On Servants and Slaves

To my reader,

The subject matter of this essay and all of its various parts is filled with sharp edges that will probably elicit deep emotional responses from some. This is not my intent. Rather, I hope that by engaging in this conversation we can become knowledgeable enough that we are willing to carry the conversation further – into circles and settings where we can, by spreading our knowledge, help others advance their thinking about and acceptance of others.

Next, please allow me to make this point about our topic and place it prominently above all other elements of this effort – the institution of slavery and everything relating to it is abhorrent and immoral. There are no redeeming qualities, no excuses, no defenses, and no justifications that make it anything other than abhorrent and immoral. With that said, we can’t fix what is broken if we don’t know what we are fixing so knowledge is better than ignorance even when that knowledge comes with a great deal of discomfort. We didn’t make this conversation necessary, but necessary it is if we are to find unity and equality in our American dream.

Lastly, let me address the length of this work and assure everyone that my goal was not to overwhelm my audience. Brevity is an essential ingredient in an essay such as this, but brevity must take second place to thorough content. I believe that I have assembled a continuous thread of material from the beginning of the topic in the 1607 Virginia Colony all the way through to the present time. I have tried to avoid extra details or embellishments which would add volume to the text without adding value to the content so let’s take a deep breath and try to learn together.

Let’s concentrate our thinking about servants and slaves in a chronology of North American events. There will be other events in the world that might amplify our understanding of a particular point, but we should focus our work in North America before and after the formation of the United States of America.

Servants arrived on North American shores before slaves so we’ll start there.

Early in my life I learned from my mother that in any search for knowledge it is good to start in the dictionary. Boy was she ever right! The dictionary offers a foundation for conversation so that everyone involved can achieve a common understanding. My Merriam-Webster’s Kindle Edition offers the following:

“ser·vant n [ME, fr. AF, fr. prp. of servir] (13c) : one that serves others <a public >; esp : one that performs duties about the person or home of a master or personal employer

“ser·vi·tude n [ME, fr. AF servitute, fr. L servitudo slavery, fr. servus slave] (15c) 1 : a condition in which one lacks liberty esp. to determine one’s course of action or way of life 2 : a right by which something (as a piece of land) owned by one person is subject to a specified use or enjoyment by another

“indentured servant n (1723) : a person who signs and is bound by indentures to work for another for a specified time esp. in return for payment of travel expenses and maintenance.”

These definitions show us that there are different types of servants in society and we sometimes hear them mentioned. Titles such as Butler, or Maid, or Housekeeper, or Cook, etc. would all be part of that conversation and it is fair to say that the employer/employee relationship is generally a voluntary situation. Our conversation here deals more with the indentured servant. Here the employer/employee relationship is not quite the same when it comes to freedom of choice. An indentured servant would be a person who has entered into a contractual relationship with an employer to do certain work for an agreed-to period of time in exchange for some other consideration such as travel to one of the Colonies in North America.

According to a PBS.org website, “indentured servants first arrived in America in the decade following the settlement of Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607.”

In the earliest Colonial times we can easily imagine that there was far more to do than there were people to do it so it should come as no surprise to find evidence of people in difficult circumstances in the Old World wanting to enter into an indentured situation just to travel to the New World and greater opportunity for the future. The Virginia Company led the way with this indentured servitude relationship, but others adopted similar practices. Again quoting from the PBS.org website; “A new life in the New World offered a glimmer of hope; this explains how one-half to two-thirds of the immigrants who came to the American colonies arrived as indentured servants.

“Servants typically worked four to seven years in exchange for passage, room, board, lodging and freedom dues. While the life of an indentured servant was harsh and restrictive, it wasn’t slavery. There were laws that protected some of their rights. But their life was not an easy one, and the punishments meted out to people who wronged were harsher than those for non-servants. An indentured servant’s contract could be extended as punishment for breaking a law, such as running away, or in the case of female servants, becoming pregnant.

“For those that survived the work and received their freedom package, many historians argue that they were better off than those new immigrants who came freely to the country. Their contract may have included at least 25 acres of land, a year’s worth of corn, arms, a cow and new clothes. Some servants did rise to become part of the colonial elite, but for the majority of indentured servants that survived the treacherous journey by sea and the harsh conditions of life in the New World, satisfaction was a modest life as a freeman in a burgeoning colonial economy.”

According to the Wikipedia website regarding the “History of Slavery,” slavery has been part of civilization since before there were records of civilization. The institution of slavery took a variety of forms depending on the reason for the bondage. For our purposes here the reason is of no consequence because, as I said earlier, slavery and everything about slavery is abhorrent and immoral so there are no excuses worthy of our time.

