amfazlani – Popular Politics in Early America

November 14, 2013

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

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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 12, 2013

Empowered Women: A "Force in History"

In her article, “The Power of Women’s Networks,” Mary P. Ryan examines the Female Moral Reform movement as indicative of women’s powerful role in guiding the course of history, as she mentions, “women have acted throughout the American past to shape events and to make history.” But Caldwell believes that the female reform movement, in actuality, was counterproductive because it separated women from the same communities of which they were trying to gain independence. He notes,”I believe that the effective female advocates of the Female Moral Reform Society in Utica suffered because of their lack of prescience to see that an argument which pushed women into a separate sphere for purposes of sexual purity, would necessarily push them into a separate sphere in other ways.” While I agree with Caldwell that the decision made by women in Utica to perform in the movement may have further distanced the women from their communities, but as I argue in my post, that same decision gave them an incredible amount of both control and influence. This also demonstrates the underlying argument behind Ryan’s work which aimed to explain the history of women in America without falling for the same misconceptions and gendered stereotypes that has muddled the facts and figures to date. As she acknowledges, “one of the first impulses of the feminist historians in the early 1970s who set about discovering women’s past was simply to chart the course of sexual inequality and the oppression of women.” (66) So, in recognizing this, by including accounts of women participation in the reform movement, Ryan has already drastically shifted the perception of women’s history, from an account of subordination and oppression, to an account of solidarity and strength. Mary sheds light on the empowerment these movements gave to women at the time, “In sum women were among the most active participants in the rich social life that transpired within the voluntary associations.” (69) Thus, in conclusion, by placing women at the center of these reform movements, Mary positions women in a place of power and authority, rather than in a position that is rooted in male dominance and female subordination.

November 7, 2013

NANA As A Tool For Influence

In his blog post, Lewis mentioned that in Richard Jensen’s “No Irish Need Apply” “there appears to be a definite lack of sufficient support to argue that the Irish were discriminated against under the NINA ideology, I believe his claim that the Irish used the NINA slogan as a protective tool falls short of his own criticism.” I disagree with this assertion, because Jensen provides clear evidence of the Irish memorializing NANA in weird and perplexing ways. While I agree with Lewis in that there is not enough evidence to claim the Irish were discriminated against, but can an argument not be made about the Irish and their intentions when it was revealed they continued to cite NANA as their main point against discrimination towards Irish Americans even if all evidence proved it wrong?. In other words, while we may agree that Jensen’s assertion that NANA was used as a “protective tool” may not be a strong argument, we cannot overlook the discrepancies between the Irish’s perception of NANA and its actual impact on their rights. Jensen’s actual findings which I will outline here showed NANA did not have as dominant of a presence as first advertised by the Irish, creating a perplexing but fascinating narrative. First, Jensen claims that the fact that Irish even remotely remember NANA signs is perplexing, “the fact that Irish vividly ‘remember’ NINA signs is a curious historical puzzle.” For Jensen, the fact that NANA has solidified into fabric of memories of Irish Americans reveals far more than simply their views on discrimination or even NANA for that matter. Moreover, as deep hatred and discrimination is embedded within the NANA ideology, one would expect for a clear opponent or business that is “the culprit.” That, as Jensen points out, is not the case as “no particular business enterprise is named as a culprit.” What is even more fascinating is that while NANA may seem as a policy which attacked all minority groups the same, Jensen explains that “only Irish Catholics have reported seeing the sign in America-no Protestant, no Jew, no non-Irish Catholic” (405) In conclusion, it seems that there is ample evidence to suggest that Irish Americans, specifically, utilized NANA as a tool for influence.

November 5, 2013

Colby's Reasoning for the Gap Between Rich and Poor

In his post, Lamoureux describes how “understanding the history of the temperance movement and more government spending in high risk areas it becomes obvious that the issues that the upper class thought they fixed only made matters worse as they created new problems.” I agree with his statement, that because of the existing detachment between the elite and the working class led to an exaggerated representation of the poor’s interests. In my post, I will pinpoint the central issue as while their the poor’s views were somewhat represented, they were also greatly ignored and at times, not payed attention to altogether.

Wilentz agrees with his statement as he claims, “a feeling of prejudices does exist between the wealthy and the laboring classes. But while Lamoureux did not necessarily cite a reasons for the existent gap between the poor and the rich, H.G.O Colby, on page 304, points directly at the cause, “”he blamed this sourness of spirit on demagogues who declaim in bar-rooms and grog shops, with surpassing eloquence, upon equal rights, when the only species of equality they desire is that the loafer shall share the wages of the laborer” In other words, Colby is directly attacking the good intentions of the Church as in his view, “there were was no reason for hostility between the rich and laboring classes.” As for Colby, both the rich and the poor, “had the strongest reason, for mutual friendship and the most cordial unions.” But instead, the church created factions within this group, that while was in the name of quality, only created a greater divide.

