November 2013 – Page 2 – Popular Politics in Early America

November 19, 2013

Coping with Slaughter: Ars Moriendi and the "Good Death"

Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126

Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127

War and dying were not new to American society in 1861. In fact, they were an inseparable part of the early American psyche from its colonization, to its Revolution, to its ruthless settlement of the West. However, it had never witnessed the carnage of war on such a grand scale before the bloody campaigns of Bull Run, Shiloh, and Antietam in the early phases of the Civil War. Earlier today, Henry pointed out that, after the war, Frederick Douglas tried to reignite the passions and principles of the Civil War in an effort to halt Jim Crow and “remember (it) as a moral struggle between Northern abolition…and Southern slavery”. However, historian Drew G. Faust notes how the damage done by the war so numbed the populaces of both sides that it became “the common ground on which North and South would ultimately reunite” (5). Faust argues that the destruction caused by the war and the desire of soldiers to die a “Good Death” largely tamed the political zeal and “secular language” that had triggered the war itself (37).

For much of her article “The Civil War Soldier and the Art of Dying”, Faust utilizes the last written correspondence of dying soldiers, the testaments by witnesses to fatally-wounded soldiers, and the condolence letters written by both friends and strangers to the families of those killed in action as primary sources. She argues that Civil War death became an “art”, following the tradition of the Ars Moriendi, offering a unique blend of patriotism and Christian sacrifice. Regardless of nationality or religion, wounded soldiers wished to die a “Good Death”, should it come to them (8). This kind of death required resilience in the face of fate that offered a sort of declaration of faith in God and love for family. “Bad Deaths” were those who were killed immediately in action, were denied a last testament on their deathbeds, or died “impertinent or unpardoned sinners”(29). It interests me that very few of the final testaments express passion for the fighting cause or hope for the war; most emphasize religious zeal over politics. Here, Faust argues that years of combat drained much of the political passion present on both sides amongst common soldiers, with spiritual concerns taking their place.

However, the lack of secular language brings me to some criticisms of Faust’s work. There are very little politics amongst Faust’s sources, but there is a total absence of race, ethnicity, or any sense of identity to differentiate between her subjects of interest. I have doubts that all soldiers had a homogenous view on what constituted “dying well” as a soldier. For example, African American soldiers in the war surely had different reasons to fight and die in the war than the typical regiments, but Faust ignores them as a group entirely. The same goes for immigrants fighting on both sides. Did they share the same principles and belief systems as all their comrades? What about non-slaveholding whites fighting for the South? The list goes on. While Faust makes an interesting argument that political rhetoric played little role in final testaments of dying soldiers, it seems as though patriotism, principles, and sacrifice for a higher cause were very prevalent on the minds of those who fought in the Civil War, even if many of them did not survive its entirety.

November 19, 2013

Competing Memories

A few things jumped out at me after reading David Blight’s account of Fredrick Douglas and the competing historical memories of Civil War. Particularly, I wondered why the Lost Cause narrative became so much more prevalent in in American society than a memory of the Civil War that praised emancipation. There is certainly the possibility that the reintegration was judged to be more valuable than celebrating it as the emancipation of former slaves, but I wonder if part of the reason stemmed from the tactics used some of the early leaders of the emancipation narrative such as Fredrick Douglas. For instance Douglas’s comment, “may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I forget the difference between the parties to that … bloody conflict … I may say if this war is to be forgotten, I ask in the name of all things sacred what shall men remember” (Blight 1160). When read in conjunction with Faust work, The Civil War Soldier and the Art of Dying, which highlighted the traumatic nature of the conflict and how that trauma extended far beyond limits of the battlefield, Douglas’ decision to remember the war through its horrors and the bloody nature could have lessened his position’s appeal in the American public. As AJ pointed out, Douglas’ failure to participate in the war may have hurt his credibility and I think it goes farther than that. His distance from the conflict may have blinded him to the reality of this trauma not only in the returning soldiers but people throughout American society.

