Discussion centers on issues around Reconstruction after the Civil War and the comparison to the racial injustices from the 19th century to today.

From voter disenfranchisement – poll taxes and literacy tests – to the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts of the 1960’s – to the “purpose and meaning” of erecting Confederate statues in the South, and the messages they were meant to send to future generations. A historical account of racial discrimination and family separation policies of a nineteenth century slave-owner president – to family separation policies of today. A survey of the aftermath of Reconstruction and the education system that followed including: the US Supreme Court ruling in “Plessy v. Ferguson” making “Separate but Equal” the law of the land, to “Brown v Board of Education” – striking down ‘Separate but Equal’ as Unconstitutional. Explanation of the benefits and challenges posed by the ratification of the 13th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution abolishing slavery, and giving black men the right to vote.

Also discussed, the work of abolitionist and suffragist Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton – ‘paving-the-way’ for the 19th Amendment – finally giving American Women the “Right to Vote” – as well as the ongoing struggle for Black Women in America.

A fascinating discussion that will enlighten viewers about the history of race and gender relations in the United States, and the fight for equality for almost two centuries.

Guest: Michael David Cohen, PhD - Research Historian of 19th Century America & its Presidents

Dr. Cohen is a research professor in the Department of Government and a faculty fellow in the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, in Washington, DC. He is a historian of nineteenth-century America, and currently serves as editor and project director of the Correspondence of the twelfth and thirteenth presidents of the United states, Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore. His previous works include: the letters of the eleventh president of the United States, James K. Polk, and the the Papers of Women’s Rights Activists & Abolitionists: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

He is a graduate of Harvard University and Carleton College; and is the author of Reconstructing the Campus: Higher Education and the American Civil War – winner of the Critics’ Choice Book Award.

For additional biographical information: Dr. Michael David Cohen

#RacialJustice #ConfederateStatues #VotingRights  #WomensRights #AmericanUniversity

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Transcript:

