As citizens concerned about our rights and the rights of others, it is important to understand how our government works. As travelers alongside a world of humanity, that concern goes beyond our tribe, our province, our country. The larger story I am here trying to understand and also to share with whomever may care to read is that of human rights and equality.
In the story of the United States, there is a certain beauty and simplicity in beginning with the Declaration of Independence, which affirms inalienable human rights and equality of all people. As noted previously, this document is not legally binding, but serves, as it were, as a divine ideal toward which we strive, recognizing that our start on the journey as a country was immeasurably far from the ideal.
From a broader, international perspective, we may take something like The Universal Declaration of Human Rights which includes among its affirmations Article I which reads “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” (Note 1)
The legal question in the context of United States history must always look back to the Constitution. In a way, the larger arc of this story is that of the Constitution changing and evolving toward the ideal of the Declaration of Independence. Many interpreters and admirers of the Constitution have marveled at its apparent capacity to stand as a basis for that development.(Note 2) In that journey the first major step would be the “Bill of Rights,” the first ten amendments to the constitution (being in fact amendments three through twelve of the originally proposed amendments) which were passed and ultimately ratified by the requisite number of states in 1791. These amendments address and protect, in brief, (1) freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, (2) the right to bear arms, (3) quartering of troops (4) unlawful search and seizure, (5) self-incrimination and guarantee of judicial due process, (6) the right to trial by jury, (7) guidelines for civil suits, (8) protection from excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment, and (10) states’ rights.
Perhaps most interesting in the present discussion is Amendment 9, which states … “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This provision is generally interpreted to provide for the reality of rights not yet specified so as to make it clear that the constitution nor the amendments limit the scope of human rights under the law.
https://njsbf.org/2018/09/10/invoking-the-ninth-amendment/
Thus we resume our look at the Abolitionists …
In any great ideological / moral / political struggle, adherents establish and defend their position against those opposed to the cause. Invariably, internal divisions and even schisms develop within a movement. Owing to the zeal and passion of the those given to activism, these “earnest radicals,” as described by Blight, “like those in virtually all such movements before and since, turned on each other, playing out jealousies, fatigue, ego ward, personality conflicts, and ideological differences. In the case of the abolition movement, particularly in the 1840s and early 50s, factions within the overall movement vied for control of the various state and national societies, argued for and against platform planks, attacked each other in print, and at times boycotted each other's conventions, in a struggle for power, competition for resources, and in expression of their ideological passion.
“Garrisonianism” described the central tenants of the abolitionism that emerged in the first decade of the movement, driving the primary competing ideologies of gradual emancipation and colonization (which advocated African colonization for slaves) almost completely out of favor and influence. Garrison succeeded in shaping the movement around the doctrines of immediatism (rather than gradual abolition), moral suasion (advocating a moral / religious motivation for the abandonment of the practice of slavery), racial equality, anticlericalism, nonresistance (pacifism), and increasingly in the 1840s, disunionism.(Note 3) This last tenant was based on the interpretation that the United States Constitution was incurably pro slavery and therefore abolitionists should totally avoid any involvement in political parties, even to include refraining from voting. (Blight, 104). This may seem bizarre to the 20th / 21st century mindset of activism, but bear in mind that slavery did in fact increasingly become woven into the fabric of the U.S. political system right up until the Civil War. Granted, the northern free states established a firm position which eventually halted expansion (there were no more slave states added after 1846 (excluding territorial expansion, and with an *asterisk for the addition of West Virginia out of Virginia), but the legal status of slavery in the slave states became only more entrenched in the U.S. legal system until it was literally driven out by force.
Disunionism would become a major item of contention between the American Antislavery Society, in which Garrison held sway, and the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, formed and led by wealthy New York abolitionists Arthur and Lewis Tappan. Unfortunately for the movement, the various disagreements and schisms were expressed with extreme passion, vehemence, and with no shortage of personal attack, carried out in the various antislavery publications. This internal debate persisted for the better part of two decades. In the 40s, the New York based antislavery movement found expression in the Liberty Party as a national political movement, and increasingly espoused a “political abolition” in contrast to the apolitical “moral suasion” strategies of the AASS.
