panel featuring these folks on the the panel will address lincoln, race and citizenship and on that end, on my right, brian mitchell is he's the new director of research and interpretation at the abraham lincoln presidential library and museum. he was previously an associate professor of history at the university of arkansas, little rock. his most recent book is my new mental oscar dunn and his radical fight in reconstruction, louisiana. our next panelist is michael green, who serves as president of history at the university of nevada, las vegas and is the author of two important books. well received titles in the iu press. this is an essay you press book plugging the press. since i'm an alumni of that school. let me see. two well-received titles in the siue press conceit concise lincoln library, lincoln and native americans. that was it. and lincoln and the election of 1860. and then turning the page. then we have james oakes who is the distinguished professor of history at siu. and why do you think cuny, cuny graduate center in new york and he's a two time winner of the gilder. lerman lincoln prize. his latest work introduced at last year's forum is are you ready for the title drumroll the crooked path to abolition. abraham lincoln and the antislavery cons stitution and our modern reader for this panel is edna greene medford, who is a frequent speaker at the lincoln forum, where she serves as a member of the executive committee, the emerita professor of history at howard. she has co authored the emancipation proclamation in three views and authored lincoln and emancipation. and she is a dear friend of mine whom i like very much so with no further ado, i'm going to sit down, but i have to get my i have to get my stuff first. edna, it's all yours. good afternoon, everyone, and thank you, katherine. several people have asked me since i've been here since yesterday how did i like. how did i like retirement? and my answer has always been, well, i may be retired, but i'm still working. and the only difference between retirement and working is that you get paid to work, but you don't get paid to work in retirement. okay. and so don't ever retire. so some of the most frequently quoted passages that purported to reveal lincoln's views on race and inclusion are taken from the 1858 debates, with incumbent stephen a douglas by illinois u.s. senate seat and response to senator douglas's race baiting and attempt to portray lincoln as a supporter of full equality and race mixing. lincoln asserted that he was, quote, not nor ever had been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. nor, he continued, had he ever been in favor of making voters or jurors of --, nor of qualified, urging them to hold office. he did believe, however, that african-americans were entitled to the natural rights enumerated in the declaration of independence. that is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. although he agreed with the declaration's claim that all men were created equal, this did not mean that all were equal in every respect. certainly not in color, he asserted. perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment, but in the right to eat the bread without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns. he is my equal and the equal of judge douglass and the equal of every living man. and he says that over and over in debates and in his speeches before the lincoln debates, but in some instances, he substitutes a black woman for that, as opposed to a man. lincoln's have used those words and others uttered in the debates, douglass as proof that he reject that the idea of black citizenship, while his admirers see his remark as mere political maneuvering to counter douglass, his effort to place him in a bad light with illinois voters who had long before declined to recognize african-americans as citizens of that state. as with many things, lincoln, his views on citizenship and inclusion in the body politic complex when we look back at what he said and wrote and did we find seeming contradiction shaped by a variety of competing factors, including his understanding the meaning of the declaration of independence, the prejudices shared with the white men, women of 19th century america, and influences emanating from the civil war. those views evolved as lincoln grappled with america's inconsistencies and the tension between his own beliefs in equality of opportunity and fairness and his personal prejudices. we are fortunate this afternoon to have three panelists who will help us understand how lincoln defined citizenship and how his understand the role of black citizens or black soldiers and helping to save the union led to his endorsement of limited voting rights for those men who had served. and so our panel has already been introduced to each each of them have been introduced. and so i will just get to the first question. and so my first question to each of you or to all of you is how did 19th century americans define citizen and citizenship? because we know lots of things are changing during the age of jackson, but it doesn't stop there. it's a continuation. so how does that change? i'm so sorry i'm going to just have to face how does that change over time. okay. i, i would say that different define citizenship differently. and there are people who have defined it more expansively. i think that there is an anti-slavery tradition back to the late 18th century that defined citizen chip in a variety of different ways, that over time come to accept, for example that, a citizen has the right to move from one state to another, which comes up in the missouri debate, the right to a jury trial and habeas corpus, the right to sue and be sued, the right to own property, those those sort of things. but as you know, the constitution doesn't say what the privileges, immunities of citizenship are. that becomes what they are, is as much a function of the public over slavery and race as anything else. so, yeah, it's it's well, go ahead. i