free negro, or mulatto, convicted of any of the misdemeanors provided against in this act, shall fail or refuse for the space of fi ve days, after conviction, to pay the fi ne and costs imposed, such person shall be hired out by the sheriff or other offi – cer, at public outcry, to any white person who will pay said fi ne and all costs, and take said convict for the shortest time.
Questions
1. Why do you think the state of Mississippi required all black persons to
sign yearly labor contracts but not white citizens?
2. What basic rights are granted to the former slaves and which are denied
to them by the Black Code?
98. A Sharecropping Contract (1866)
Source: Rec ords of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Tennessee, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, National Archives.
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Despite the widespread desire for land, few former slaves were able to acquire farms of their own in the post– Civil War South. Most ended up as sharecroppers, working on white- owned land for a share of the crop at the end of the growing season. Sharecropping was a kind of compromise between blacks’ desire for in de pen dence from white control and planters’ desire for a disciplined labor force. This contract, representative of thou- sands, originated in Shelby County, Tennessee. The laborers sign with an X, as they are illiterate. Typical of early postwar contracts, it gave the planter the right to supervise the labor of his employees. Later sharecropping con- tracts afforded former slaves greater autonomy. Families would rent parcels of land, work it under their own direction, and divide the crop with the own er at the end of the year. But as the price of cotton fell after the Civil War, workers found it diffi cult to profi t from the sharecropping system.
T h o m a s J . Ro s s agrees to employ the Freedmen to plant and raise a crop on his Rosstown Plantation . . . On the following Rules, Regu- lations and Remunerations.
The said Ross agrees to furnish the land to cultivate, and a suffi – cient number of mules & horses and feed them to make and house said crop and all necessary farming utensils to carry on the same and to give unto said Freedmen whose names appear below one half of all the cotton, corn and wheat that is raised on said place for the year 1866 after all the necessary expenses are deducted out that accrues on said crop. Outside of the Freedmen’s labor in harvest- ing, carry ing to market and selling the same and the said Freedmen whose names appear below covenant and agrees to and with said Thomas J. Ross that for and in consideration of one half of the crop before mentioned that they will plant, cultivate, and raise under the management control and Superintendence of said Ross, in good faith, a cotton, corn and oat crop under his management for the year 1866. And we the said Freedmen agrees to furnish ourselves & fami- lies in provisions, clothing, medicine and medical bills and all, and every kind of other expenses that we may incur on said plantation for the year 1866 free of charge to said Ross. Should the said Ross fur-
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nish us any of the above supplies or any other kind of expenses, dur- ing said year, are to settle and pay him out of the net proceeds of our part of the crop the retail price of the county at time of sale or any price we may agree upon. The said Ross shall keep a regular book account, against each and every one or the head of every family to be adjusted and settled at the end of the year.
We furthermore bind ourselves to and with said Ross that we will do good work and labor ten hours a day on an average, winter and summer. The time to run from the time we commence to the time we quit. . . . We further agree that we will lose all lost time, or pay at the rate of one dollar per day, rainy days excepted. In sickness and women lying in childbed are to lose the time and account for it to the other hands out of his or her part of the crop at the same rates that she or they may receive per annum.
We furthermore bind ourselves that we will obey the orders of said Ross in all things in carry ing out and managing said crop for said year and be docked for disobedience. All is responsible for all farming utensils that is on hand or may be placed in care of said Freedmen for the year 1866 to said Ross and are also responsible to said Ross if we carelessly, maliciously maltreat any of his stock for said year to said Ross for damages to be assessed out of our wages for said year.
Samuel (X) Johnson, Thomas (X) Richard, Tinny (X) Fitch, Jessie (X) Simmons, Sophe (X) Pruden, Henry (X) Pruden, Frances (X) Pruden, Elijah (X) Smith
Questions
1. How does the contract limit the freedom of the laborers?
2. What kinds of benefi ts and risks for the freedpeople are associated with
a sharecropping arrangement?