As Frederick Douglass established an independent identity, his thinking on some of the Garrisonian doctrines shifted. The founding of his own abolitionist newspaper, The North Star, gave him opportunity, and in fact the demands of regular publication required him to continually evaluate ideas and positions across the movement spectrum. Douglass was not supported by his friends in the Garrisonian camp in his ambition to create his own newspaper. The eventual antagonism that developed was perhaps fueled in part by the fact that Douglass’s communication with his mentor Garrison seems to have completely broken off after the two parted ways during their last joint speaking tour in 1847, the tour in which both of them suffered from fatigue and illness, and in which Garrison eventually had to stop off in Cleveland to recover. While the inner workings of their relationship are beyond our level of analysis, it is probably safe to say with the hindsight of history that the Garrisonians should have thrown their support behind Douglass in his effort to push into the publication venue as a former slave, given his willingness to avoid direct competition and establish his work in Rochester, far from their headquarters in Boston. Douglass was not the first black publisher to attempt the effort but he was the first to succeed, though it took a monumental effort on his part, with the diligent support of several committed supporters. In fact the effort to keep The North Star in publication took a toll on Douglass and the year 1951 was perhaps the most difficult of his young professional life – he faced illness and depression that became almost debilitating at times. (Recall that Douglass suffered no small amount of physical abuse, including serious blows to the head, in his younger years and on the abolitionist speaking circuit.)
Eventually, Douglass formed an alliance with a strong political abolitionist, Gerritt Smith, who became a major benefactor of The North Star during some of its most challenging financial times. In general there was wide agreement on the fundamental aspects of abolition including an abhorrence of the entire institution of slavery; opposition to the political and religious accommodations to slavery in the south as it was practiced and in the north as it was supported, even if indirectly; movement agreement in opposition to race discrimination; and general openness to the growing women’s rights movement. But the areas of disagreement, particularly the question of disunionism and political abolition, proved an insurmountable barrier to cooperation between internal factions and undoubtedly weakened the movement as a whole.
Blight describes Douglass’s movement away from Garrison. “Douglass’s course was typical of that of the many abolitionists who came to see political action as essential to their cause. Although he had long expressed gratitude for Garrison’s tutelage and patronage, the great Bostonian had become the father to leave behind. Douglass had long since headed out for his own new territory; the rigid doctrines of disunionism, nonvoting, and moral suasion no longer sufficed in the political climate of the 1850s, especially in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act, and the violent unfolding of the crisis over slavery’s westward expansion. (Blight, 213-214)
Douglass’s struggle with the issue of disunionism and the constitutional status of slavery during 1850-51 seems to have pushed him toward significant and possibly original insights into the Constitution in theoretical and practical aspects. Blight describes Douglass’s growing support of a more political strategy. He affirmed his belief that the Constitution was not inherently pro slavery, “although the original intent of the founders had made it so. Actual provisions of the document, coupled with natural law, made the Constitution a source of antislavery principles; history had made it proslavery in practice.” Douglass saw the constitution as potentially a source of freedom and justice, but for the moment, “at war with itself.” Further, in practical terms, Dougalass realized that, despite any underlying moral principles, legal authority is ultimately trumped by the power of those presently in positions of authority. (Blight, 215)
The character of the infighting among the abolitionist factions, particularly during 1853, is a blight on the movement. Whereas the style and content of open debate in the press and in public oratory between pro and anti-slavery adherents had been lively, personal, extremely hard hitting and harsh, the level of vehemence expressed by disagreeing parties within abolitionism degenerated into slander and innuendo and often strayed from established fact over disputed matters in the personal lives of the parties involved. This was extremely difficult for Douglass when added to the racism with which he had always contended, and which questioned the manner of his association with Julia and Eliza Griffiths, acquaintances that he had made in England and who made the serious personal and financial commitment to join Douglass in Rochester to assist with the publication of The North Star.