would point us to the 1790 naturalization act and the naturalization act defines who can become a citizen. and it maintains that only whites can become citizens. i stress that we look at the identity of whites and we discuss what that means whiteness means and is white at that time. you have to remember that there are immigrants pouring into the country and, not all the immigrants, even though we think of them now as white, like the irish are not seen as white at that time. so that it's there's an expansive idea of whiteness at that at that given moment and who can be a citizen may not the the recently the recent immigrants such as the italian and the irish and i've written about native americans and they were not seen as america and citizens in the way i would say free blacks were could be seen as americans citizens. you don't get until 1879 a case where a federal court declares that a native american is a person who can actually file a lawsuit and this speaks to the fact that we define citizenship in a variety of ways, depending on persons. and i think, we are still fighting this battle in certain areas. and we'll continue fighting it. so but it's very different from how view citizenship. absolutely. we talk about birthright citizenship. that's not what they're talking about. no, course we don't get it until after the civil war. oh, i don't. i think we get it before after the supreme court. i define it in its in the bates decision. of november 1862 where he says if you're born in the united states, you're a citizen of the united states. if you're if you're free. and so it became a question of whether or not emancipated slaves could be re enslaved. and bates's answer was, because you can't enslave a citizen. and once you're free and you're born in the united, you're a citizen. so the birthright notion is there, with the exception, be native americans because they don't become citizens because they're domestic dependent nations. right? right. or not, according to them, perhaps. no. legally, right. okay. so i'm too in terms of what does want what kinds of rights someone's entitled to if they're a citizen. so you've got immigrants coming in who are not you know, they're not born in america. they haven't been naturalized yet, but they're voting yes. and so what is that relationship between? who's a citizen and who's voting and how long you've been here? i'm not sure i don't i'm not sure. voting rights were understood to one of the privileges and immunities of citizenship i'm not sure they still are my son had a passport when he was two. he couldn't vote. you know, women weren't till he's 18. women were citizens, but they couldn't vote until 20 or something like that. so it actually becomes issue during the civil war. do you have does becoming a citizen gives you is is voting one of the privileges of citizenship and i'm not sure at what point ever did become if you know, it ever did become i think by the 20th century it's understood in the 20th century it's understood that that all adults, citizens are entitled to vote. not all of them. not a few are convicted felons. there's lots of people are excluded from that. but but idea of of voting as a citizenship. right. that's much later. that's after the civil war. i think. and throw in obviously you get a right embedded in the constitution in the 15th amendment. but by they find ways around it. but it's not. you see, they didn't frame it as a right. this is what charles sumner's objection to it. they they just said you can't use race as a basis voting but he wanted it to say that voting was a right and it would have saved a lot of might of who knows those people know how to get around things. well, isn't that the problem with reconstruction are so many things that we didn't do then and we're now facing the consequences of that. so, yes, mike, did you have missed something. okay, so let's let's turn to move from what how americans define citizenship during this period and how lincoln it and who he thought a citizen should be in the days because we know it evolves over. i start because this will be fairly easy to do. he did not of native americans as citizens in the way that he would think of other people. they were not really a part of the polity, if you will, and one of the interesting things i found doing this book, there was an abolitionist named john beason who was essentially run out of oregon for defending the rights of native americans. and he defended the dakota in 1862, saying, well, you don't consider them citizens, so why are they bound by the laws of this country? and that's an interesting argument to make if you're going to treat them this way. are they actually a foreign power or what what are you thinking of what way. and so would anyone. yes, well, you you don't have abraham lincoln making any strong positions on blacks having citizenship. right. that to suffrage rights at all. so obviously suffrage in citizenship in lincoln's mind are not necessarily but what i do believe he would have had a problem with and this happened immediately after within two years of dred scott case is the position that arkansas takes arkansas passes in 1859 act 151 which says if black and you're free in that state, have to leave by january first, 1860. so the expulsion of free blacks from a state and if you haven't sold your property, if no one buys it, then seize it. and we sell it and we use it for the proceeds for all white schools. and i believe that he saw that is would have seen that as depriving of property which he would have seen as a human right and their freedom and autonomy. so this idea of, forced expulsion, i believe abraham lincoln would have been very much against what we know. his he responded very harshly to the dred scott decision specifically on the sit the citizenship issue, and he cited the dissent by benjamin which is that of four of vociferous defense of black citizens. yep. and he does he says in his inaugural address he wants the fugitive slave law revived revised