In 1619 the first black Africans came to Virginia. As I wrote in my book, A Broken Sausage Grinder: Is Our Government Fundamentally Flawed?: “It is through a twist of fate that the first African slaves were brought to Jamestown. They were taken from Angola aboard a Portuguese slave ship called the San Juan Bautista with the intent of delivering them to the Spanish settlement at Veracruz; but before the ship arrived in Veracruz, it was intercepted by two British vessels, and some of the Africans were taken. It was one of these vessels, flying under a Dutch flag, that first made port in Jamestown and traded slaves for provisions. The second British vessel arrived a few days later. The year was 1619.”

There were no slave laws in 1619 so these first arrivals were treated as indentured servants. A couple of decades later the Colony of Massachusetts established the first slave laws and a couple of decades after that the Colony of Virginia followed suit. Involuntary servitude became an institution in colonial society that would become one of the most lasting and contentious issues we would face in our future. The PBS.org website offers a very concise explanation of the early evolution of this institution as follows: “As demands for labor grew, so did the cost of indentured servants. Many landowners also felt threatened by newly freed servants demand for land. The colonial elite realized the problems of indentured servitude. Landowners turned to African slaves as a more profitable and ever-renewable source of labor and the shift from indentured servants to racial slavery had begun.”

Again, there is no justification for the abhorrent and immoral institution of slavery as it existed then or as it has evolved until today, but we can understand how greed and a desire for domination became the motivations for it. The colonies were settled with capitalism forefront in the list of motives and it was these basic capitalistic practices that led to an acceptance of slavery in parts of our fledgling society.

As we turn our attention to slavery we will need a couple of new definitions – slave and chattel. Returning to my Merriam-Webster’s Kindle Edition, I find:

“slave n [ME sclave, fr. AF or ML; AF esclave, fr. ML sclavus, fr. Sclavus Slav; fr. the frequent enslavement of Slavs in central Europe during the early Middle Ages] (14c) 1 : a person held in servitude as the chattel of another 2 : one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence 3 : a device (as the printer of a computer) that is directly responsive to another 4 : drudge, toiler slave adj

“chattel n [ME chatel property, fr. AF more at cattle] (14c) 1 : an item of tangible movable or immovable property except real estate and things (as buildings) connected with real property 2 : slave, bondsman.”

Here in these two definitions we find the basic elements of slavery that are the source of its abhorrence and immorality of character. Specifically, it is the idea that one human being can own as property another human being. This is power and capitalism run amuck.

I noted previously that slavery dates back to a time before the earliest records of civilization on planet earth. The following paragraph from the Wikipedia website on slavery in the colonies tells us that:

“Slaves, African and indigenous, were a smaller part of the New England economy and a smaller fraction of the population, but they were present. The Puritans codified slavery in 1641.  The Massachusetts royal colony passed the Body of Liberties, which prohibited slavery in many instances, but did allow three legal bases of slavery. Slaves could be held if they were captives of war, if they sold themselves into slavery or were purchased from elsewhere, or if they were sentenced to slavery by the governing authority. The Body of Liberties used the word “strangers” to refer to people bought and sold as slaves. Colonists came to equate this term with Native Americans and Africans.”

We would do well to study this paragraph further because these concepts will appear again as our conversation unfolds.

I have long followed the old saying of “Caveat Emptor”, which popularly translates to “Buyer Beware.” More precisely though, my Merriam-Webster’s offers an interpretation which stems from the time in our history we are talking about here. It reads as follows:

caveat emptor n [NL, let the buyer beware] (1523) : a principle in commerce: without a warranty the buyer takes the risk.

This phrase, to me, suggests that a really staunch Capitalist will value profit over most everything else and we may be seeing evidence of such behavior here in our conversation about Servants and Slaves. Remember that the transition from Indentured Servants as employees to Slaves came about as a cost cutting measure and the desire to keep the assets that had already been amassed by the business enterprise. I am reminded of another old saying which is, “Nothing personal – just business.” Well, it may not have been personal on day one of slavery in the colonies, but it certainly became personal shortly thereafter – especially for the slaves.

There is another interesting aside here as well. During the mid-1700s in Europe there was a Christian belief that charging interest on loaned money was usurious and sinful. These beliefs are said to have been the result of misinterpretation of Biblical texts. Be that as it may, the Jews had no such prohibition in their Talmud so they became the bankers of the period. The Rothschild family is perhaps the most notable of the success stories we can find documented.

As the story goes, the Jews were in the position of middle man in these transactions where nobles provided money to lend to peasants and the risks dictated interest rates on those borrowed monies that were sufficiently high that paying back the loan was very difficult. The Jew made money and pretty much everyone else involved came to hate the Jew for their role in the process. Some think these relationships are partly the source of antisemitism that exists to this day. Again, “nothing personal – just business” comes to mind as we see another example of Capitalism sowing the seeds of division and hatred in society. In this case more specifically, Christian texts could be viewed as keeping Christian business owners from profiting where Jewish business owners found success.