It is interesting to note that the extreme popularity and influence of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (which had been published in 1852) provided somewhat of a needed break in the infighting. In a remarkable turn of events reflecting a surprising interconnectedness of the country’s moral leadership, Stowe actually met with both Douglass and Garrison at different times in 1854 and apparently called for a truce. “Where is this work of excommunication to end?” she expressed to Garrison. As Blight describes her words, “Stowe wanted peace in the ranks.” (Blight, 226-227)
It is beyond our reach to assess the overall influence of the various movement strategies in pressing the antislavery cause inexorably toward its dramatic confrontation in war. There can be no doubt that the diligence of the hundreds of journalists and travelling orators in the countless meetings in thousands of towns large and small across the nation had an impact of increasing weight as the question of slavery divided the nation. Also without doubt the growing political component of the movement would come to fruition as the legal framework would ultimately be worked out to support the emancipation that was made possible through war in the next decade.
To be continued.
Endnotes:
(1) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December of 1948. It includes a preamble and thirty articles, as drafted by authors representing legal and cultural backgrounds from around the world.
(2) An excellent discussion of this phenomenon is found (in a dramatized personal and narrative format) in the work of Heidi Schreck whose play “What the Constitution Means to Me is currently playing in New York.” Schreck was recently interviewed by Terri Gross on Fresh Air (NPR) in an episode which aired March 23, 2019 and also in part two of the This American Life episode 672 by the title “No Fair!,” which aired April 5, 2019.
(3) Women’s rights and feminist ideas became increasingly prominent in the “Garrisonian” platform throughout the 40s and 50s. In the late 40s, the Garrisonians also focused increasingly on moral perfectionism and a doctrine of “comeouterism” which advocated complete disavowal of allegiances to proslavery churches, based on Revelation 18:4, “come out of her, my people, that you may not participate in her sins...” (Blight, 185)
Bibliography
Blight, D. W. (2018). Frederick Douglass. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Douglass, F. (2012). The Complete Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass. Start Publishing LLC.
Mayer, H. (1998). All On Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Rapley, R. (Writer), & Rapley, R. (Director). (2013). American Experience: The Abolitionists [Motion Picture]. PBS / Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
United Nations General Assembly. (1948). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.
The legal question in the context of United States history must always look back to the Constitution. In a way, the larger arc of this story is that of the Constitution changing and evolving toward the ideal of the Declaration of Independence. Many interpreters and admirers of the Constitution have marveled at its apparent capacity to stand as a basis for that development.(Note 2) In that journey the first major step would be the “Bill of Rights,” the first ten amendments to the constitution (being in fact amendments three through twelve of the originally proposed amendments) which were passed and ultimately ratified by the requisite number of states in 1791. These amendments address and protect, in brief, (1) freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, (2) the right to bear arms, (3) quartering of troops (4) unlawful search and seizure, (5) self-incrimination and guarantee of judicial due process, (6) the right to trial by jury, (7) guidelines for civil suits, (8) protection from excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment, and (10) states’ rights.
https://njsbf.org/2018/09/10/invoking-the-ninth-amendment/
Thus we resume our look at the Abolitionists …
In any great ideological / moral / political struggle, adherents establish and defend their position against those opposed to the cause. Invariably, internal divisions and even schisms develop within a movement. Owing to the zeal and passion of the those given to activism, these “earnest radicals,” as described by Blight, “like those in virtually all such movements before and since, turned on each other, playing out jealousies, fatigue, ego ward, personality conflicts, and ideological differences. In the case of the abolition movement, particularly in the 1840s and early 50s, factions within the overall movement vied for control of the various state and national societies, argued for and against platform planks, attacked each other in print, and at times boycotted each other's conventions, in a struggle for power, competition for resources, and in expression of their ideological passion.