November 18, 2013

Douglass' Predicament

Frederick Douglass is often portrayed in a positive manner to the general public in historical thought, as he experienced slavery first hand and after he found freedom he became an ardent activist for abolition and African American rights. He wrote extensively about his opinions and himself, as David W. Blight demonstrated he wrote at least three autobiographies. Through these writings, however, Blight was able to uncover a Frederick Douglass who was stingy and hypocritical. Blight demonstrates on two occasions the hypocrisy of Douglass: his strong support of the Republican party which often abandoned black and while attacking individualistic northerners who wished to forget was issues while preaching self reliance to African Americans.

Both examples of hypocrisy are in direct relation to Douglass’ desire to remember the civil war, and provide no aid to the south in Reconstruction. He was appalled by the idea of helping the south recover and the adoration of southern war heroes. Douglass felt that forgetting the war meant forgetting its ideals, as he felt that the northern cause was primarily against slavery; or at least he wanted everyone to think it was. His goals put him in a difficult position, as the Republican Party led the Union War movement he wished to remember, but they did not do much for the African American cause.

In the issue of individualistic northerners, a characteristic he agreed with, and their desire to forget the war, which he opposed, we see the issue brought up in class last week in our discussion of women where a disagreement with one characteristic of society did not mean disagreement with the society as a whole. Douglass did not want to change all of society; he just wanted African Americans to achieve equal footing. His desire to celebrate the union victory proves this, as historically the victors of war are praised while the losers regarded in a negative fashion. The sentiment after the civil war to “forgive and forget,” however, was a more revolutionary sentiment. Douglass vouched for a more conventional view of war in hopes to aid his desire to change society.

In AJ’s post, he raised the question of Douglass’ credibility, asking if he would be more credible if he had participated in the physical conflict of the war. While this is a possibility, the bind he found himself in after the Civil War, as Blight puts it, “between the country’s historic racism and his own embrace of individualism.” This predicament led him to portray hypocritical tendencies, both real and perceived, that discredited him more than fighting in the war would have improved his credibility.

November 18, 2013

An Example of Blight's and Douglass' Thinking

In “For Something Beyond the Battlefield,” David W. Blight writes about Frederick Douglass’ efforts to preserve the memory of the ideological background of the Civil War. More specifically, Douglass wanted to make sure that the Civil War would be remembered in the American consciousness as a moral struggle between Northern abolition as an absolute good and Southern slavery as an absolute evil. Blight confirms Douglass’ perpetuation of that idea by quoting a speech in which Douglass urges Americans not to remember the Southern cause with any of the admiration afforded to the Northern one. (1160) A big part of Blight’s thesis has to do with the practical reasons for Douglass’ desire for this ideological narrative to persist—in other words, Douglass did not want to perpetuate these ideas simply because he believed them to be true. Blight posits that Douglass believed that those who shaped historical interpretations of the Civil War would be the ones to shape the fate of African-Americans in the post-war period. That is why, according to Blight, Douglass looked at the Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1875 Civil Rights Acts as a result of Americans forgetting that the Civil War was at its core a war fought to free people of color from bondage. AJ’s post does a good job of further delving into the specific factors which, according to Blight, drove Douglass to take this view.

I definitely see the merits of Blight and Douglass’ view of the effect of what kind of history the nation generally accepts on its policies going forward. I think a good example of this idea in effect is in the reception of the 1915 film Birth of a Nation. It is one of the most well known films of all times, due in equal parts to both its innovations in filmmaking as an art and, unfortunately, its racist message. The story of Birth of a Nation takes an extremely biased look at Reconstruction in the South, indignantly claiming that white Southerners were stripped of their voting rights and made to live under governments made up entirely of unqualified, lazy African-Americans. In the film, the main character fights back against Reconstruction by establishing the Ku Klux Klan as a force for good that puts whites back in power (where the filmmaker would say they belong). Birth of a Nation was the highest grossing film of its time. Its popularity suggests that many Americans accepted the idea that Reconstruction was fundamentally unfair to whites and upset a power balance that it should not have. That is confirmed by the fact that by 1915 Southern Democrats had long before managed to stop Reconstruction and establish Jim Crow laws. Furthermore, many scholars believe that the film directly contributed to the 20th century revival of the KKK as an institution to harass African-Americans. Thus, we see that the film was a powerful enough influence on American collective consciousness to impact the future of race relations. In this way, Birth of a Nation’s reception and aftermath reflects Douglass’ and Blights’ argument.