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99. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Home Life” (ca. 1875)
Source: “Home Life,” manuscript, ca. 1875, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of Congress.
Women activists saw Reconstruction as the moment for women to claim their own emancipation. With blacks guaranteed equality before the law by the Fourteenth Amendment and black men given the right to vote by the Fifteenth, women demanded that the boundaries of American democ- racy be expanded to include them as well. Other feminists debated how to achieve “liberty for married women.” In 1875, Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted an essay demanding that the idea of equality, which had “revolu- tionized” American politics, be extended into private life. Genuine liberty for women, she insisted, required an overhaul of divorce laws (which gen- erally required evidence of adultery, desertion, or extreme abuse to termi- nate a marriage) and an end to the authority men exercised over their wives.
Women’s demand for the right to vote found few sympathetic male lis- teners. Even fewer supported liberalized divorce laws. But Stanton’s exten- sion of the idea of “liberty for women” into the most intimate areas of private life identifi ed a question that would become a central concern of later generations of feminists.
We a r e i n the midst of a social revolution, greater than any po liti- cal or religious revolution, that the world has ever seen, because it goes deep down to the very foundations of society. . . . A question of magnitude presses on our consideration, whether man and woman are equal, joint heirs to all the richness and joy of earth and Heaven, or whether they were eternally ordained, one to be sovereign, the other slave. . . . Here is a question with half the human family, and that the stronger half, on one side, who are in possession of the cita- del, hold the key to the trea sury and make the laws and public senti- ment to suit their own purposes. Can all this be made to change base without prolonged discussion, upheavings, heartburnings, violence
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and war? Will man yield what he considers to be his legitimate authority over woman with less struggle than have Popes and Kings their supposed rights over their subjects, or slaveholders over their slaves? No, no. John Stuart Mill says the generality of the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal at the fi reside; and here is the secret of the opposition to woman’s equality in the state and the church— men are not ready to recognize it in the home. This is the real danger apprehended in giving woman the ballot, for as long as man makes, interprets, and executes the laws for himself, he holds the power under any system. Hence when he expresses the fear that liberty for woman would upset the family relation, he acknowledges that her present condition of subjection is not of her own choosing, and that if she had the power the whole relation would be essentially changed. And this is just what is coming to pass, the kernel of the struggle we witness to day.
This is woman’s transition period from slavery to freedom and all these social upheavings, before which the wisest and bravest stand appalled, are but necessary incidents in her progress to equality. Conservatism cries out we are going to destroy the family. Timid reformers answer, the po liti cal equality of woman will not change it. They are both wrong. It will entirely revolutionize it. When woman is man’s equal the marriage relation cannot stand on the basis it is to day. But this change will not destroy it; as state constitutions and statute laws did not create conjugal and maternal love, they cannot annual them. . . . We shall have the family, that great conservator of national strength and morals, after the present idea of man’s head- ship is repudiated and woman set free. To establish a republican form of government [and] the right of individual judgment in the family must of necessity involve discussion, dissension, division, but the purer, higher, holier marriage will be evolved by the very evils we now see and deplore. This same law of equality that has revolu- tionized the state and the church is now knocking at the door of our homes and sooner or later there too it must do its work. Let us one and all wisely bring ourselves into line with this great law for man
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will gain as much as woman by an equal companionship in the near- est and holiest relations of life. . . . So long as people marry from considerations of policy, from every possible motive but the true one, discord and division must be the result. So long as the State pro- vides no education for youth on the questions and throws no safe- guards around the formation of marriage ties, it is in honor bound to open wide the door of escape. From a woman’s standpoint, I see that marriage as an indissoluble tie is slavery for woman, because law, religion and public sentiment all combine under this idea to hold her true to this relation, what ever it may be and there is no other human slavery that knows such depths of degradations as a wife chained to a man whom she neither loves nor respects, no other slav- ery so disastrous in its consequences on the race, or to individual respect, growth and development. . . .