October 24, 2013

Prigg vs. Pennsylvania- Focus On Lasting Impact Rather than Immediate Effect

Many of my fellow classmates have mentioned the case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania in their posts, particularly CT as he mentioned the case in his post to highlight the fact that “for those blacks who had their freedom undocumented or unrecorded, their freedom was based on white authority” (368) I agree with CT’s assortment that during this time much of black freedom was predicated on white’s perception of their freedoms and rights but in my opinion, the particular case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, in fact, helped the cause of slave’s and fugitive’s rights more than it hindered them. Patricia Reid, in “Margaret Morgan’s Story: A Threshold Between Slavery And Freedom, 1820-1842″ mentions that this particular case ” ultimately resulted in, the infamous Dred Scott opinion”, which as we know made the ruling that African Americans were slave property and thus not able to attain citizenship of the United States. (359-360) In doing this, Reid is making a direct claim that the case of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania was counterproductive in the fight for the rights of runaways and freed slaves. But, in my opinion, Reid is putting to much emphasis on the events that occurred directly after the ruling, rather than the developments in the multiple decades since. Justice Joseph Story, while in the ruling did not claim the Fugitive State Law to be unconstitutional, did mention that state legislations had the authority to enact their own laws regarding the issue. In doing this, Justice Story transferred the authority of managing runaway slaves away from the Federal Government and in the hands of the states, which, in my opinion, greatly aided the cause of slaves and fugitives especially in the North.

But looking at the specific ruling of Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, one can see that it gives states the ability to interpret the Fugitive Slave Act as they please, as it recognized certain states held a different stance towards fugitive’s rights than did the decision made by the court. So while, the immediate effects of the ruling were of course not ideal for Margaret Morgan, it did prove to aid multiple laws and legislations passed thereafter, in supporting runaways if state legislation allowed particularly in Northern states, where fugitive laws were less enforced. In this particular case, thus, it is important to realize that the immediate effects of an incident, while important to analyze in their own right, stand separate from the lasting impacts and future developments of the issues surrounding the particular incident, in this case, the case of Pregg vs. Pennsylvania. Although, I agree with both CT and Reid regarding their assessment of white authority over black freedom, I also one should focus on the lasting effects of an event, so as to see the entire picture and wholly understand the topic of discussion.

September 19, 2013

"The Whiskey Rebellion:" Irrational Fears

In The Whiskey Rebellion, Thomas Slaughter outlines the events that circulated around perhaps one of the most deadly civilian rebellions in America’s history. The central issue revolved around taxation and the role of the central government in enforcing such taxes on its citizens. Alex Salvatierra, in his blog post, mentioned that the response of farmers to the new tax was in some ways, an irrational fear as they believed if they were to accept these new taxes without objection, it would lead to the demise of the union they fought so hard to attain. In my post, I wish to examine the fears that Slaughter mentions, which he notes were not all rational, as they were the fuel behind the anxieties and tensions of the farmers.

On page 23, Slaughter explains, “Americans still differed about the ideological significance of internal taxes and about the localist description of divided sovereignty.” He goes on to mention that these differences were put aside, as in 1774, “Americans united to confront more pressing threats to their liberties.” (23) In many ways, the Revolution acted as a gause, through which all the different frustrations and anxieties that muddled the lives of the colonialists would be solved. But as the Revolution ended, these differences were not reconciled, and the focus transferred over to the issue of taxation, rather than revolution. So the fears that Salvatierra is referring to, for example of”the disbandment of the Union” are rooted in the central conflict of internal taxation. When the threat to the British waned, these tensions intensified. With the increasing isolation of westerners by the governing body, in 1786, George Mason had predicted that these anxieties would “occasion another war in less than six years.”(30) Through the perspective of the westerners, the new tax asked by the government, stood in conjunction with the other anxieties in their life such as the “widespread economic distress” in 1786 so while their fear that internal taxation would lead to the disbandment of the union is not entirely rational, it is key to examine the environment in which these fears formulated, as early Americans were “not purely rational men and women, immune to fears and tensions of social life.” (7) Ultimately the Whiskey Rebellion was an event that defined a crucial time of America’s young republic, as disputes between westerners and the governing body threatened to tear the nation apart.