Political Voices – Popular Politics in Early America

October 23, 2013

The Unfreedom of "Freedom"

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Patricia Reid’s “Margaret Morgan’s Story” challenged me to think about aspects of slavery among border states that I had previously never given thought. Her juxtaposition of the concepts of slavery and freedom within the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania ultimately led to a thorough examination of the legitimacy of freedom for African Americans in the early- to mid-nineteenth century. This analysis was supported in large part by Reid’s excellent critique on the personal liberty laws passed in Pennsylvania in 1826. While Reid explains the initial, benevolent intentions of the laws, she proceeds to reveal their myriad weaknesses in protecting African Americans. When compared to the personal liberty laws of New York or Massachusetts, the laws of Pennsylvania had no effect in changing the political voice or power of African Americans – if accused of being a fugitive slave, African Americans were not even provided a jury trial (369). If anything, Reid effectively emphasizes that the political stance of free African Americans was weakened by placing the jurisdiction of their trials into the hands of elite white slaveholders. For many African Americans, freedom was entangled in a convoluted system of unfreedom.

Continuing her mockery of personal liberty laws in border states, Reid highlights the proceedings of the Prigg v. Pennsylvania trial of 1842. When the issue of these laws were taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, the status of Margaret Morgan and her children – previously free African Americans who had been accused of being fugitive slaves, kidnapped, and then sold into slavery in the South – was never addressed, although state laws of both Maryland and Pennsylvania dictated that they were free (373). In depicting the proceedings of the trial, Reid demonstrates that the personal liberty laws of Pennsylvania were wholly ineffective. In this light she also reveals the lack of importance placed on African American issues by the white elite in the nineteenth century – equal treatment towards free African Americans was a non-issue because in the minds of many blacks were not, and would never be, equals. Reid uses the example of the Pennsylvania personal liberty laws as a kind of satire for the entire system by which African Americans were to be protected against injustice. Collectively, I think this writing contributes greatly to supporting her overarching thesis of a growth of “pro-slavery constitutionalism” throughout the middle of the nineteenth century (360)

While Reid’s criticism of personal liberty laws is both detailed and insightful, the first half of her work dilutes her argument. In trying to establish the legal framework for the unfortunate events of the Morgan family and the subsequent Prigg trial, Reid provides readers with a background that is largely excessive. I think Reid could have made a much more powerful argument had she spent more time emphasizing the opinions and perspectives of those directly affected by the liberty laws, freed African Americans. With this in mind, I think the questions presented by Henry and Ian are very important. These questions underscore Reid’s lack of layman perspective in her work. What did the populace think about freed slaves? How did African Americans view personal liberty laws? Reid’s use of quotes from both a freed African American and Frederick Douglass were critical in establishing the black perspective in her argument, but the paucity with which they were used left me wanting more depth in this portion of her analysis (370, 365). Despite her missed opportunities, Reid is still able to clearly articulate that manumission did not imply freedom, and freedom in no means implied equality for African Americans in the nineteenth century.

September 12, 2013

The "Careful" Mob?

In this week’s readings, I found it extremely interesting that both Pauline Maier and Wayne E. Lee argue for a historical reexamination, and eventual redefinition, of mob culture in the eighteenth century. There are several points where Maier and Lee overlap in their respective works, and collectively I think these commonalities only bolster the argument they strive to make. The first of these overlaps is found in claims that, by and large, mob action and riots were carefully planned and often used only as a last source of appeal to authority, both in Europe and Colonial America. Maier and Lee both state that mobs emerged only after all other legal options of airing political grievances had been shut down. With this in mind, each author emphasizes that this was very likely the case because each mobs seems to have practiced a “riot protocol” that almost all people seemed to follow (Lee 18). Lee continues to argue that the protocol was so specific that we can actually find patterns of mob action throughout early America. This provides us with a unique image of a riot as what was once a very formal, calculated affair, and mobs as groups of people who were “so domesticated and controlled” (Maier 17). Moreover, we can see through Lee and Maier that mobs in the eighteenth century were seen as legitimate political actors because their actions were often reinforced by the government in the form of “paternalistic” responses to the mobs’ grievances (Lee 17).