so that no person shall be deprived of the privileges and immunities to which all citizens are entitled. right. and that's an old long standing view among anti-slavery northerners that there are certain things they're entitled to. one of them is the right to move from one state to another, but also in particular, regarding fugitive slaves, the right to a jury trial and habeas corpus, based on the fact that in the northern states, the law presumes freedom. if it's presuming freedom than anyone accused of being a fugitive slave has right to a jury trial. which is why the the 1850 law needs at the very least to be revised if it's not downright unconstitutional. and then you get back to native americans where forced expulsion. oh, there's plenty to say about forced expulsion. and lincoln didn't say much, but what he did say was not critical of the one when he was younger. the trail of tears and during the there are forced expulsions and there's reason to argue how much he actually knew about them. but it's a sign of how he is viewing native americans in a different way. so we know that he believes that everyone has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness what's enumerated in the declaration of independence. but he's not. and he says over and over again he's not interested in provide political rights and social equality to african-americans. so if you don't have the political rights, how are you going to secure were those civil but right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? how does he square those two? i don't think he ever begins to come to terms with it until he has to. like so many americans in the civil war, has to come to terms with the fact that we're going to have 4 million free black people and. how are they going to be incorporated into the body politic? and that's why it's so important that one of the last things he says is to open up the possibility of voting for some blacks. it's the first time any president ever uttered words like that and and, you know, he's moving the same way. not all whites, but a of whites are moving, you know, and that's you do end up with a fifth amendment and i don't think on a lot of issues you can look at lincoln as being in stone, as specially dealing with the war. and there's a letter he writes where he says amid them, in the multitude of cares with which i have to deal. and he's listing some of them. well, yes. is he thinking of certain issues. as much as we'd like? not necessarily. but clearly during the there is movement, as jim refers to and i think that's one of the great what ifs or might have beens. what happens if that is not his last speech. if his last if it had not been last speech, if it's not assassinated, we don't know where he goes for. yeah, we but we have. yes, you're absolutely right. we but we do have those tantalizing interviews that john white referred to in the last speech where. he he expresses sympathy for the cause that the black delegations are pushing for, which is black voting rights analyzing is the word i believe in. jim. i believe jim brought up something very interesting along with john wright is the idea of lincoln as this person who's able to adapt himself and evolve and change his perspective despite convince john you know he's not tied to old narratives as many politicians before him and he is sort of an iconoclast in that he can break away from them. can i say also one of the things that he says in that first interview with douglass that john didn't quote and he said this in other occasions, too, you know, he's he's he's famously has his finger on pulse of popular opinion, of public opinion. he says, you know, the the the the people had to come up to this point, right? they had to be brought up to the point where they first accept the idea of black soldiers and then they will accept the idea of black citizens. so he's he's he's in a position move the needle a little and he's responding to where the needle is all the time, i think. and so seeing him move is to some extent, seeing an important segment of public move. at the same time, he's not where salmon chase is. he's certainly not frederick douglass is. but he's a far cry from where jefferson davis is. but would you conceive that douglass would have it? would you consider for the extending even of a limited enfranchisement as moving the needle a little bit? yeah, i mean, that's a huge move. well, that's the frederick douglass called it. you know, it's he it was the entering wedge. you push that and then he uses a he uses a carpentry metaphor. right. right. you you put in the wedge and then you start hammering at the wedge. it's the opening wedge. but isn't there a rather long period between his that he's not a supporter of universal suffrage? first of all, at the beginning he's talking the persons who should who should be granted citizenship are whites. he doesn't even say men, but he says whites who pay taxes and who provide military, not excluding women. i assume he means women who are paying taxes, not women who are providing service. but of course that phrase has been used to suggest that he's for women's rights, is for women's voting rights. and i don't see anything that would suggest that he really is supporting right. of women to vote. he may not be he may not be against it, but he certainly is not championing. no, i think he's throwing tantalizing remarks. but but, you know, we do have books or books like, daniel, or has the political culture of the american whigs and there is a long a large body of literature that says if there's any place in the mainstream of american political, where women's rights, where that is sympathetic to women's rights, it's in the political culture that he comes out of so well. and it's also remembering the republican party was founded as a reform party. we say anti-slavery, but they come from a broad tradition of reform. lincoln is not the most ardent of reformers, and he's often critical. those who are totally committed as opposed