Slavery continued to flourish in the Colonies old and new, but not without disagreement between some participants. In 1682 when the colony of Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn, Penn’s goal was to create a colony that allowed for freedom of religion. More specifically, his motivation was the protection of Quakers from persecution. By 1688, Pennsylvania would be the site of the first documentable opposition to slavery. It was a petition signed by Francis Daniel Pastorius and three of his friends, which was introduced at a Germantown meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Nothing official ever happened with the petition, and the holding of slaves was still permitted even though it was falling out of favor.

We’re all familiar with The Declaration of Independence signed on July 4^th, 1776 and the events of the Revolutionary War that followed. When it was over and the thirteen colonies became the thirteen States of the United States of America, each State retained its sovereignty under the new Articles of Confederation except for those powers specifically given to the central government “in Congress Assembled.” The people of the several States were the subject of Article IV as follows:

“ARTICLE IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states; and the people of each state shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other state, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively; provided, that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any state, to any other state of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also, that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any state on the property of the United States, or either of them.” So, we see that as the United States of America was born on the world stage, pretty much nothing changed for the slaves.

The Territory of Vermont had not yet been recognized as a State when it abolished slavery in its constitution. The year was 1777 and this first example of the abolition of slavery would be followed three years later (1780) in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania law ended slavery through gradual emancipation, saying:

“That all Persons, as well Negroes, and Mulattos, as others, who shall be born within this State, from and after the Passing of this Act, shall not be deemed and considered as Servants for Life or Slaves; and that all Servitude for Life or Slavery of Children in Consequence of the Slavery of their Mothers, in the Case of all Children born within this State from and after the passing of this Act as aforesaid, shall be, and hereby is, utterly taken away, extinguished and forever abolished.”

To be fair, there were other attempts to limit or stop the importation of slaves to some of the Colonies and later States of the Union. These efforts generally took place more often in the Northern parts of the Union and less often in the South and there are many plausible explanations for the changes that took place or didn’t take place as the case may be. What is important for our discussion here is the understanding that the institution of slavery was already starting to fall into disfavor as the United States of America was being born, but that was no comfort to the slaves.

Slavery was controversial and becoming more so as time passed. As the Founding Fathers were writing the Constitution the level of disagreement over slavery was so intense that the United States of America almost did not survive the experience. In the end, the 3/5ths Compromise offered enough middle ground to the two sides and they were able to reach agreement and keep our Republican-democracy experiment alive awhile longer. Borrowing a quote from my book, A Broken Sausage Grinder; Is Our Government Fundamentally Flawed?:

“The southern way of life was still largely agrarian, and its population growth had lagged behind that of the northern states, which were more industrialized. As new territories and states were formed, the question of slavery had been handled essentially on a case-by-case basis, and the stalemate maintained, but the population growth in the North had finally taken control of the House of Representatives, and the admission of California to the Union as a free state gave them control of the Senate. Many of the southern states had pledged that if the North ever got complete control of the federal government, they would secede from the Union. The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 served as the tipping point.”

I can’t say exactly when it started, but I have discovered a few references to a business practice used by plantation owners which used slaves as collateral to secure financial loans. Hold this in your thinking as you consider the outcome of the Civil War which was soon to come.

For those who see our current political dysfunction as being worse than it has ever been, I would suggest some quality thought time be given to the period of time in the run-up to the Civil War, the period of time during the Civil War and a few years of reconstruction afterward. Consider the following chronology:

1850-09-09            California was admitted as the 31^st State into the Union.

1850-09-18            The Fugitive Slave Act was signed into law.

1854-03-20            Republican Party was founded.

1855-12-03            Sectional conflict over slavery and a rising anti-immigrant mood in the nation contributed to a poisoned and deteriorating political climate. The election of the Speaker of the House took two months, 133 ballots and finally concluded with a 3 vote margin of victory.

1856-02-18            The American Party (Know-Nothings) nominated their first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.

1856-05-22            Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina attacked Senator Charles Sumner, beating him with a cane in the hall of the Senate, for a speech Sumner had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas. Sumner was unable to return to duty for 3 years while he recovered; Brooks became a hero across the South.

1856-11-04            Democrat James Buchanan defeated former President Millard Fillmore, representing a coalition of “Know-Nothings” and Whigs, and John C. Frémont of the fledgling Republican Party, to become the 15th President of the United States.

1857-03-06            The United States Supreme Court Opinion in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case held that a negro, whose ancestors were imported into the United States, and sold as slaves, whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States.

1857-09-                The financial “Panic of 1857” was caused by a declining international economy and over-expansion of the U.S. domestic economy.

1858-08-21            First of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was held.

1859-12-02            John Brown was executed for his involvement in the raid on Harper’s Ferry. John Brown was an American abolitionist who believed that armed insurrection was the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery.

