Three Races in the United States

HIST 1301

Three Races in the United States
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This assignment has several documents for you to read and view in order
to answer the five required questions. Please follow any formatting
guidelines and minimum length requirements as set by your professor.
Please take your time to analyze these documents and submit thoughtful
arguments supported by the evidence these documents provide.
Documents:
1. Virginian Luxuries by unknown artist (ca. 1800)
2. Alexis de Tocqueville Describes the Three Races in the United States (1835)
3. Declaration of Sentiments (1848)
4. The Discord by F. Heppenheimer (1855)
5. Abraham Lincolns speech in Peoria, Illinois (October 16, 1854)
6. Abraham Lincolns Fourth Debate with Stephen Douglas (September 18, 1858)
7. The Reconstruction Amendments (13 th
, 14 th
, and 15 th
)
Document 1: Virginian Luxuries (ca. 1800 – artist unknown)
Document 2: Alexis de Toqueville Describes the Three Races in the United
States (1835)
In a landmark examination of the American society and culture, Alexis de Toquevilles Democracy in America
offered a unique outsiders perspective on liberty and its limitations amongst the inhabitants of the United
States, particularly in the relations of three races naturally distinctand hostile to one another.
For this document, please read DOCUMENT 11-3 in Reading the American Past: Selected
Historical Documents, Volume 1: To 1877 (pages 216-219)
Document 3: Declaration of Sentiments (1848)
Produced at the first womens rights convention in the United States in Seneca Falls, NY, the Declaration of
Sentiments was adopted to reflect the fundamental issues shaping and constraining womens liberties in the
mid-19 th
century.
For this document, please read DOCUMENT 12-4 in Reading the American Past: Selected
Historical Documents, Volume 1: To 1877 (pages 239-242)
Document 4: The Discord (F. Heppenheimer 1855)
Please read below for the dialogue being spoken in this political cartoon: Man on far left Fight courageous for sovereign authority neighbor, or your wife will do to you as mine
has done to me Shell pull your hair off your head and compel you to wear a Wig! Man in center Rather die! than let my wife have my pants. A man ought always to be the ruler! Male child on left Oh Mamma please leave my Papa his Pants! Woman in center Samy help me! Woman is born to rule and not to obey these contemptible creature
called men! Woman on far right Bravo Sarah! Stick to them, it is only us, which ought to rule and to whom the pants
fit the best.
Female child in center Oh Pa! let go, be gallant or youll tear em.
Document 5: portion of Lincolns Peoria Speech, October 16, 1854
In speaking out against the Kansas-Nebraska Act and resurrecting his political career, following a two-year
term in the House of Representatives and a subsequent return to his law practice, Abraham Lincoln offered
some early public insights into his feelings towards slavery:
. This declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of
slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it
because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world—enables the
enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites—causes the real friends of
freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men
amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty—
criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action
but self-interest.
Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people.
They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them,
they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up.
This I believe of the masses north and south. Doubtless there are individuals, on both sides, who
would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery
anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some southern men do free their slaves, go north,
and become tip-top abolitionists; while some northern ones go south, and become most cruel
slave-masters.
When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, than
we; I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists; and that it is very difficult
to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will
not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were
given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be
to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,—to their own native land. But a moment’s
reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in
this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day,
they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money
enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then?
Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters
their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear
enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and
socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know
that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice
and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling,
whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals.
It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness
in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south.
When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly,
but fully, and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives,
which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our
ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one.
Document 6: portion of Lincolns Fourth Debate with Stephen Douglas,
September 18, 1858
In campaigning for the Senate (and really on behalf of their respective partys candidates for the state
legislature which would actually select the Senator), Lincoln engaged Stephen Douglas in a series of seven
debates generally considered some of the most important in American History. During the early debates, the
Democrat candidate Douglas tried to paint a portrait of Lincoln and the Republican Party as one of
abolitionists who believed the races were equal. As he opened the Fourth Debate in which a reported 12,000
people were in attendance, Lincoln answered these charges:
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It will be very difficult for an audience so large as this to
hear distinctly what a speaker says, and consequently it is important that as profound silence be
preserved as possible.
While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I
was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. While
I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question
was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it.
I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social
and political equality of the white and black races, – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of
making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with
white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the
white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms
of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain
together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am
in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do
not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be
denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I
must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now
in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So
it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of
negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman or child who
was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white
men. . . . I will add one further word, which is this: that I do not understand that there is any
place where an alteration of the social and political relations of the negro and the white man can
be made except in the State Legislature-not in the Congress of the United States-and as I do not
really apprehend the approach of any such thing myself . . .
Document 7: Reconstruction Amendments (13 th
, 14 th
, and 15 th
)
For these documents, please read the 13th, 14 th
, and 15 th
Amendments found in the
Appendix of your textbook The American Promise: A History of the United States, Volume 1:
To 1877 (pages A-20 A-21)
Realizing ones liberty in the wake of the American Revolution was a very
difficult task for many peoples living in the United States of America. To be free
in nineteenth century America largely depended upon the ability to exert power
over others, whether society at large or within individual relationships. The
republican government created at this nations founding was an attempt to find a
medium through which unequal relationships of power could be mediated,
including those between local, state, and federal authorities. Ultimately, the Civil
War was a referendum on the power of government over individuals lives and
their liberties to own slaves, be free, or accept the very notion of equality.
Based upon your reading of these selected primary documents and
incorporating such secondary sources as your textbook and lecture notes, I
would like you to answer the following 4 Questions. Please provide specific
examples from these documents that support your arguments.
1) What relationships of power are featured in Virginian Luxuries (Document 1)? How are unequal power relationships reflected in Toquevilles distinctions between the three races
(Document 2)? What future does Toqueville predict for these groups of people and why? Based
upon your own knowledge, how accurate do you believe Toquevilles observations and
predictions were?
2) What relationships of power are featured in The Discord (Document 3)? How does the Declaration of Sentiments (Document 4) reveal the nature of gender relationships in nineteenth
century America? Based upon your knowledge of this time period, do you agree with these
sentiments, why or why not?
3) What are Abraham Lincolns views on the institution of slavery and notion of racial equality (Documents 5 and 6)? Because these speeches were made on the campaign trail, how much do
you believe these statements reflect Lincolns real thoughts or do you believe he is playing
politics?
4) Based upon your knowledge of the Civil War and reading of the Reconstruction Amendments (Document 7), in what specific ways were the questions and crises of liberty and
unequal power relationships contained in these various documents resolved or exacerbated by the
1870s?