to those who say, well, this is how far we can go here. and these are the political possibilities. so no, i don't think he's calling for women's suffrage, but not at all. but he is also very capable of saying, okay, we can go this far out and that's as far as we'd better go right now. don't you think it says something that once in a while when he uses the phrase you quoted, he does say in the to the bridge she earns from the sweat of her brow, the black woman is my equal and the equal. i think that says something about his views about women's. it's not, but he's not a self-righteous just isn't. yeah he ain't even but but not entitled to political rights essentially. okay that's not on the table in american. i mean, why and why not? why is it that he can see that social social equality and political rights extended to immigrants to poor whites, to other people, but he cannot see those privileges and rights extend it to black men and women, let alone enslaved. i mean, that that's a whole different category because they're seen as property, you know, as opposed to human beings. but there are by the time of the war, you know, a half a million black people who are free and lincoln is not talking about socially equality and political rights for them why is he not? well, is it because he knows america and are not there yet or it's because he really has this attitude and this idea that there is an inferiority, an inherent inferiority in the race? i don't know. i don't think he believes in the inherent inferiority. he's the only thing he'll say is difference, which is weird. a weird way to put it. you know, if he wanted to say inferiority, which is that inferiority, but i'd who as far as i understand, for example, the only person in the republican party who argues for something like social in the sense that like a private streetcar, corporations can be legally banned from engaging in discrimination. it's charles sumner. right. it's it's not there in in the mainstream of american politics and and so if lincoln can't see it it's because nobody is seeing it. i mean, i'm not i shouldn't say nobody's seeing it. i think african-americans clearly african-americans. african-american. and there are women who are who have seen it right or are seeing it or smaller in number like that. but there are some white american who are seeing it, maybe not many. not many, but it's not like that's contradiction. the vast majority are, but they are people are saying these are human beings, these are people who are created by. that's right. that's right. and to say that everyone's entitled to equality of opportunity. but can you get that opportunity? you don't have the same rights as other americans? that's right. i believe that african-americans who saw him quite aware of this sort of bias that existed out in this sort of quagmire that they were in one example, it was arnold burke now and jean peppiatt, his rudeness when they're sent there, the group that sends them that it will later become the friends of universal suffrage in new orleans, particularly men that are physiologically appear to be white. and i wonder. how much of an influence they were appearing to be white? they're being extremely educated, played in his decision to make that last speech. you know but but is that true of all the delegations don't john has three delegations right but he particularly mentions in the last speech the people of new orleans, the people in louisiana. and so we know that that group of delegates particularly stuck in his mind were stuck with the same problem we always are. it is is that because he knows how easy it how it would be easier to sell or is it his own personal biases it's in and why is he doing it at the end of the war? i mean, why is he deciding by april 11th, 1865, that some groups of black men are entitled to voting rights? you know, very intelligent and the soldiers. why is he even going there? i mean, what is it what is there for him? i mean, is it just something that where he is come to the conclusion that black people do have a right to be considered? or is it something a little more i tend to be cynical. and so i'm thinking about how politicians operate. he is the leader of the republican party. he that if the republican party's ever to make an inroad in the former can better itself he's going to have have a base and it makes sense to look to black people you beat me to it. yeah i think think republicans come are coming to that realization as they confront in the aftermath of the immediate aftermath what's going on in the south and you see it very rapidly rise in republican party rhetoric that, oh, my god, what frederick douglass said, now give them this weapon. it's all they have. they don't have they're completely impoverished. they've been emancipated. they have the vote as a weapon to protect themselves. and i you see that kind of rhetoric emerge very rapidly among republicans at the end of the war. and lincoln's in process of coming to terms with the reality that these people are not going to be colonized. they're not going to emigrate. we have to have them. he says that in the speech in which he defends colonization, he actually attacks the racist justification of colonization. and he says they're here, they're here, they're it's not like freeing them. it's going to create population that isn't already here. they're here and they're not going anywhere. so deal with it. and he has deal with it. so does emancipation in kill colonization. well, he he never mentions it again after december of 1862. there's some there's some argument if you're listening to butler that he is. well, that's a that's a postwar recollection and it's i don't i there's no he doesn't there's nothing he says that we have documentation for. exactly. well, i believe one of the things that does kill this notion of colonization, something that john had brought up with the free men of color and orleans and the france of universal suffrage. one of the first things they do after