1860-04-23            The Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina were unable to agree on a nominee, and voted to reconvene in June.

1860-05-09            Constitutional Union Party National Convention was held in Baltimore, Maryland, nominating John Bell for President.

1860-05-18            Republican National Convention was held in Chicago, Illinois, nominating Abraham Lincoln for President.

1860-06-18            The Democratic Party reconvened in Baltimore, Maryland, nominating Stephen A. Douglas for President.

1860-06-26            The Southern Democrats held a convention in Richmond, Virginia, nominating John C. Breckinridge for President.

1860-11-06            In the U.S. presidential election Abraham Lincoln defeated John C. Breckinridge, Stephen A. Douglas, and John Bell.

1860-12-20            South Carolina enacted an Ordinance of Secession.

1861-01-03            Delaware voted not to secede from the Union.

1861-01-09            Mississippi enacted an Ordinance of Secession

1861-01-10            Florida enacted an Ordinance of Secession.

1861-01-11            Alabama enacted an Ordinance of Secession.

1861-01-18            Georgia enacted an Ordinance of Secession.

1861-01-21            Alabama seceded from the Union.

1861-01-21            Florida seceded from the Union.

1861-01-21            Mississippi seceded from the Union.

1861-01-26            Louisiana enacted an Ordinance of Secession.

1861-2-01              Texas enacted an Ordinance of Secession.

1861-02-04            Georgia seceded from the Union.

1861-02-04            Louisiana seceded from the Union. Louisiana Congressional Districts LA 1 and 2, two of its four representatives remained seated in the 37th Congress.

1861-02-11            The U.S. House unanimously passed a resolution guaranteeing non-interference with slavery in any state.

1861-02-23            The people of Texas ratified its Ordinance of Secession.

1861-02-23            President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington, D.C. after an assassination attempt in Baltimore, Maryland.

1861-03-04            President Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated to 1^st term with Vice President Hannibal Hamlin.

1861-03-04            Republican pluralities are seated in Senate and House, becoming governing majorities in both Houses given vacancies among Southerners. Louisiana has 2 of 4 representatives remaining. Although represented in the Confederate Congress, Missouri and Kentucky remained with full delegations in the 37th Congress.

1861-03-04            Texas seceded from the Union.

1861-04-12            The Civil War began with the Battle of Fort Sumter.

1861-04-17            Virginia voted, provisionally, to secede, on the condition of ratification by a statewide referendum.

1861-05-06            Arkansas enacted an Ordinance of Secession.

1861-05-20            North Carolina enacted an Ordinance of Secession.

1861-05-23            Virginia popular referendum ratified Ordinance of Secession, 5 of 12 U.S. Representatives remained. Two senators from the “Restored Government of Virginia” replaced the two who withdrew.

1861-06-08            Tennessee popular referendum ratified Ordinance of Secession, 3 of 10 U.S. Representatives remain. One Senator, Andrew Johnson, remained.

1861-10-31            Although secessionist factions passed resolutions of secession in Missouri, their state delegations in the U.S. Congress remained in place.

1861-11-20            Although secessionist factions passed resolutions of secession in Kentucky, their state delegations in the U.S. Congress remained in place.

1862-03-03            The Freedmen’s Bureau was established by President Lincoln – The Freedmen’s Bureau, was an agency of the United States Department of War to “direct such issues of provisions, clothing, and fuel, as he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children.”

1862-04-16            Slavery in the District of Columbia was abolished.

1863-01-01            Emancipation Proclamation, an Executive Order was signed by President Abraham Lincoln.

Most of us think that the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves, but that is not really true. The Emancipation Proclamation was an Executive Order issued using the President’s War Powers authority and only applied to slaves in the ten States that were in a state of rebellion against the United States of America. The Proclamation did not compensate the owners, did not outlaw slavery, and did not grant citizenship to the ex-slaves (called freedmen). It made the eradication of slavery an explicit war goal, in addition to the goal of reuniting the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation had no effect on slaves in the many States not in rebellion. Their situation would have to wait until the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution was passed and ratified and that wouldn’t happen until December 6^th, 1865 – nearly three years in the future.

The Freedmen’s Bureau, which had been administered by the Department of War, was reestablished as the Freedman’s Saving and Trust Company, Inc., in March of 1865 and was supposed to continue in operation for one year beyond the end of the Civil War. Of course, our history lessons tell us that the Civil War was ended on April 9^th, 1865 with the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House.

Just six days later President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and Vice President Andrew Johnson was sworn into office as the 17^th President of the United States of America.