November 17, 2013

An Outsider's Memory

Much of David W. Blight’s work, “For Something beyond the Battlefield”: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for the Memory of the Civil War, discusses Douglass’ pledge to “never forget” and his effort to forge memory into action. Blight details Douglass’ five sources for his meaning behind the Civil War: “his belief that the war had been an ideological struggle and not merely the test of a generation’s loyalty and valor; his sense of refurbished nationalism made possible by emancipation, Union victory, and Radical Reconstruction; his confrontation with the resurgent racism and Lost Cause mythology of the postwar period; his critique of America’s peculiar dilemma of historical amnesia, and his personal psychological stake in preserving an Afro-American and abolitionist memory of the war.” Having done some reading on the Civil War and Frederick Douglass previously, I think Blight does a nice job outlining much of Douglass’ arguments and personal stances on the post-war memory, as well as, the difference in opinions by those who do not side with the abolitionist and teleological memory of the war. Furthermore, one thing that caught my eye and I believe established Blight’s work as credible and thorough was the amount of sources he used throughout the argument. He drew upon many different speeches and quotations from Douglass and sprinkled them well in his work. Along with detailing Douglass’ five sources and an overview of his memory of the war, he did a nice job supplementing that with important opinions of others during that period and historically famous arguments that agreed and also went against Douglass’ perspective of the Civil War. Overall, I thought this was good work and gave us some real good first hand opinions of the nineteenth century’s most prominent Afro-American intellectual and others who had an influence on post-war ideals.

With that being said, however, I want to focus on a point that Blight just barely mentioned but stopped me from reading and made me think about a little bit. This challenge to Douglass’ meaning of memory is interesting and probably raises some intriguing questions about those in this time period who had substantial influence and power but had no stake in the actual fighting that was occurring. Blight explains how Douglass’ action was more of an inner struggle than a physical test claiming, “Perhaps his remoteness from the carnage enabled him to sustain an ideological conception of the war throughout his life.” A sentence that was masked but much of the bulk of this work was the claim that stuck out most in my eyes. I believe he is right, what if Douglass’ opinion is mainly shaped from an outsiders perspective? Would his argument be more credible or influential if he fought in the war and actually experienced the memory he is trying to preserve? Would his memory of the Civil War be different if he served behind the lines? I think these all are valid questions as we consider Douglass’ memory as somewhat of an outsider’s viewpoint. As Holmes states, “the true hero—the deepest memory—of the Civil War was the soldier on either side, thoughtless of ideology, which faced the ‘experience of battle…” I think this is an interesting point and certainly deserves some attention regardless of personal stance.

I think it is important to remember those that were transformed by personal experience during the Civil War. As an intellectual, Douglass’ viewpoint cannot comprehend the soldier’s war experience and how those men remember the war. It is a question for thought as Douglass’ memory could be argued to be a “quest to save the freedom of his people and the meaning of his own life.” Like some of us mentioned in our posts last week (Mike and others), the feminist movement and Douglass’ argument can be seen similarly as sometimes they did not reach to a wider audience at the time and their voice wasn’t heard as much due to their relatively narrow views and opinions (ex. Success of the WCTU).

November 14, 2013

Similarities Amongst Women and Other Minority Groups in the U.S.