they organize as a group is to hold mock elections and registrations and then send all of those registrations to washington, d.c., to the president, all registered republican. and this notion that, look, going to have these votes and you're going to be able to hold this state and definitely, if you allow us to keep voting, is a real tangible thing that the president can lock himself in. and i am possibly less cynical than you but probably not and it's not an insult to abraham lincoln to say that he was a politician to his toenails. and if you look at his life, he is always either running for something or, getting ready to run for something. and when i was writing book on the 1860 election, one of the fun things for me was to see the i don't mean it in a nasty way him the pain he was in that he was running for president. but because he's running for president, he can't get out there. he's he's not allowed to campaign back then. so he thinks politically and we go back when he was a wig and he is trying to make the whig party less elitist. that may be going through his as well. we don't want the republican party to remain a completely sectional party. we're not going to win. but we have to find a way to broaden this appeal. so i'm back to the beginning there. but if we think of him as a politician and not just as the president thinking in terms of race, that's another angle to take on it, can i just say it? yes, he's absolutely he's a politician from the tip of his toes to the hair on his head. but. the democrats are politicians, too. sure. and the political they make is exactly the opposite. the one lincoln makes, which is absolutely no suffrage for blacks. absolutely no civil rights. so in his cynical, you know, in his cynical, maybe not so cynical, i would say calculations of what it is, what what to think about the future of the republican party. he comes on the right side, whereas his opponents down on the absolute wrong side. indeed. absolutely. so can we spend a moment or two sort of unpacking his response to the dred scott decision? because i find it rather it's a bit confusing because he still talking about not willing to accept black citizenship. but he's in illinois, meaning a lot of time on the citizenship question. i mean, we know that he's very is that the idea that tandy, the tiny court has said that missouri compromise is now void. we can understand that. i can't understand how he says on the one hand, you know, i i don't think black people are ready for citizenship, but on the other, he's talking about he's actually spending a lot of time talking who could vote, for instance at the founding of the nation. and we know that in five different states, black people weren't to vote. and lincoln is that up? and it seems to me that every time he does that, he's saying, well, they voted, you know, at the time of the constitution, why aren't they voting now? and that's not he's saying so, gentlemen, the voting at the time of the constitution is goes to the question of whether they were citizens at the founding, whether we recognized of him. i don't think the issue is whether they're citizens. the one thing he ever says that they're not citizens is is in the state of illinois. yes. but it's what's at issue in the dred scott decision and in the issue of fugitive slaves having the rights due process is the privileges immunities of citizens of the united states. and that, it looks to me i don't see him ever saying anything other than that are citizens of the united states. otherwise it's just me. otherwise he's incoherent and he's really incoherent. so it's okay. it's okay if a state is not providing citizenship. but but the country they write that goes to the quote you mentioned, right. when he says, you know, i have never been in favor of these things. the next thing he says, in addition to going on to say, but in the natural rights, he also says those are things state legislatures do. i'm running for the u.s. senate if you guys in the audience are who are so heavy on these issues, care about it, send stephen a douglas back the state legislature because that has nothing do with what's going on in the u.s. senate. and of course, he supported the black of illinois. at least he didn't talk against the let's put it that way. actually, early on in his career, he he explicitly advocated whites, citizens. yes, exactly. well, i believe that lincoln believes that the supreme court's ultimate is to make the general consensus several things. and he saw this as a very much an unsettled case that they were ruling on. he points out, in 18 and 57, a few months, three months after the case was settled, that, look, this court has had to overturn cases a number of times. and i see that this case will have to be overturned at some later point. so he believed that this was that the court the case had met the court had made a mistake in this this determination and that it wasn't settled law. that's right. and since we've talked about him as a politician we should remember, he's a lawyer. and the incoherence to me has a little bit to do with the fact that as a lawyer, he was trying to find a way, say the supreme court is totally wrong and we should ignore them, but i'm also a lawyer who follows the law. and that's a difficult to be in if. like lincoln, you think deeply. it might be easy when horace greeley has on the tribune the tiniest opinion is as entitled to as much weight as somebody sitting on a bar stool. greeley is not a lawyer and i do wonder in that case, how much of that might play into lincoln's thinking as well, or suffering as the case. i think lincoln thought anything about the dred scott decision that most republicans didn't think. i don't think one of the things about lincoln to me, anyway, is, yeah, he's a brilliant expositor of the anti-slavery positions, the republican party, but he's totally unoriginal. i mean, i can't think of a single thing he ever said that was unique. him and his view of the of the dred scott decision is