The 13^th Amendment to The Constitution was to become law in December of 1865. The Amendment is not long and to most appears to be absolute in its intent to end the institution of slavery within the United States. It contains two sections, as follows:

“Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

“Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Without a lot of research we can’t make any credible judgement as to the possible underlying motives that may have been part of this legislative effort, but the exception of “punishment for crime” left the door wide open for misuse by our judicial system as a means of perpetuating racism in America albeit under the descriptor of “involuntary servitude”. We should not be fooled into thinking that Lady Justice is blind because she isn’t and has never been completely blind, but her blindness is a worthy goal we should all aspire to achieve.

I have observed on many occasions over the years that when an absolute and unequivocal point needs to be made it is generally not going to require many words so when I encounter lots of words that appear to be making such a point my antenna go up. So it is with the 14^th Amendment. The 14^th Amendment contains five Sections:

“Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

“Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

“Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

“Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

“Section 5. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

Right there in section 1 I can see the roots of inequality springing forth when a person is asked for a birth certificate as proof of citizenship because poorer people and people who live in rural areas often are born at home with no birth certificate being issued. And, if a birth certificate is sought, it probably cost money that the individual may not have. Additionally, if you live in a large city such as New York City, you probably have no need for a driver’s license so it is not an appropriate proof of citizenship either. Section 1 also seems to leave open the vulnerability which results when Lady Justice peeks under her blindfold.

Section 2 speaks to the method of dealing with a State where persons have had their right to vote abridged in one way or another. Notice that one of the acceptable exceptions is participation in crime. This provision leads us to the practice of stripping felons of their voting rights as part of their punishment and then setting time consuming criteria for having their voting rights restored. Remember, Lady Justice is not really blind so you can see how this provision might be applied unequally within society.

For me the intent of section 3 is pretty straight forward. If you have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and then get yourself involved in insurrection or rebellion against it, you will never again be able to hold an office wherein such an oath is required. I’m being a bit simplistic, but this is essentially the point of section 3.

My reading of section 4 leads me to an open discussion which I cannot resolve even with myself. Specifically, I think the language contained there is telling me that our National Debt which has been authorized by Congress is valid and not to be questioned. Any debts incurred by those States which seceded from the Union and participated in the subsequent insurrection and or rebellion (read that as The Civil War) will not be recognized as valid debt of the United States of America. Similarly, any debt or claims arising from the emancipation of any slave shall not be recognized as valid debt of the United States of America. With all that said, I am not clear whether or not section 4 has any applicability to a claim made on behalf of a former slave against the United States of America. This debate may take a while.

Lastly, section 5 gives congress the power to enforce the provisions of the 14^th Amendment. As the remainder of this essay unfolds I will leave it to my reader to decide if Congress has done their job.

The 14^th Amendment was passed by Congress June 13, 1866 and ratified by the States on July 9, 1868. Two and a half years had passed following the ratification of the 13^th Amendment which was clearly insufficient and only time would tell if the 14^th Amendment would prove to be better. Of course, as we read this we do so with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight.

If we are truthful with ourselves, we must admit that the main reason the whole institution of slavery hasn’t been totally eradicated is simply because there are people in our society who believe that inequality is good.

The Freedmen’s Bureau which had been initially created within the Department of War and was later reestablished as the Freedman’s Saving and Trust Company, Inc., was to sunset in 1866. A follow-up Freedmen’s Bureau Bill was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson on February 19, 1866, and Congress failed to override that veto on the following day.

Some thought that the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill of 1866 failed because it was similar to a Civil Rights Bill that was also under consideration. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the U.S., in the wake of the American Civil War. The Civil Rights Bill was passed in the Senate on February 2^nd and in the House on March 13, 1866 only to be vetoed by President Andrew Johnson on March 27^th, but the Senate voted (33–15) to override on April 6^th and the House voted (122–41, 21 abstentions) to override on April 9^th so the Civil Rights bill of 1866 became the law of the land.

We can certainly argue that this law did not go far enough, but we must remind ourselves that we live in a Republican-democracy and sometimes the necessary compromise will fall short of personal expectations.

The final language of the Civil Rights Bill did not meet the objectives of the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill so on May 29, 1866 the House passed another Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, and on June 26 and the Senate passed an amended version of the Bill. On July 3, 1866 both chambers passed a conference committee’s compromise version which was sent to the President for signature. On July 16 Congress received another presidential veto message, which both houses overrode later that same day. The Freedmen’s Bureau bill that passed in 1866 provided many additional rights to ex-slaves, including the distribution of land, schools for their children, and military courts to ensure these rights. The Freedmen’s Bureau Act gave ex-slaves “any of the civil rights or immunities belonging to white persons, including the right to…..inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, and to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and estate, including the constitutional right of bearing arms.”

In July 1868, Congress voted to again extend the Freedmen’s Bureau, but a couple weeks later decided to limit its functions to processing claims and supporting education. Four years later, in June 1872, Congress voted to completely shut down the Freedmen’s Bureau.

The Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch were often at odds over Southern Reconstruction during this period with Republicans in the Legislature and a Democrat in the White House. Things became so bad that the House formally agreed to eleven articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson on March 2, 1868, and forwarded them to the Senate. The trial in the Senate failed on each article tried by a vote of 35-to-19 just one short of the required two-thirds needed for conviction. Regardless of the side we might have supported, we see that the Founding Fathers were brilliant in their design because even an unpopular President could not be removed from office over casual objections.

I’ll offer a disclaimer here in case my readers are confused by the apparent discrepancies between Political Party leanings in the late 1800s when compared to those same parties today. Suffice it to say that as political power shifts so will the character of those who seek to have it.

In early February of 1870 there would be one more Reconstruction Amendment to The Constitution of the United States. The 15^th Amendment prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”. The Amendment was ratified on February 3, 1870, but the battle was not over.

In the final years of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era that followed, Congress repeatedly debated the rights of the millions of black former slaves. Amendments were passed to abolish slavery and provide citizenship and equal protection under the laws, but the Republicans felt their hold on power slipping and so on February 26, 1869, after rejecting more sweeping versions of a suffrage amendment, Congress proposed a compromise amendment banning franchise restrictions on the basis of race, color, or previous servitude. After surviving a difficult ratification fight, the amendment was certified as duly ratified and part of the Constitution on March 30, 1870, but don’t be fooled into thinking that ratification of the 15^th Amendment meant equality for all.

In 1870 and 1871 the Congress passed three Enforcement Acts that gave the President the necessary authority to enforce the goals of the Reconstruction Amendments as well as other Civil Rights laws that had been passed previously. The KKK almost disappeared, but we must also admit that the behaviors that were supposed to be prohibited were driven behind closed doors so we really can’t know how successful these efforts actually were. As the new century approached, most black voters in the South were effectively disenfranchised by new state constitutions and state laws incorporating such obstacles as poll taxes and discriminatory literacy tests, from which white male voters were exempted by grandfather clauses. A system of whites-only primaries and violent intimidation by white groups also suppressed black participation.

With so little progress being made toward improvement of the lives of the former slaves in America, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 is notable as the last major piece of legislation related to Reconstruction that were passed by Congress during the Reconstruction Era. In summary, these include the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the four Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868, the three Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871, and the three Constitutional Amendments adopted between 1865 and 1870.

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was yet another United States federal law enacted in response to civil rights violations against African Americans, “to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights”, giving them equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and to prohibit exclusion from jury service. The law was generally opposed by public opinion and it was not effectively enforced which caused historian William Gillette to describe the passage of the law as an “insignificant victory.” Eight years later, the Supreme Court ruled in Civil Rights Cases (1883) that the public accommodation sections of the act were unconstitutional.

I feel the need to repeat myself here by saying once again that if we are truthful with ourselves, we must admit that the main reason the whole institution of slavery hasn’t been totally eradicated is simply because there are people in our society who believe that inequality is good. These people often hide their prejudices from public view, but their deeds tell us what we need to know. Borrowing a phrase from recent politics, “when a person shows you who he is, believe him.”

We should ask ourselves if the inequities from the institution of slavery had been effectively resolved, why was it necessary to pass even more legislation to achieve that purpose? The next efforts followed the contentious Presidential Election of 1876. The Republicans and the Democrats had been locked in disagreement over Reconstruction and the election “was one of the most contentious and controversial presidential elections in American history. The results of the election remain among the most disputed ever, although it is not disputed that Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio’s Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote. After a first count of votes, Tilden won 184 electoral votes to Hayes’s 165, with 20 votes unresolved. These 20 electoral votes were in dispute in four states. In the case of Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, each party reported its candidate had won the state, while in Oregon one elector was replaced after being declared illegal for being an “elected or appointed official”. The question of who should have been awarded these electoral votes is the source of the continued controversy concerning the results of this election,” according to a Wikipedia website.

The Compromise of 1877 was apparently not recorded anywhere, but it still resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era. Through the Compromise, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was awarded the White House over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden on the understanding that Hayes would remove the federal troops whose support was essential for the survival of Republican state governments in South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. The compromise involved Democrats who controlled the House of Representatives allowing the decision of the Electoral Commission to take effect.

According to a history.com website, “Southern Democrats’ promises to protect civil and political rights of blacks were not kept, and the end of federal interference in southern affairs led to widespread disenfranchisement of black voters. From the late 1870s onward, southern legislatures passed a series of laws requiring the separation of whites from “persons of color” on public transportation, in schools, parks, restaurants, theaters and other locations. Known as the “Jim Crow laws” (after a popular minstrel act developed in the antebellum years), these segregationist statutes governed life in the South through the middle of the next century, ending only after the hard-won successes of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.”