In his post, Lamoureux states that “I think a feminist is going to want to see women achieve some form of social success before a black man every time that decision is presented.” While I agree with Lamoureux that the feminist cause for gender equality must be understood in different terms than African American’s fight for racial equality, but can these two movements truly be seen as completely separate? After all, weren’t both of these groups denied citizenship, and the right to vote? Weren’t they both discriminated when it came to their occupation? Dubois highlights the similarities between the two group when she states “Citizenship represented a relation-ship to the larger society that was entirely and explicitly outside the boundaries of women’s familial relations. As citizens and voters, women would participate directly in society as individuals, not indirectly through their subordinate positions as wives and mothers.” It seems that in this sentence “women” can easily be interchanged with nearly any other minority group that has encountered discrimination and not given the right to vote or citizenship. That is not to say, of course, that the movement for women suffrage was identical to the Civil Rights movement and other minority moments, but simply that these movements cannot be looked at individually because common elements are shared amongst the various movements. While African Americans and other minority groups were discriminated on the color of their skin, women were discriminated through the manipulation of the public and private sphere, but yet, both acts of discrimination held the white man as more “able” while also denying work to these groups on the basis of their race or their gender. So while Lamoureux was right to say that some women at the time may have wished to attain freedom before Africans Americans, because they believed being white made them superior, I also think a good number of women felt that their movement was intertwined with other movements for rights and freedoms. Only these minority groups (African Americans, Jews, Indian American) could truly understand the white male dominated world in which these women lived, with all rights stripped away exhibited in their inability to attain citizenship or even the right to vote.

November 14, 2013

One Cause to Rule Them All

The notion of women having to pick their battles might be the most accurate statement when reviewing certain elements of history with minority groups (yes I am viewing women as a minority group in this instance due to their lack of “power”). My current History 480 thesis draws heavily upon feminist perspectives and ideals and it is worth noting even in the 1960s (maybe even today) women still struggle to be seen as equal. Because of that women do “radical” actions such as visit North Vietnam and visit NVA military camp sites while declaring U.S. troops are “baby killers,” or demand the right to vote. Now in 2013 these actions appear drastically different but during their timeframe these were the most obscene claims a woman could make. Now what does my thesis have to do with this idea of suffrage and abolition? Well the answer to that lies in the reaction of feminists across the country. If feminists did not support an issue whole heartedly (for the most part) that issue would not see any chance of success.

Wade’s notion of DuBois and Earle supporting each other’s work is an interesting claim to make because I do not see women as a collective unit achieving success with the two movements being associated. Using Wade’s notion of two movements strengthening each other I get the impression that women really knew what they wanted (suffrage) but had no idea how to get it. It is this narrative that leads into a multitude of different directions of thought. Do women really see themselves superior to African Americans or are they just appealing to the powers that be? I honestly do think at this time some women do in fact see themselves as superior (women being white women of course). Do some women think that slavery is wrong even if they are “above” blacks? Absolutely. Given the choice between the ability to vote or the end of slavery though, I think a feminist is going to want to see women achieve some form of social success before a black man every time that decision is presented. That is just the nature of feminism from the work I have done on the topic. Because of this notion a battle is picked by women in regards to what they would rather see come into fruition first.

Traditionally (up to the second or third feminist movement depending on what feminist scholar you study) women’s role in the household ensured them some level of security. Why would these women want to escape this security net the home gave them? It is this idea that I agree with DuBois in that the household is what held women back from the success they desired. While some women wanted a public voice where they could be heard many other women were content individuals proud to be simply Mrs. John Doe. How are the women who want the public life to get the content women at home to get behind their cause? Well if you tell these women that their home/private life will be adversely affected they will get behind someone’s movement immediately. I believe that is why women’s groups appealed to the “domestic nature” of women at this time. Perhaps it is hear that Wade makes his notion of two movements for one cause (which is a bit more understandable).