• • • By the laws of several states in this republic made by Christian
representatives of the people divorces are granted to day for . . . seventeen reasons. . . . By this kind of legislation in the several states we have practically decided two important points: 1st That mar- riage is a dissoluble tie that may be sundered by a decree of the courts. 2nd That it is a civil contract and not a sacrament of the church, and the one involves the other. . . .
A legal contract for a section of land requires that the parties be of age, of sound mind, [and] that there be no fl aw in the title. . . . But a legal marriage in many states in the Union may be contracted between a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve without the consent of parents or guardians, without publication of banns. . . . Now what person of common sense, or conscience, can endorse laws as wise or prudent that sanction acts such as these. Let the state be logical: if marriage is a civil contract, it should be subject to the laws of all other contracts, carefully made, the parties of age, and all agreements faithfully observed. . . .
Let us now glance at a few of the pop u lar objections to liberal divorce laws. It is said that to make divorce respectable by law, gos- pel and public sentiment is to break up all family relations. Which
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is to say that human affections are the result and not the foundation of the canons of the church and statutes of the state. . . . To open the doors of escape to those who dwell in continual antagonism, to the unhappy wives of drunkards, libertines, knaves, lunatics and tyrants, need not necessarily embitter the relations of those who are contented and happy, but on the contrary the very fact of freedom strengthens and purifi es the bond of union. When husbands and wives do not own each other as property, but are bound together only by affection, marriage will be a life long friendship and not a heavy yoke, from which both may sometimes long for deliverance. The freer the rela- tions are between human beings, the happier. . . .
• • • Home life to the best of us has its shadows and sorrows, and
because of our ignorance this must needs be. . . . The day is breaking. It is something to know that life’s ills are not showered upon us by the Good Father from a kind of Pandora’s box, but are the results of causes that we have the power to control. By a knowledge and obser- vance of law the road to health and happiness opens before [us]: a joy and peace that passeth all understanding shall yet be ours and Para- dise regained on earth. When marriage results from a true union of intellect and spirit and when Mothers and Fathers give to their holy offi ces even that preparation of soul and body that the artist gives to the conception of his poem, statue or landscape, then will marriage, maternity and paternity acquire a new sacredness and dignity and a nobler type of manhood and womanhood will glorify the race!!
Questions
1. How does Stanton defi ne the “social revolution” the United States under-
went after the Civil War?
2. How does Stanton believe that individual freedom within the family
can be established?
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100. Frederick Douglass, “The Composite Nation” (1869)
Source: Philip S. Foner and Daniel Rosenberg, eds., Racism, Dissent, and Asian Americans from 1850 to the Present (Westport, Conn., 1993), pp. 217– 30.
Another group that did not share fully in the expansion of rights inspired by the Civil War and Reconstruction was Asian- Americans. Prejudice against Asians was deeply entrenched, especially on the West Coast, where most immigrants from Asia lived. When the Radical Republican Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, moved to allow Asians to become naturalized citizens (a right that had been barred to them since 1790), senators from California and Oregon objected vociferously, and the proposal was defeated.
Another advocate of equal rights for Asian- Americans was Frederick Douglass. In his remarkable “Composite Nation” speech, delivered in Boston in 1869, Douglass condemned anti- Asian discrimination and called for giv- ing them all the rights of other Americans, including the right to vote. Dou- glass’s comprehensive vision of a country made up of people of all races and national origins and enjoying equal rights was too radical for the time, but it would win greater and greater ac cep tance during the twentieth century.
T h e r e wa s a time when even brave men might look fearfully at the destiny of the Republic. When our country was involved in a tan- gled network of contradictions; when vast and irreconcilable social forces fi ercely disputed for ascendancy and control; when a heavy curse rested upon our very soil, defying alike the wisdom and the virtue of the people to remove it; when our professions were loudly mocked by our practice and our name was a reproach and a by word to a mocking earth; when our good ship of state, freighted with the best hopes of the oppressed of all nations, was furiously hurled against the hard and fl inty rocks of derision, and every cord, bolt, beam and bend in her body quivered beneath the shock, there was
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