A second shared point between Maier and Lee that I agree with is the idea of the mob as a community affair. Maier states that there was indeed a community aspect to mobs and that the targets of mob attacks were those viewed as bad neighbors or citizens – mobs were often acting out of the best interest of the community (12). Lee also emphasizes the mob as a community, particularly when he discusses the festive nature of rioting. From these two works I gained the feeling that in the eighteenth century, riots were one of a few ways communities could unite behind a common cause and a means by which people could assure camaraderie amongst themselves.

With respect to my colleagues, I align myself with Ian’s comments about his skepticism toward “mob legitimacy.” I have a difficult time simply reconciling mobs as, according to Maier and Lee, “careful” and largely non-violent groups, especially with our contemporary perception of mobs as groups that exercise their influence through exclusively violent means (Lee 14). With that said, there is one point that I slightly disagree with in Ian’s post, and it is that the riots that ensued in colonial America were in response to an “oppressive government.” While I understand and fully agree with the broader point he is making about preserving colonists’ liberties, I would agree more with Max’s comments and argue that one point both Maier and Lee strive to assert is that these colonial governments were not oppressive as much as they were disconnected or aloof to colonists’ demands. I think this can be seen in Lee’s statement that oftentimes crowds would riot with the hope that the government “would react in a paternalistic way” (Lee 17). In this case, I do not think rioters’ problems were explicitly in response to government policy, but rather in simply getting authority to hear their political voices.

September 11, 2013

The Noble Mob

Pre-Revolutionary America was characterized by English control of the colonies, which fared well until the crown began to impose itself upon the colonists without their consent. The initial response to the various acts opposed by the colonists were to mob, using the threat of violence to make their opinions known and often find success, although at varying degrees. In analyzing colonial society at the time, it is no wonder that mob resistance was common practice for demonstrating opposition of policy; state militias often lacked much strength and armed men threatening violence was often more of an issue for local officials than their assigned duties regulated by a government across the Atlantic Ocean. These “mobs” were also not the pitchfork-carrying farmers that popular media so often portrays. They were organized with strategic moves, specific to their grievances, and did not frequently act on impulse. The treat of violence was often a greater tool than the violence itself.

It is also interesting to note that the British pastime of mob resistance was often a break in the order of society in order to protest what the “mobsters” considered an unjust break in the order of society. As an example, the Stamp Act was an imposition on the colonists that they saw as an unjust break in the order of society. As a result, they felt the right to create their own disturbances in society, in the form of a mob, in order to express their desire to re-establish what they believed to be a just society. It is under this progression of action that the chaos of the mob often developed as well. As one side imposed more, the other felt a right to escalate further, and a back-and-forth ensued that gradually increased the severity of the dispute. Surprisingly, this is a logical poker-like game. Each side raises the stakes further until the other one folds or a victor eventually emerges. Here we also see a contradiction in the traditional sense of the “mob.” It does not simply gather and begin burning homes, but rather plays strategic moves based on the actions of the opposition, with calculated risks taken in an attempt to best achieve their goals.

Although I agree with Ian Solcz’s assessment of the mob as a function of organization rather than a desire to create mass chaos, I disagree that it was “a last ditch effort to show their rulers the effects of unruly and unfair laws placed upon them.” Rather than a last ditch effort, it was another method for the colonists to demonstrate their political feelings towards the regulations placed upon them. Granted, it was more severe than a petition, but some occasions called for more significant action to be taken. These men had no say in the laws that were being imposed on them, and they had no choice but to make their voice heard. If it took armed threats, that that was what had to be done. Eventually, their actions were not convincing enough for their voices to be acted upon in Parliament, and so began the American Revolution.