November 13, 2013

Public v. Private

I was mainly going to analyze and critique Ellen Dubois’ argument in her work, The Radicalism of the Women Suffrage Movement: Notes toward the Reconstruction of Nineteenth-Century Feminism, however; after reading some of these previous blog posts I felt the need to at the least comment on what I read. As someone who does not have much historical knowledge or background of the Feminist movement or really anything revolving Feminism in general, I figured much of the people in class (all boys) would use the blog post to comment on author’s argument’s credibility or even possibly a critique of the more historiographical approach by author Jonathon Earie, yet I was surprisingly mistaken. To keep it brief, I will comment on Mike Lamo’s post and some of the comments he himself makes and others that he disapproves of. I 100% agree with Mike when he argues that women such as Abigail Adams should not go over looked in their earlier efforts to promote the women’s voice. The works we read do not detail the first essential step in the women’s movement but grow the audience and take vital steps for the movement’s advancement. Furthermore, I agree with Mike that the dynamic discussed in Henry where the woman needed to establish herself in the private sphere first before the public sphere needs to be flushed out because I am not sold on that view.

Now to my critique of Ellen Dubois, like I stated earlier, I have no previous background to the Feminist movement and believe this limited knowledge keeps me from appropriately commenting on the points made in either scholarship read, so instead I will analyze the credibility of Dubois’ argument. Her approach revolves around the claim that the demand for the vote was the most radical program for women’s emancipation possible in the nineteenth century. She states, “My hypothesis is that the significance of the woman suffrage movement rested precisely on the fact that it bypassed women’s oppression within the family, or private sphere, and demanded instead her admission to citizenship, and through it admission to the public arena” (63). I believe Dubois’ argument and agree with what she says because she does a nice job at laying out previous contributions to the field as well as effectively explains her points and provides a legitimate outside example with the contrast to the more popular Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

My first concern was why the women’s movement saw a drastic turn to the public sphere. She right on cue, details the emergence of a sharp distinction between the family and society in the nineteenth century. Detailing the new two forms of social organization, Dubois explains the revolutionary possibility of a new way to relate to society not defined by their position within the family (64). She then provides historical background to the familial relations at the time with writing on the subservient household women and then adds that Suffragists accepted this role but refused to concede that it prohibited them from participation in the public sphere. Dubois then brings in previous established authors such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton to add to her argument, only continuing to reinforce her view in my opinion.

After she states that enfranchisement was the key demand of 19^th century feminists, she provides anti-suffrage voices and begins to solidify her argument in my mind. Providing the anti-suffrage voice, Dubois I believe, nicely disproves the family focused view and introduces why the movement remained a minority. By detailing the success of the WCTU and their ability to capture a wider audience of women, Dubois’ argument gained some strength in my opinion and made her view distinct from others previous. She finally solidifies her argument in my mind by concluding with, “Yet, the very fact that the WCTU had to come to terms with suffrage and eventually supported it indicates that the woman suffrage movement had succeeded in becoming the defining focus of 19^th century feminism, with respect to which all organized female protest had to orient itself” (69). In all, after reading Dubois and not having any previous knowledge, I do believe she provides a historically backed claim that shows some different thinking then previous familial heavy authors.

November 13, 2013

Patriarchy's Appeal to Women?

The articles by DuBois and Earle cast important light on the development of the women’s feminist and suffrage movements of the nineteenth century. However, while both articles thoroughly explore unique aspects of these women’s movements, the arguments of these works are undoubtedly strengthened when read together.

Alone, DuBois is very effective in situating her story within the framework of existing historiography. While navigating the routes taken by earlier research into the nineteenth century feminist movement, DuBois crafts her research questions from what previous scholars had left unanswered, ultimately leading her to ask “why” the nineteenth century suffrage movement became the most radical among women. One of DuBois’s strongest arguments in answering this question stems from her interpretations of the public and private spheres; the public sphere emphasized the “individual” while the private sphere centered on “family” (64). Through these understandings – and the illustrations of women’s lives revolving around domestic responsibilities – DuBois is able to demonstrate why women were so often confined to the private sphere.