what all republicans are going up and down the country saying so it's it's they're going to interpret it in the narrowest possible terms. okay. we're going to violate it in the sense we're going to say dred scott in harriet scott and the children are not return to slavery, but that's all it says. the is just over the dicta and it's settled law and that's a fairly well-established position. the republican party by 1858 and so in the lincoln-douglas debates what he's saying the sentiments that he's expressing are legitimate to him. i mean, believing what he's saying or is he just politician? i tried not to get into what he actually believes when. i wrote best answer to that question is yes. yeah, we camps but what do you weigh? it depends on what it is you're saying. what saying? i mean, he says a lot of things. some of them are quite beautiful and egalitarian and then some of them are awful. a lot of them are not. and not a lot of them, but some solidary. and so the idea that african americans are an inferior race, i don't think he believes that. you don't think he believes. no. interesting. okay. that they are they cannot have social equality and political rights. no, that's right. he denies that. he denies that he ever supported it anyway. it says he is not. right. okay. that's right. that enforces on amalgamation. i have always been fascinated by why so much time is devoted to the idea that men, while black people be socially equal or have political rights because of amalgamation, where is that coming? what? what is why are white americans so concerned about that in the 19th century? if i could answer that question right. it's an obsession i don't understand. you have to have white supremacy. you have to have a clear definition and you have to have a wall between white and black. eliminates that wall, that we all can no longer determine who's white or black or who anyone is. so if you're going to have a bottom rung, you better secure that bottom rung and make sure nobody can get up and if that is the big fear, then it's going to be used against you politically. and we see that in campaigns running once he is in the republican party that's being brought up against him and so how much of this is a defensive posture on his in the but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that would suggest that republicans are in any way of course going direction not at all in the direction of of amalgamation. oh, the legislatures are repealing laws interracial marriage. whenever the republicans control of them, they do. so i don't know if that means they're favor of amalgamation. i don't think that's you know yeah you know polls are going to have this is the great in which the idea of race becomes so central and it peaks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, you know, seven place the hero of this morning's lecture by walter he that there was there's no reason think we needed colonization because black people naturally they were brought here to a climate they they don't belong in. and naturally will gravitate toward the south. so we don't have to worry about them crossing the ohio river and like that it's just racialized thinking is all over the place and sometimes it's kooky and usually it's horrible, but it's all over the place. yeah, i think katherine is here to tell us that our time is up now. i'm. well, maybe your time is up, but i want to give you. some time. yeah. so you have questions or comments, particularly questions we don't a whole bunch of statements, but questions for the for the panelists and including edna please move to a microphone because we have about 15 minutes or. all right. over there. oh, go ahead. well, hello. you set him up since he's from howard. no, i'm just know he he automatically how to work a room. oh that's. well hello. i was particularly moved by the conversation about definitions of citizenship my work more recently and my research more recently has focused on the role of afro jamaicans and their service in united states army during this conflict. a lot of them were under the opinion that because they were aliens that they were not subjected the draft which is why somebody enrolled a substitute during the conflict 84% specifically. however were considering the ap during the civil. are you talking about. yes, sir. how many were so there were there were 57 who are listed that i have found. 51 did not become like bounty claims. and then desert. so 51 who actually served in uniform and actually served with their regiments and only eight of them defer conversation but we'll move on and however we see black americans being drafted military despite not being citizens. and so i'm kind of curious they can't go into the they can't be drafted if they're not citizens. the militia law requires you to be a citizen. there were african-americans who were drafted in united states army during the conflict. yes. but the militia act that was in july of 1862 to allow to remove the word white from membership in the militia, which is how you get into the army, removed the word white, but it kept the word citizen. you can't get into the army if you're not a citizen. and so how were black men drafted into military then? that's my overall question is what is the legal maneuvering that was having to be done to allow black men to enlist if they were not considered out of black aliens, black foreign born individuals understood that because they were foreign born, they too cannot be drafted. so i'm kind of curious how that was to work. if you all have an answer that i the the normal way you're drafted is through your state. so the massachusetts fourth comes in the usual way through the state militia and it becomes the massachusetts 54th. but, you know, emancipation proclamation opens the door to people in the southern states and those states are not going to organize black militias. so one of the things that gets set up with the united states colored troops in in in the early spring spring of 1863 is a