“Garrisonianism” described the central tenants of the abolitionism that emerged in the first decade of the movement, driving the primary competing ideologies of gradual emancipation and colonization (which advocated African colonization for slaves) almost completely out of favor and influence. Garrison succeeded in shaping the movement around the doctrines of immediatism (rather than gradual abolition), moral suasion (advocating a moral / religious motivation for the abandonment of the practice of slavery), racial equality, anticlericalism, nonresistance (pacifism), and increasingly in the 1840s, disunionism.(Note 3) This last tenant was based on the interpretation that the United States Constitution was incurably pro slavery and therefore abolitionists should totally avoid any involvement in political parties, even to include refraining from voting. (Blight, 104). This may seem bizarre to the 20th / 21st century mindset of activism, but bear in mind that slavery did in fact increasingly become woven into the fabric of the U.S. political system right up until the Civil War. Granted, the northern free states established a firm position which eventually halted expansion (there were no more slave states added after 1846 (excluding territorial expansion, and with an *asterisk for the addition of West Virginia out of Virginia), but the legal status of slavery in the slave states became only more entrenched in the U.S. legal system until it was literally driven out by force.
Disunionism would become a major item of contention between the American Antislavery Society, in which Garrison held sway, and the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, formed and led by wealthy New York abolitionists Arthur and Lewis Tappan. Unfortunately for the movement, the various disagreements and schisms were expressed with extreme passion, vehemence, and with no shortage of personal attack, carried out in the various antislavery publications. This internal debate persisted for the better part of two decades. In the 40s, the New York based antislavery movement found expression in the Liberty Party as a national political movement, and increasingly espoused a “political abolition” in contrast to the apolitical “moral suasion” strategies of the AASS.
As Frederick Douglass established an independent identity, his thinking on some of the Garrisonian doctrines shifted. The founding of his own abolitionist newspaper, The North Star, gave him opportunity, and in fact the demands of regular publication required him to continually evaluate ideas and positions across the movement spectrum. Douglass was not supported by his friends in the Garrisonian camp in his ambition to create his own newspaper. The eventual antagonism that developed was perhaps fueled in part by the fact that Douglass’s communication with his mentor Garrison seems to have completely broken off after the two parted ways during their last joint speaking tour in 1847, the tour in which both of them suffered from fatigue and illness, and in which Garrison eventually had to stop off in Cleveland to recover. While the inner workings of their relationship are beyond our level of analysis, it is probably safe to say with the hindsight of history that the Garrisonians should have thrown their support behind Douglass in his effort to push into the publication venue as a former slave, given his willingness to avoid direct competition and establish his work in Rochester, far from their headquarters in Boston. Douglass was not the first black publisher to attempt the effort but he was the first to succeed, though it took a monumental effort on his part, with the diligent support of several committed supporters. In fact the effort to keep The North Star in publication took a toll on Douglass and the year 1951 was perhaps the most difficult of his young professional life – he faced illness and depression that became almost debilitating at times. (Recall that Douglass suffered no small amount of physical abuse, including serious blows to the head, in his younger years and on the abolitionist speaking circuit.)
Eventually, Douglass formed an alliance with a strong political abolitionist, Gerritt Smith, who became a major benefactor of The North Star during some of its most challenging financial times. In general there was wide agreement on the fundamental aspects of abolition including an abhorrence of the entire institution of slavery; opposition to the political and religious accommodations to slavery in the south as it was practiced and in the north as it was supported, even if indirectly; movement agreement in opposition to race discrimination; and general openness to the growing women’s rights movement. But the areas of disagreement, particularly the question of disunionism and political abolition, proved an insurmountable barrier to cooperation between internal factions and undoubtedly weakened the movement as a whole.
