Race in America
A Short But Philosophical History of
Relations Between Blacks and Whites
in the U. S.
First Stage: Slavery (1500-1865)
Second Stage: Reconstruction (1865-1896)
Third Stage: Segregation (1896-1968)
Fourth Stage: The Present (1968-2003)
Slavery
(1500-1865)
A Philosophical Question:
Why is slavery bad?
• Slavery is, by definition, loss of
freedom.
• Why is the loss of freedom bad?
What’s so important about
freedom?
Two Theories:
• Freedom is intrinsically valuable.
• Freedom is valuable because it
has good consequences—people
who are free have better lives.
Another Possibility:
• Freedom is a necessary condition
for having a life.
By 1600, slave trade to new world was well-established.
• Slaves were brought first to the Carribean/South
American colonies of Spain and Portugal; then to North
America.
Slave Ship — Cargo Hold
(1997)
Awkward fact:
The crew
members died
too--just as
often.
A Problem that
historians face in
describing life on
a plantation:
Do we emphasize
the brutality . . .
(and make the
slaves seem like
nothing but pitiful
victims)
. . . or the
ordinariness of
life on the
plantation?
(and make slavery
seem like a benign
institution)
Slaves on a South Carolina
Plantation
How slaves
managed to
make lives for
themselves, and
sustain their
own families
and culture,
despite their
circumstances.
1974
1776: Declaration of Independence
“We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all
men are created equal,
that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.”
1776: Declaration of Independence
“We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all
men are created equal,
that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.”
“Man being born, as has been
proved, with a title to perfect
freedom and an uncontrolled
enjoyment of all the rights and
privileges of the law of Nature,
equally with any other man, or
number of men in the world,
hath by nature a power not only
to preserve his property- that
is, his life, liberty, and estate,
against the injuries and
attempts of other men . . .”
John Locke, Second Treatise on Government
(1690)
1776: Declaration of Independence
“We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all
men are created equal,
that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.”
1776: Declaration of Independence
“We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all
men are created equal,
that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.”
What is
this?
He [the King] has waged cruel war against human
nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life
and liberty in the persons of distant people who
never offended him, captivating and carrying them
into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur
miserable death in their transportation thither.
This piratical warfare, the opproprium of INFIDEL
powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN King of
Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market
where MEN should be bought and sold, he has
prostituted his negative for suppressing every
legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this
execrable commerce.
—draft of the Declaration of Independence
He [the King] has waged cruel war against human
nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life
and liberty in the persons of distant people who
never offended him, captivating and carrying them
into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur
miserable death in their transportation thither.
This piratical warfare, the opproprium of INFIDEL
powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN King of
Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market
where MEN should be bought and sold, he has
prostituted his negative for suppressing every
legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this
execrable commerce.
—draft of the Declaration of Independence
He [the King] has waged cruel war against human
nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life
and liberty in the persons of distant people who
never offended him, captivating and carrying them
into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur
miserable death in their transportation thither.
This piratical warfare, the opproprium of INFIDEL
powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN King of
Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market
where MEN should be bought and sold, he has
prostituted his negative
suppressing every
Thomasfor
Jefferson
legislative attempt
toto
prohibit
or to restrain this
seems
have believed
execrable commerce.
the transport was
dangerous.
—draft of especially
the Declaration
of Independence
Jefferson and
Sally Hemmings?
1787: Constitutional Convention
“Representatives and direct Taxes
shall be apportioned among the
several States which may be
included within this Union,
according to their respective
Numbers, which shall be determined
by adding to the whole Number of
free Persons, including those bound
to Service for a Term of Years, and
excluding Indians not taxed, three
fifths of all other Persons.”
1790 Census
Total U.S. Population:
• (half in South)
Slaves: 697,624
Free Blacks: 59,557
8% of
blacks
are
free.
3,929,625
But in the
South, 36%
are slaves.
1807: Importing slaves is
banned.
A Right to Rebellion?
Are people sometimes justified in
rebelling against political
authority? Almost all modern
philosophers say yes.
A Right to Rebellion?