Then, between the months of April and June of 1879, Democrats in the Legislature passed three different Army Appropriations Bills that had a rider attached to each that would have repealed the “Enforcement Acts” and once again made KKK activities lawful. Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed all three Bills.

A strange twist of fate caused President William McKinley to postpone a planned visit to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York until September of 1901 and it was during his activities on the 6^th that he was shot twice in the stomach by an American anarchist named Leon Czolgosz. President McKinley succumbed to infection resulting from his wounds in the early morning hours of September 14^th which necessitated the swearing in of President Theodore Roosevelt as the 26^th President of the United States.

Booker T. (Taliaferro) Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States. Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community during the period. Having descended from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery, he became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the discriminatory Jim Crow laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern States.

When Washington’s second autobiography, Up from Slavery, was published in 1901, it became a bestseller and had a major effect on the African-American community, its friends and allies. In October 1901 President Theodore Roosevelt invited Washington to dine with him and his family at the White House; he was the first African American to be invited there by a President. Democratic Party politicians from the South took the opportunity to indulge in racist personal attacks that were so deeply offensive that I will not repeat them here.

Once again we are forced to the realization that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

African-Americans had been serving in the United States military prior to the Selective Service Act of 1917, but their service was completely segregated from white service members. White supremacist politicians strongly opposed expanding the opportunities available to black Americans within the service. Even so, the draft registered black Americans for potential conscription. Two black combat units were eventually stood up, but the vast majority of black American service members were assigned to non-combatant support positions. Additionally, black Americans were not allowed to serve in the United States Marine Corps.

Late in the 1930s, an Association of Negroes, that had organized for the mutual improvement of its members and the promotion of civic, educational, benevolent, and charitable enterprises, requested a Grocery Company to adopt a policy of employing Negro clerks. Their request seemed reasonable since the stores in question were frequented primarily by black Americans and there were no black clerks employed at the stores. The request was ignored.

Legal action followed and on March 28^th, 1938, in a landmark opinion, The United States Supreme Court held that the association had a right to boycott. The court concluded that according to the United States Congress “peaceful and orderly dissemination of information by those defined as persons interested in a labor dispute concerning ‘terms and conditions of employment’ in an industry or a plant or a place of business should be lawful; that, short of fraud, breach of the peace, violence, or conduct otherwise unlawful, those having a direct or indirect interest in such terms and conditions of employment should be at liberty to advertise and disseminate facts and information with respect to terms and conditions of employment, and peacefully to persuade others to concur in their views respecting an employer’s practices.” The opinion had the effect of chipping away some of the discriminatory labor practices which had been used against African-American workers.

In yet another example of prejudicial behavior, the Daughters of the American Revolution denied an African-American singer, Marian Anderson, the use of Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. for a concert. She was also denied the use of a public high school by the federally controlled District of Columbia. In response to an invitation from the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In 1917, African-American men had tried to become aerial observers in their military service assignments, but were rejected. The racially motivated rejections sparked more than two decades of advocacy by African-Americans and, finally on April 3^rd, 1939 an Appropriations Bill was passed by Congress containing an amendment designating funds for training African-American pilots. In 1941, the War Department and the Army Air Corps, under pressure constituted the first all-black flying unit, the 99th Pursuit Squadron. The Tuskegee Airmen went on to distinguish themselves in combat during World War II.

Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The opinion was handed down on May 17^th, 1954 and set in motion steps to integrate the previously separate public schools throughout the United States. There had been continued violence against suspected activists and bombings of schools and churches in the South which led to the Eisenhower administration proposing legislation to protect the right to vote by African-Americans.

The goal of the 1957 Civil Rights Act was to ensure that all Americans could exercise their right to vote. Blacks made up the majority population in numerous counties and Congressional districts in the South, but most blacks had been effectively disfranchised by discriminatory voter registration rules and laws in those states. By 1957, only about 20% of African Americans were registered to vote. The legislation gave the Federal Government an oversight responsibility over the elections process even though the states had the right to establish rules for voter registration and elections, the federal government would ensure that citizens could exercise the constitutional right to vote for federal officers, such as the president, vice president, and Congress.

While enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1957 with the intent of protecting the voting rights of African Americans set out in the 15^th Amendment, the act was found to have several loopholes and southern states continued to discriminate against African Americans in application of voter registration and electoral laws, in segregation of school and public facilities, and in employment.

The Civil Rights Act of 1960 was a Federal law that established federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone’s attempt to register to vote. It also extended the life of the Civil Rights Commission which had been limited to two years.

The 24^th Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states on August 27, 1962, and was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964. But it was not until 1966 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, that poll taxes for any level of elections were unconstitutional. It said these violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Approximately 100 years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and 95 years after the various States Ratified the 14^th Amendment and during the lifetime of adult American citizens living today, it was still a dream not realized that all African-Americans would be experiencing the same privileges and immunities as white-Americans.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted on July 2^nd, 1964 and was still another landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibited unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations.