One topic presented by both DuBois and Earle that is made more lucid through the pairing of these articles is the rhetorical foundation upon which the feminist and suffrage movements began, or perhaps were at least made most effective. An interesting conclusion by Earle states that “the very key to white women’s own racial advancement was patriarchy” (227). In justifying this claim, Earle notes that nineteenth century women used “middle-class gender relations” to place themselves above minority groups like free people of color, immigrants, and slaves (227). While this argument may initially appear to weaken DuBois’s contention that suffragists of the nineteenth century sought to become individuals, separate from their husbands in the public sphere, I think when read in the correct context it bolsters DuBois’s claims. In the last portion of her article, DuBois discusses the strategies used by the suffragists and organizations like the WCTU and why some were more effective. The WCTU was so successful, she argues, because “took as its starting point woman’s position within the home,” a “home-based ideology” (69). If we consider Earle’s argument about patriarchy, it becomes clear that women’s groups like the WCTU had to use the model of patriarchy to convince other women that the foundations of family were being threatened. This led many women to become a part of movements because most women were “limited to the private realities of wifehood and motherhood” (DuBois 68). By initially appealing to problems at home and within the family, women’s movements were able to garner sufficient support for their causes and finally provoke change in the public sphere.

With this in mind I wholeheartedly agree with Max’s claims that failure would have been ineluctable for suffragists and abolitionists had they strived to “overturn all traditional values” (Feminist Radicalism). As Earle remarks, “to embrace abolitionism was an inherently radical act by itself” (226). For women to make sufficient progress in gaining the right to vote and entrance into the public sphere, they needed to, as Max says, “pick their battles.” This give and take between radicalism and appeals to patriarchy definitely developed a strategic paradox, but I believe, along with Earle, that perhaps this manipulation of social understandings was necessary for the success of the feminist and suffrage movements of the nineteenth century (229).

November 13, 2013

Dubois on the Radical Nature of the Suffrage Movement

In The Radcalism of the Woman Suffrage Movement, Ellen Dubois addresses recent scholarship denying the radicalism of the 19th century woman suffrage movement. These recent scholars assert that the patriarchal family structure has historically been the primary example of female oppression, and that the suffrage movement was not truly radical because it did not address that issue. Dubois argues that the suffrage movement was radical because by demanding for the vote, women were demanding their entry into the traditionally male-dominated public sphere of politics, as opposed to being relegated to the private sphere of maintaining the home and caring for the family. This distinction between the public and private sphere is crucial to Dubois’ argument, as she claims that up to this point in American society there had been no challenge to this separation of the genders into the private and public sphere. According to Dubois, the suffrage movement was therefore radical because it represented an effort by women to take on a role in society (namely that of voter) that had nothing to do with their role in the family.
Dubois concedes that 19th century woman suffragists did not seek to undermine the family structure or the idea that women should inherently take on a domestic role. Again, the mere fact that they were requesting to enter the public sphere was radical enough. Perhaps, as Max pointed out in his post, these women recognized that they had to pick their battles and therefore did not seek to dramatically change the dominant family dynamic. I agree with Dubois’ argument that the foray into the public sphere was the radical part of the woman suffrage movement. However, I am unsure of how radical it really was based on the precise political causes these women hoped to address with their voting rights. According to Dubois, it seems woman suffragists hoped to vote in order to address issues related to their place in the household and family. Dubois claims that woman suffragists thought their voting rights would allow them to address reforms in family law and the marriage contract, as well as improve husband-wife relations by making “democracy the law of the family.” (68) If Dubois is saying the radical element of the suffrage movement was that it thrust women into the public sphere, is her argument undermined by her claim that women planned to use their voting power solely on domestic issues related to the private sphere? It does make sense that women would want to address domestic issues, as those directly affected the most women. However, if the suffrage movement was radical because of suffragists’ desire for women to influence only their domestic role via voting as opposed to other, more public causes (economic policy, foreign affairs, etc.), I believe Dubois’ argument is somewhat weakened. Under Dubois’ argument, women push their way into the public sphere by getting the vote, but that push is not sustained if women then focus their political power solely on domestic issues.