procedure for blacks directly into. the union army, bypassing the state because they know that the southern states aren't going to do it now. how so? i don't know that they're drafted in that sense because they're mostly have to be voluntary hires, especially in states like kentucky, things like that. they are going around on the plantations in the mississippi valley, sort of drafting people into the army, to the dismay of the wives and children who are come with them and things like that. so there's no one way in which blacks coming into the union army, but i have to stress they couldn't get into the army if they weren't already. so the naturalization law that brian talked about is about people coming into the united states, like the jamaicans, which is why i'm curious about this issue. but if you were born in the united states, you were a citizen of the united states. so the presumption is that they're free and that they're citizens to get into the army, this may be trivial in relation, but when the dakota uprising happened in minnesota, the governor permission not to meet the draft quota to be able to deal with the uprising and lincoln approved that and they are people who argue you know this also made him realize i have to find troops somewhere so this may help pave the way for the u.s. to or at least contribute. did you ever thought, bryan. yes i was going to point out that the vast majority of african-american men that were coming in were coming in as volunteers so there wasn't a necessity to go out and draft them if they're coming in by droves and forming their own unit and actually petitioning to form their own unit, the need to go out and sort of force into the military wasn't there except in the south, as jim said, because they are that they are being impressed, pressed into service in the south they're not wanting to go. i mean, imagine three black men. we're not even talking enslaved people who are in the contraband in camps, who are also being oppressed or forced into service. but we've got three black men who are living in a community of white confed. they know that if they go into the union army and they're leaving their families behind, their families are going to suffer enormously as a consequence of that. so these men don't want to go and so they're out in the woods when they know the imprisonment raids, you know, those units are there. they are hiding out in the woods because they know that if they do join their families going to be abused and they're going to lose what little they already have. so it's a serious problem for them. and one example and might be the anomaly is louisiana, because there's a native guard that's by the confederacy. and when a butler the city, they immediately turn over arms and want to join. they join under nathaniel banks forming the first, second and third regiment. so native guard and and so they will go on to fight fort hudson after having served the confederacy. but i do think that fighting for the confederacy, i do think it's important to to reinforce what bryan said, that the vast majority of blacks in the union army are volunteers. yes. yes. roger. in 1864, douglas reported when he was opposing lincoln for president, that had asked abraham lincoln and lyman trumbull to sign petition granting the right to sue and be sued own property and other attributes of citizen jeb and both lincoln and douglas revere are not from lincoln, and trumbull refused. was that simply aplenty decision or were there other factors in that decision decision? i'm sure that was a political decision. i'm quite sure because lincoln was involved in lawsuits with blacks and were suing and being sued, you know, in illinois. and he was those cases and working those case, both sides of those cases. so i don't think it's a question trumbull is one of the examples of somebody who in every vote he takes, in every position he, takes as a senator is in favor of equal rights in favor of citizenship, in favor of emancipation, and then he goes out on the stump and says racist things. and it's like, you know, i was thinking this this morning also, it's a lot easier to be a radical in ohio like sam and chase, new york, like william seward. it is in illinois, illinois and indiana, like they're in competition, which is the most racist northern state got like so it's so similar to in a different context time at the i want him to survive illinois is an indiana if you give a talk in indiana they'll say it's illinois and if you take but it's the context is you know stephen a douglas is most powerful man in illinois and he'll never lose an opportunity to race pate but he believes what he's saying. yeah well i don't think it's about politics. he believes what he's saying. next question ahead. yeah, if you set the stage. 1860, 1859, whatever, slaves were actually, i guess punished if they read books weren't allowed to weren't allowed to educate themselves. granted, in 1862 at the meeting where said detrimental stuff but he also said that a man is allowed to get the the benefits of his of his labor and so forth. the people, the black people who subsequently went to went to the white house. now, they certainly couldn't have been construed as all the geniuses. okay there were normal black people who book reading and who obviously came across eloquently reasoned billy had had a tale to sell, had a story and were and were intelligent people. i can't believe that this is only a statement about. lincoln and his heart of hearts. i can't believe that lincoln in his heart of hearts wouldn't have thought any man given the opportunity. a normal man or whatever, would be able to be as intelligent, whether it be a black man, whether it be white man, whatever. i'm just it's a general statement, but i. i can't believe the question. no, no, no, no, no, no. i'm not talking about i'm just saying that that i can't believe in any form that anybody could think that he didn't believe in his heart that a black man learn as much as a white man, you know, could