Loving v. Virginia, is yet another landmark civil rights decision of the United States Supreme Court, which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Decided in June of 1964, the case was brought by Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, who had been sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for marrying each other. Their marriage violated the state’s anti-miscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited marriage between people classified as “white” and people classified as “colored”. The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision determined that this prohibition was unconstitutional, overruling Pace v. Alabama and ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was enacted on April 11, 1968. It is also known as the Fair Housing Act, that supposedly provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, religion, or national origin and made it a federal crime to “by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone … by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin.”

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that administers and enforces civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. Created in March of 1972, the EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual’s race, children, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, and retaliation for reporting, participating in, and/or opposing a discriminatory practice.

In June of 1984 Congress tried again to redress the many continuing discriminatory practices in America. The Civil Rights Restoration Act was another legislative act that specified that recipients of federal funds must comply with civil rights laws in all areas, not just in the particular program or activity that received federal funding. The Act failed to pass in either chamber after divisions occurred within the civil rights coalition over the issue of abortion. Then, in January 1988, the Senate accepted an amendment which added “abortion-neutral” language to the Bill and resulted in passage of the bill in both houses. President Ronald Reagan vetoed the Bill, but Congress overrode the veto. It was the first veto of a civil rights act since Andrew Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

We must wonder how an abortion controversy can find its way into a civil rights bill unless it is intended to obfuscate. Remember, in a Republican-democracy compromise is essential to successful legislative efforts and that compromise will contain elements of both sides of the argument. Therefore, the final product, as is the case in this example, will contain language that may be highly objectionable to those holding the opposing views.

The Civil Rights Act of 1990 would have amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to provide a remedy for continuing discriminatory employment practices. President Bush used his veto against the measure because he feared racial quotas would be imposed as a result of the Act.

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 was passed in another response to United States Supreme Court decisions that limited the rights of employees who had sued their employers for discrimination. The 1991 Act combined elements from two different civil right acts of the past: the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the employment-related provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The two statutes, passed nearly a century apart, approached the issue of employment discrimination very differently, but neither had been successful in achieving equality. The 1991 Act expanded the remedies available to victims of discrimination.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 became known as the Motor Voter Act and was a United States federal law that was supposed to bring equality to voter registrations in all the various states.

The history of emancipating the slaves in America is a history of promises made and promises broken. I am not trying to be cynical, but as we read through the many attempts to bring equality to ALL Americans we are forced to recognize the failures of each attempt and the forces at work to prevent those whose freedoms are being suppressed from achieving that equality.

Each attempt took on some specific deficiency in our society and I do not doubt the sincerity of those involved in the process of crafting the laws to achieve that purpose. We want, what we want, when we want it, but in a Republican-democracy we must accept compromise to get any of it so there will always be room for some prejudice and bigotry to slip into the final legislation and when we read through the history contained here we cannot avert our eyes away from the clear prejudice, bigotry, and out-and-out racism staring back at us. It is there, it exists, it is in the hearts of some Americans, and it is perpetuated through the apathy of other Americans.

Make no mistake, when a person who exhibits racist behavior is confronted regarding their behavior, the strong objection we typically hear from them confirms their understanding of the abhorrent and immoral nature of their actions. What is missing in their objection is a commitment to seek a better understanding of their behavior’s impact on others and, through that understanding, a lasting commitment to personal improvement.

I have come to the conclusion that I have not done all that I could have done to correct the inequalities I have seen in our society so I am now spending my energy towards finding more ways to achieve that goal. Wouldn’t it have been easier and fairer if we had just written, passed, and ratified one amendment which stated “All Americans are created equal and all Americans shall be entitled to the same protections, privileges and immunities from the Federal, State, and Local Governments.”

I have also come to the understanding that laws and regulations cannot change nonsense into common sense or immorality into morality. Borrowing a quote from my Mother, “A man convinced against his will, remains of the same opinion still.” Laws and regulations are necessary to define the conversation and really stiff penalties may eventually deter such behavior, but in the end the practice of prejudice, bigotry, and racism will only be changed when society openly shuns such behavior. We must shun such practices whenever and wherever we find them.

As I close this conversation out I would like to offer a couple of questions for your consideration. Slavery is technically ended in America, but when a particular group of Americans are effectively excluded from the protections, privileges and immunities that other groups enjoy, does it matter what we call the behavior? Involuntary servitude is recognizable in our prisons, but when the economic circumstances of our less fortunate citizens leaves them little or no choice other than to just continue in their current situation, do they really have a choice? Are today’s labor union contracts in any way analogous to “indentured” contracts? True equality in America depends to our honesty in answering these questions.

Thank you for your participation in this important American conversation.

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