Your Name: ______
Period 5, Reconstruction: Dissecting Primary Sources
(short answers will suffice!...as long as you remember you are writing as specific that an idiot will understand it!)
BACKGROUND: On September 24, 1883, the great orator Frederick Douglass addressed the National Convention of Colored Men in Louisville, Kentucky, and explained why African Americans needed to fight for their rights. Only three weeks later, on October 15, 1883, the United States Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The court declared that racial discrimination in public accommodations was not contrary to the Constitution.
…”Though we have had war, reconstruction and abolition as a nation, we still linger in the shadow and blight of an extinct institution. Though the colored man is no longer subject to be bought and sold, he is still surrounded by an adverse sentiment which fetters all his movements. In his downward course he meets with no resistance, but his course upward is resented and resisted at every step of his progress. If he comes in ignorance, rags, and wretchedness, he conforms to the popular belief of his character, and in that character he is welcome. But if he shall come as a gentleman, a scholar, and a statesman, he is hailed as a contradiction to the national faith concerning his race, and his coming is resented as impudence... The color line meets him everywhere, and in a measure shuts him out from all respectable and profitable trades and callings. In spite of all your religion and laws he is a rejected man.
If liberty, with us, is yet but a name, our citizenship is but a sham, and our suffrage thus far only a cruel mockery, we may yet congratulate ourselves upon the fact, that the laws and institutions of the country are sound, just and liberal. There is hope for a people when their laws are righteous, whether for the moment they conform to their requirements or not. But until this nation shall make its practice accord with its Constitution and its righteous laws, it will not do to reproach the colored people of this country with keeping up the color line--for that people would prove themselves scarcely worthy of even theoretical freedom, to say nothing of practical freedom, if they settled down in silent, servile and cowardly submission to their wrongs, from fear of making their color visible. They are bound by every element of manhood to hold conventions, in their own name, and on their own behalf, to keep their grievances before the people and make every organized protest against the wrongs inflicted upon them within their power. They should scorn the counsels of cowards, and hang their banner on the outer wall.”
- DESCRIBE: One positive and one negative aspect of Reconstruction according to Douglass.
- ANALYZE Point of View: What is Douglass’ prediction for the future of African Americans in the South?
BACKGROUND: Thaddeus Stevens, son of a poor Vermont shoemaker, was one of Pennsylvania's more unusual and most baffling personalities. He was a man strongly liked or disliked. To some he was the “Old Commoner” or “Great Leveler,” who fought for the poor, the oppressed, and the underprivileged; by others he was held in great contempt as an evil, vengeful politician who climbed to power by shrewdly supporting issues popular with the lowest class of voters of his day.
"It would seem to be humiliating to be under the necessity, in the nineteenth century, of entering into a formal argument to prove the utility, and to free governments, the absolute necessity of education…Such necessity would be degrading to a Christian age and a free republic. If an elective republic is to endure for any great length of time, every elector must have sufficient information, not only to accumulate wealth and take care of his pecuniary concerns, but to direct wisely the Legislatures, the Ambassadors, and the Executive of the nation; for some part of all these things, some agency in approving or disapproving of them, falls to every freeman. If, then, the permanency of our government depends upon such knowledge, it is the duty of government to see that the means of information be diffused to every citizen. This is a sufficient answer to those who deem education a private and not a public duty—who argue that they are willing to educate their own children, but not their neighbor's children. I trust that when we come to act on this question, we shall take lofty ground-look beyond the narrow space which now circumscribes our vision-beyond the passing, fleeting point of time on which we stand-and so cast our votes that the blessing of education shall be conferred on every son of Pennsylvania, shall be carried home to the poorest child of the poorest inhabitant of the meanest hut of your mountains, so that even he may be prepared to act well his part in this land of freedom, and lay on earth a broad and solid foundation for that enduring knowledge which goes on increasing through increasing eternity."
- DESCRIBE: What is this speech about?
- ANALYZE Historical Context: Based on what you know about the responsibility and willingness of states to educate their citizens prior to the Reconstruction period, how is Steven’s viewpoint different?