be on the same playing field. that's my only regardless of what was said from, you know, in a political forum, maybe haven't i haven't ed in anything. but i'm but well, you know, i've always wondered how could he say the things did and have a friend like william floresville you know he had respect for fluor bell for bill was not the most educated but he he was a professional of sorts he was a barber he had a skill and lincoln must known that he had tremendous abilities that could be expanded. i don't know. i think he he viewed african-americans in general through the lens of slavery. and so he thought that because the majority of african-americans were enslaved or had been enslaved or that bad institution had done so, so much damage, that it would have been difficult for for but the group to succeed. next question, please. i'm sorry. thank you. hi, mr. oates. i was wondering if you would clarify something for me. i think you said if you're born in the united states, you're a citizen what? that. what time frame were you referring to? what was the necessity of the 14th amendment. if we're talking about because it's it's it's it's the position. i think that is in the mainstream of anti-slavery thought. and that has to be into the 14th amendment, to the constitution because democrats don't believe that because there are large of americans who are unwilling to accept that principle, that or at least that the birthright applies only to white people, which is how stephen a douglas would say it. so it's a it's a principle that comes out of the anti-slapp every tradition, not the mainstream of u.s., not the mainstream of u.s.. did most people in the u.s. believe folks were citizens before civil war? most are i wouldn't know how to do. i think most republicans still most anti-slavery republicans, all the eight years old. well, let's say. well, yeah, but i think there is a there is this is what i think kate measures book shows right that there is a long standing and it's not just kate made this book after book after book that shows with the rise of anti-slavery, you get something like not version of it, but like anti-racism and when anti-slavery wanes in the first half of the 19th century, you get more racism. and when really anti-slavery comes back, you start getting more anti-racism and things like that. so that anti-slavery and anti-racism build together and it's not a straight line, it's certainly not linear progress, it's it's a fight, it's the contest. and i think anti-slavery people, generally speaking, assume that black people are, citizens. bryan one things i would like to point is what we were talking about in 60 and that decision that was made after the dred scott case to kick the entire population of arkansas. and that was part of a political strategy on the part of democrats. they said, okay, republicans love free, okay, let's flood their streets with them and see if they love them when all the free in the south are now living destitute on their streets and they're having to take care of them. and arkansas was the first test of this. and the other states, a number of southern states began to try to pass similar acts. their legislature, to do the exact same. however, the civil war starts. so they don't really need to do this strategy any longer. what the 14th amendment does is clear what dred scott had done and what dred scott creates is 3 million people that have no political no state identity, that are just floating around and look who's going to take these people. the state decides they don't want them in the state. say, you know what, we don't want blacks here any longer. so you have to an identity that gives them some some roots where. they can't just be abused, forced out under of forced expulsion like they were in 1860. last question. i think your last comment getting along. i was thinking about the seems to me that in the context of the civil war era, it's useful to think of citizenship as a divided reality and not a singular. i mean, you're taught you got federal citizens here, which is really shaped in huge ways by the 47. but up in exist but for instance in. 5018 63 african-americans living in are citizens of boston. this is the massachusetts they have voting rights to some extent. they've got judicial rights. they've got jury rights and so on. whether or not they're citizens of the united states. another matter, meanwhile, there's a lot i don't know. the scholarship at all, but certainly the scholarship pointing out that native americans were were treated legally as citizens of their their tribal identities. i mean, they had citizenship rights a bit, that find their way into the courts, even if they're not being treated as citizens of the united states. a point being a citizenship is probably much more of a divided reality in that moment than we think of it today. and i think it's a divided reality today anyway in a lot of ways, in terms what our rights exactly are. well, the right certainly. yeah. but rights of citizens. yeah. can i can i make one less. it to the last question. okay. okay. goes to the last question because what most people believe, i think that we have no public polls, there's no body referenda that we can evaluate where americans are at any given point. what we, however, what's in the house of representatives and between 1790 and 1860, there are approximately 100 votes on slavery and 95 out of 100 times a majority of northerners. the house of representatives vote anti-slavery. there is an anti-slavery tradition that's there, but that's not the majority of whites. that's not the majority in the united states. it's just the majority in the north, in the house representatives. but you can be against slavery, but not for that's a just because i want the the horrible institution slavery ended where i can't divide your and sell you and rate does it mean that i believe that you are my equal right? it doesn't. on that note, let's give our panel.
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