Blight describes Douglass’s movement away from Garrison. “Douglass’s course was typical of that of the many abolitionists who came to see political action as essential to their cause. Although he had long expressed gratitude for Garrison’s tutelage and patronage, the great Bostonian had become the father to leave behind. Douglass had long since headed out for his own new territory; the rigid doctrines of disunionism, nonvoting, and moral suasion no longer sufficed in the political climate of the 1850s, especially in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act, and the violent unfolding of the crisis over slavery’s westward expansion. (Blight, 213-214)
Douglass’s struggle with the issue of disunionism and the constitutional status of slavery during 1850-51 seems to have pushed him toward significant and possibly original insights into the Constitution in theoretical and practical aspects. Blight describes Douglass’s growing support of a more political strategy. He affirmed his belief that the Constitution was not inherently pro slavery, “although the original intent of the founders had made it so. Actual provisions of the document, coupled with natural law, made the Constitution a source of antislavery principles; history had made it proslavery in practice.” Douglass saw the constitution as potentially a source of freedom and justice, but for the moment, “at war with itself.” Further, in practical terms, Dougalass realized that, despite any underlying moral principles, legal authority is ultimately trumped by the power of those presently in positions of authority. (Blight, 215)
The character of the infighting among the abolitionist factions, particularly during 1853, is a blight on the movement. Whereas the style and content of open debate in the press and in public oratory between pro and anti-slavery adherents had been lively, personal, extremely hard hitting and harsh, the level of vehemence expressed by disagreeing parties within abolitionism degenerated into slander and innuendo and often strayed from established fact over disputed matters in the personal lives of the parties involved. This was extremely difficult for Douglass when added to the racism with which he had always contended, and which questioned the manner of his association with Julia and Eliza Griffiths, acquaintances that he had made in England and who made the serious personal and financial commitment to join Douglass in Rochester to assist with the publication of The North Star.
It is interesting to note that the extreme popularity and influence of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (which had been published in 1852) provided somewhat of a needed break in the infighting. In a remarkable turn of events reflecting a surprising interconnectedness of the country’s moral leadership, Stowe actually met with both Douglass and Garrison at different times in 1854 and apparently called for a truce. “Where is this work of excommunication to end?” she expressed to Garrison. As Blight describes her words, “Stowe wanted peace in the ranks.” (Blight, 226-227)
It is beyond our reach to assess the overall influence of the various movement strategies in pressing the antislavery cause inexorably toward its dramatic confrontation in war. There can be no doubt that the diligence of the hundreds of journalists and travelling orators in the countless meetings in thousands of towns large and small across the nation had an impact of increasing weight as the question of slavery divided the nation. Also without doubt the growing political component of the movement would come to fruition as the legal framework would ultimately be worked out to support the emancipation that was made possible through war in the next decade.
To be continued.
Endnotes:
(1) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December of 1948. It includes a preamble and thirty articles, as drafted by authors representing legal and cultural backgrounds from around the world.
(2) An excellent discussion of this phenomenon is found (in a dramatized personal and narrative format) in the work of Heidi Schreck whose play “What the Constitution Means to Me is currently playing in New York.” Schreck was recently interviewed by Terri Gross on Fresh Air (NPR) in an episode which aired March 23, 2019 and also in part two of the This American Life episode 672 by the title “No Fair!,” which aired April 5, 2019.
(3) Women’s rights and feminist ideas became increasingly prominent in the “Garrisonian” platform throughout the 40s and 50s. In the late 40s, the Garrisonians also focused increasingly on moral perfectionism and a doctrine of “comeouterism” which advocated complete disavowal of allegiances to proslavery churches, based on Revelation 18:4, “come out of her, my people, that you may not participate in her sins...” (Blight, 185)
Bibliography
Blight, D. W. (2018). Frederick Douglass. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Douglass, F. (2012). The Complete Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass. Start Publishing LLC.
Mayer, H. (1998). All On Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Rapley, R. (Writer), & Rapley, R. (Director). (2013). American Experience: The Abolitionists [Motion Picture]. PBS / Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
United Nations General Assembly. (1948). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.