“I tremble for my country
when I reflect that God is just:
that his justice cannot sleep for
ever: that considering
numbers, nature and natural
means only, a revolution of the
wheel of fortune, an exchange
of situation is among possible
events: that it may become
probable by supernatural
interference! The almighty has
no attribute which can take
side with us in such a contest.”
Slave Rebellions
There were about 20 notable
rebellions. Some examples:
In 1739, in North Carolina, a revolt
led by a slave called “Jemmy”
results in the deaths of 25 whites.
In 1800, Gabriel
Prosser organized
an assault on
Richmond. Plot
was betrayed by
two slaves who
did not want to
see their masters
killed.
Gabriel Prosser
(1775-1800)
1822
Ex-slave Denmark Vesey
organized more than a
thousand blacks in a plot
to take over Charleston.
The plot was betrayed
and the conspirators
were rounded up. 37
were hanged.
The militia had to be
called out to control the
crowds of Vesey’s
supporters.
1831, Virginia, Nat
Turner organizes an
army of 60-70
followers. About 60
whites killed, including
Nat’s master and his
family.
The Amistad
Incident (1839)
• 53 kidnapped Africans
seize the ship and kill the
captain
• Arrested in New Haven
• Case argued before
Supreme Cout by John
Quincy Adams
• Not guilty; all released
Political Compromises, No. 1
Northwest Ordinance of 1787
• No slavery
• But fugitive
slaves must be
returned to their
“owners”
Political Compromises, No. 2
Missouri Compromise of 1820
• Shall Missouri be
admitted to the
Union as a slave
state?
• Compromise:
Missouri slave, Maine
free; other territories
specified as slave or
free
Missouri Compromise of 1820
• Shall Missouri be
admitted to the Union
as a slave state?
• Compromise:
Missouri slave, Maine
free
Political Compromises, No. 3
The Great Compromise of 1850
• California admitted to
Union as free state
• Slave trade, but not
slavery, abolished in D.C.
• Utah and New Mexico
territories open to slavery
• Fugitive slave act passed,
requiring citizens to
cooperate in apprehending
runaway slaves.
The Compromises Collapse:
The Dred Scott Case (1857)
• a slave is like a mule
• Missouri compromise
(and all the other
compromises)
declared void: only
states have the right
to decide question of
slavery
“The abolitionism
which I advocate is as
absolute as the law of
God, and as unyielding
as his throne. It
admits of no
compromise. Every
slave is a stolen man;
every slaveholder is a
man stealer.”
William Lloyd Garrison
(1805-1879)
They were serious, and
it was dangerous.
• Founded Oberlin
College, open to both
blacks and whites
• Founded the first
American Anti-Slavery
Society in New York in
1833
• Had his house burned
down in 1834
Lewis Tappan (1788-1883)
Do moral arguments
matter? Philosophers
like to think so. But do
they make any real
difference?
We will return to this
question later, when
we come to the
civil rights movement
of the 1950s and 60s.
Did the moral
arguments about
slavery matter?
Was slavery already on
its way out, from an
economic point of
view?
At the time of the
civil war, slavery was
still an economically
sound system
1974
Civil War
(1861-65)
Emancipation
Proclamation signed
January 1, 1863
Reconstruction
(1865-1896)
13th Amendment abolishes slavery
(1865)
14th Amendment guarantees “due
process” and “equal protection” to
all citizens (1868)
• This means that states may not
violate the rights of citizens under
the federal constitution.
• And it guarantees that former
slaves will be full citizens.
Civil Rights Act of 1866
• Makes all Blacks citizens
• Denies states the power to
restrict their rights
• First time Congress had
overridden a Presidential
veto
Reconstruction Acts, starting in
1866
South divided into military
regions, under the control
of generals
“The Carpetbaggers”
N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945)
Ku Klux Klan founded in 1867
The plan: reduce blacks to political
impotence by intimidation, terror,
murder
Nathan Bedford Forrest
The first Grand Wizard
(Mr. Duley has already
told us about the
lynchings.)
The inevitable end of the
Northern Occupation:
Carpetbaggers leave, whites
take control once again.