lecture 5, "telling a free story"
david blight

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slaves, of course, are the greatest witnesses to this context and this war, in many ways--if it is somehow all about them, "what did they think?"

douglass' 1845 narrative is perhaps the greatest of the literary narratives. he was an almost mystically great writer, for someone who escaped so young (he learned literacy from his white mistress).

the book is full of metaphor--of one kind of tale after another.

for a fugitive slave to write his story and publish it in the western world was to say "i am free, i am somebody--i am claiming my idenity."

douglass spoke in london, at one point, before 10,000 people in london, in 1846.

the most beautiful metaphor in anti-slavery literature--Douglass seeing white sailboats on the Chesapeake Bay. acts of language that made Douglass free; a form of liberation.

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abolitionism--its roots, its characters, barriers they faced. and its chronology--stages of its development.

the first of the four eras of reform the prof identified earlier (very suspect--what about strike era, pre-taft/hartley?)

this was an age, the 1830s, for a small group (never exceeded 15% of the population of the Northern states--concentrated in upstate NY, MA, CT, etc.). BUT: like most highly organized reform groups, their significance is much greater than their numbers.

what were they up against?

the American abolitionists has to deal, by the 1820s, with the new generations being born who did not experience the revolution. that revolution had at least a two-fold legacy: (1) it was an event that ushered in/stood for those great Enlightenment principles; (2) fostered an intensification of slavery in the South (whereas it had abolished slavery in the North by the 1820s), and, as corollary, had to develop a defense to deal with this Great American Contradiction (prof of course not mentioning the other Great American Contradictions).

any abolitionist would have to deal with the Constitution, which is rooted deeply in Federalism. States' rights doctrine. Then you take the 3/5 clause, the Fugitive Slaves Cause, and the postponing of the question of banning the slave trade for 20 years--and you see that the Constitution is complicit in this great American sin. put another way: abolitionism would have to become extra-legal.

and then of course, they were up against the deep defense of slavery rehearsed in the South. they would have to call for social, economic, and legal revolution in a society that did not want it (and a society to which they did not belong!). to be an abolitionist in the 1830s was to take on an issue that no one saw resolving itself for generations.

anti-slavery in America, though, takes stages:

first, the idea of colonizing black people, elsewhere, as a resolution to slavery at home. colonization as an idea is not new, by 1816, when the American Colonization Society was formed (had Congressional funding--founded by James Monroe, Henry Clay (slave-holder from Kentucky), John Marshall (chief justice of the Supreme Court). but in the wake of the War of 1812, the idea was that in the boundless West, the problem of slavery might have to be faced. and the idea was that it may be solved by ridding America of black people--and they would begin with free people, who would be "asked not coeerced." the ACS founded the nation of Liberia in 1820/1822--it would ship approximately 1500 free African-Americans to Liberia, between 1821 and 1831. and they would found a capital at Monrovia (named after James Monroe, president of USA!).

but colonization, of course, had all kinds of flaws at its root. essentially rooted in the assumptions that racial equality in America was never going to happen. a fear of the rising free black population, that had really boomed in the aftermath of the American Revolution (manumissions in the Upper South, and emancipations in the North). a fear of slave insurrections, of course.

there was this idea, too, that colonization would be a safety-valve--it might only remove 5 or 10%, but even that would ameliorate tensions in the South.

a strange attractiveness, but mainly to white folk. roundly opposed by free blacks in the North.

"gradualism" fueled the proposal--and it was "gradualism" that was white America's first response to slavery, prof is arguing. example of CT, passing a law in 1790s, saying that every slave born in that state after this date would be free on their 21st birthday. (this is Abraham Lincoln's proposal, in fact, on the eve of the Civil War! and he would even compensate the slave-holders!)

BUT: several things begin to happen in the 1820s and 1830s, that radicalize anti-slavery thinkers. the roots of a more radical abolitionism--of "immediatism." four roots, prof is arguing:

(1) evangelical christianity--some of their radicalism they took from their faith, at the time of the Second Great Awakening (1790s-1840s) it was their duty to save souls. it was only one step further, to save society as well. (if it can happen in a person, why can't it happen in society?).

(2) perceptions of Southern intransigence/truculence--in the 1820s, a lot of these young anti-slavery advocates were gradualists until they began to realize how deeply committed the South actually was--morally, economically, socially, philosophically-- to slavery. and that leaving it to the South was never going to solve anything. by 1829, William Lloyd Garrison used metaphors of icebergs to characterize what he perceived as Southern intransigence.

(3) British influence--abolitionists were deeply influenced by the two or three decades-old anti-slavery crusade in England. which had first been a crusade against the slave trade, which succeeded in an act of Parliament in 1807, and then ultimately the movement against slavery itself (and the British empire will free its slaves, by 1833).

(4) "immediatism" also, prof is arguing, stems from events--in the 1810s, 1820s and 1830s there were events that informed this posture. (a) famous insurrections in the South (insurrection in SC in 1822, and the 28/30 ppl executed in its wake; (b) Negro Seamen's act passed in SC in 1822, which said that any ship sailing into the harbor, if it had black sailors, those sailors would be jailed in Charlestown while the ship was in harbor; (c) the Ohio Resolutions in 1824, State legislature suggested that a gradual plan for emancipation be put in to place over generations, and they sent it to all the Southern legislatures (they were rebuffed--letters from Southern governers saying "mind your own business");(d) massive growth of the domestic slave trade; (e) Nat Turner's insurrection in 1831, which had a radicalizing effect, no question.

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now who was William Lloyd Garrison? by no means the whole abolitionist movement (he did found, edit and publish the longest-running anti-slavery newspaper, from 1831 to 1865, nine months after the end of the Civil War, the week of the ratification of the 13th amendment).

he was the real thing--a professional, radical reformer. born into utter poverty! raised by his mother; he was apprenticed out at the age of 12, because his mother couldn't raise him, to a printer.

if you want to understand Garrison, you have to understand him through his ideas. here, you see the contours of "immediatism," which will begin to garner support, for sure, particularly among free blacks in the North. but it will also, of course, begin to garner widespread enemies.

but, here, his seven ideas (what "immediatism" became, in his hands):

(1) moral perfectionism: a stern, demanding call for abolitionists to remove themselves personally from any complicity in the slave system. deeply religious, of course.

(2) pacificsm, or non-resistance: he rejected all forms of violence, in any form (well, until the war broke out)

(3) anti-clericalism: opposition to what he saw as the hypocrisy of the American churches, and the Protestant clergy. (remember: Garrison was Douglass' mentor, father-figure, etc.)

(4) disunionism: no union with the slave-holders. he advocated a personal secession from the Union. that northern states not participate in the same constitution.

(5) not voting: to vote in an American election, he believed, was to be morally complicit in slavery. he advocated political non-participation.

(6) women's equality (another form of radicalism that made him a lot of enemies)

(7) civil rights advocate: a tremendous early demander of civil rights, at a time when there really weren't any advocates.

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what happens with this anti-slavery activism?

in a sense, two kinds of abolitionism emerged: one "white" and one "black"

the former: thousands and thousands across the North writing petitions, starting slave societies, etc. even fledgling political parties, though Garrison wouldn't touch this.

the latter: free blacks in the North, who couldn't risk the theoretical abstractions that the white abolitionists would waste time on (what are we doing for my children, who don't have a school, etc.?)

by the 1840s, a division will evolve between these two groups.

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amidst all this, fugitive slaves kept coming from the South (though there is a myth/legend problem, here--next lecture).