hello and welcome to the legal edition i'm your host attorney mary kay elloian our show topic today is reconstructing the reconstruction the aftermath of slavery and the continuing fight for equal justice our discussion today takes us from the civil war fight against slavery to the ongoing fight of black americans for equal justice including the presidents that embrace slavery those that fought against it and the monuments that memorialized it our guest is dr michael david cohen he is an author and historian of 19th century america and its presidents and is a research professor at the department of government and a faculty fellow in the center for congressional and presidential studies at american university let's welcome dr michael david cohen welcome dr cohen thank you for having me it's great to be here now tell us tell us what is considered the reconstruction period after the civil war and what years did it comprise reconstruction was the period right after the civil war when the united states worked on reincorporating the south back into the union and for the first time incorporating african-americans particularly in the south into the union as u.s citizens it began depending on who you ask either in 1865 when the war ended or in 1863 with the emancipation proclamation and it continued into the 1870s the end date we usually give is 1877 that's when the federal government and the republican party abandons the idea of using the us military to enforce civil rights of blacks in the south what did that comprise did it comprise issues of slaveries politics social and economics what did it comprise well the the very basic uh conclusion to the civil war in terms of black civil rights was the end of slavery with the 13th amendment at the end of 1865 but this led to complicated questions about what what freedom really meant for these people did it just mean self-ownership or did it mean other types of rights other types of opportunities and it was pretty much agreed that it did bring certain basic human rights such as the ability to marry the ability to sign legal contracts uh but did it also involve educational opportunities did it also involve the chance to vote to run for political office to have real economic independence even to own land these were ongoing debates and for a while during reconstruction there were substantial efforts by african-americans in the south and by white americans mainly in the north but some in the south to to really expand these rights by the end of the reconstruction period unfortunately a a a final conclusion was settled on that involved very limited opportunities for blacks now as you said the civil war took place from 1861 to 1865. that's right and and we all know the north won um and the f and the south was fighting to keep slavery um intact so as a historian what vestiges of the civil war do you see still present today they're really two main impacts of the civil war that we see around today they're not the only ones but by far the largest uh one and certainly the most important one the one we hear the most about is in terms of civil rights for black americans uh the civil war and the reconstruction period were one of several inflection points where we see a real movement toward increasing these civil rights and in that case it bent uh creating legal self-ownership legal freedom but as i said by the end of reconstruction period the 1870s there were a lot of limits placed on on black's rights uh ultimately enshrined in what we know as jim crow segregation with separate and unequal opportunities and facilities for whites and blacks another inflection point was the civil rights movement of the 1960s where a lot of people came together to like end jim crow and try to expand voting rights and civil rights employment rights for black americans and now i think we're in another of those inflection points where people are discussing how police interact with blacks and more generally how racism is still a part of our society and how we can combat that the other big impact of the civil war we see around today is in terms of the size of the federal government before the civil war the federal government was very small people mainly interacted with their state and local governments really the only interaction they would have with the federal government was with the post office but in order to fight a war the union needed to expand the army expand the bureaucracy build roads build railroads they established the first income tax to help pay for the war and that led to a more general expansion of federal government during the war they created the department of agriculture after the department of justice the first department of education and over time over the next century and a half we saw a drastic expansion continued of the federal government uh so we have this continued debate going on about what should be uh what what should fall within the purview of the federal government versus the state and local governments that largely comes out of the civil war and just for those viewers who are watching could you explain what exactly is considered jim crow yes uh by during reconstruction a lot of new uh new facilities uh most notably schools were created for black americans in the south and these usually the not always were separate from the white schools and and uh over time in the 19th century increasingly facilities started to be separate there would be separate schools for blacks and whites separate rail cards for railroad cars for blacks and whites um and separate hotels uh restaurants for blacks and whites uh and in the 1890s this situation came came to a legal head where in 1896 there was a famous case plessy v ferguson where it was brought before the supreme court is it legal under the u.s constitution to have these separate facilities that particular case as you certainly know was about railroad cars there was another case uh coming the board of education three years later about education that was related and in both cases the supreme court decided that it is okay to have these separate facilities as long as they are equal in practice they were not equal the white facilities were generally much better and in case of schools much better funded than those for blacks but this uh this principle of separate but equal facilities came to be known as jim crow jim crow was a character in stories and books uh that they that had a similar situation so that character came to be the symbol the name for the situation up until the mid-20th century and of course um there is the case of brown b board of education which changed um all those other prior rulings yes yeah in 1954 that brown v board of education the supreme court declared that separate facilities were inherently unequal simply by having these facilities even if they had been provided with equal funding which they weren't the idea of putting blacks in schools specifically for them created a culture of inferiority so that was not not acceptable under the constitution's equal protection clause now let's talk about funding how are these schools funded these historically black schools and colleges funded it was primarily black americans themselves former slaves who took made the effort to establish these schools to some extent during the civil war itself and much more rapidly after it they did secure funding from a number of sources one was simply their own paychecks they they weren't making much money but they did pull together their money in order to fund especially elementary schools sometimes high schools and sometimes colleges they managed to secure uh donations from northern white philanthropists as well um julius rosenwald was the famous one um anna jeans was another - who were committed to to expanding black education in the south going beyond simple legal freedom and especially in urban areas they managed to get support from from city governments so a number of cities in the south had true public school systems for black americans and that gradually expanded to rural areas as well ultimately the public funding ended up being unequal as was everything else for blacks and for whites but they did establish this precedent that continued through the 19th century of public funding for both black and white schools so uh when the 13th amendment took effect in 1865 what types of employment did former slaves embark upon was the education was the was there an educational setup that was available for them at that time or did they just become laborers in another right uh the vast majority of blacks in the south before the civil war had been plantation laborers or farm laborers they were doing agricultural work on land owned by whites and that remained the case after the war at this point they would legally sign contracts with their former owners or with other white landowners but not much change in terms of the type of work they were doing and increasingly especially after reconstruction ended the southern states passed laws that limited their ability even to travel to to seek new employment and to seek better better contractual better contractual agreements so that they'd get better pay or more freedom they so very little change there was some educational opportunity in that especially during reconstruction some colleges as i said started to open up to blacks the university of south carolina even admitted blacks for several years in the 1870s the university of arkansas did very briefly too and there were other school other schools specifically set up for black americans such as straight university in louisiana howard university in dc which was initially meant to be uh biracial but ended up being a largely black institution and these provided a few opportunities for blacks to get a real professional education in law and medicine in a number of areas but unfortunately the vast majority of even higher educational opportunities for blacks were focused on manual education on industrial education meaning training either for agriculture or for very low level manual trades and we all know senator kamala harris went to howard university and she is now vice presidential nominee that's right now one of the things i've always wondered about is the declaration states that all men are created equal how did they square that how did the founders and some of the presidents you've studied how did they square that that all men are created equal and then you know then they were slavery uh it uh it was a challenge for them and they they resolved it in a couple ways i think for the earlier period around the founders it's useful to look at thomas jefferson who wrote the declaration of dependence he wrote that line all men are created equal and he also was a major slave owner when he wrote the declaration he actually included a couple clauses that condemned slavery explicitly he said slavery is a horrible thing that the king of england has forced upon the colonies i took these people out of africa people who had done no harm to him and sent them to america a land they didn't know to be forced laborers but as jefferson surely knew what happened the committee in charge of the declaration removed those closets because the u.s economy as it was starting really depended on slavery that was true of the south where plantation farm owners depended largely on black labor to produce tobacco and later cotton and in the north where industries were involved in producing products from those cotton or uh trading on the seas the products from the cotton the cotton itself the tobacco and other crops so so many white people in the u.s depended on slavery that there was really even people like jefferson and john adams who opposed it or thought it was in some way wrong or inconsistent they recognized that they were not going to convince their colleagues to end it so that developed this idea of slavery as a necessary evil that it doesn't really fit with the u.s system jefferson referred to it famously as a fire bill in the night but it was something that they needed to accept that changed over time around the 1830s a new intellectual and legal position came into being john c calhoun was one of the famous leaders of it at one time vice president of the u.s that slavery wasn't a necessary necessary evil it was a positive good the principle being slavery was actually good for everyone it was good for white people and it was even good for black people they argued that the black people were at a different stage of human development that if they were given freedom that would actually be bad for them they weren't ready for it what they needed to be taught now was hard work and humility though the elements of christianity that seemed to fit well to them with slavery so slavery was the best thing for them and some of these people judges lawyers law professors intellectuals explicitly argued that the declaration of independence was wrong that jefferson was wrong all men are not created equal and they are not all entitled by their creator with equal rights such as liberty uh the presidents i studied uh james k polk in the 1840s zachary taylor and millard fillmore in the 40s and 50s they they operated in that era and they accepted this principle that slavery was actually the best and most appropriate thing at that point in history for black americans that's quite interesting how our history has evolved over time and how some of the prior presidents had embraced it um it's it's a negative part of our history and i think we need to acknowledge it but moving on to another inflection point is the statues this is a current issue please tell us who erected these statues and why well confederate statues really went up in two waves there there are two types of them the first was statues to the common soldier recognizing their sacrifice these have these were put up in both the north and the south as they generally depicted generic soldiers and often were put in cemeteries uh they began going up during the civil war and continued right after it the ones that get most of the attention today and certainly have created a lot more controversy are confederate statues or southern statutes i should say of confederate leaders uh military and political leaders jefferson davis stonewall jackson robert e lee and those went up much later and for a different reason they they were put up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the bulk of them between 1900 and 1920 the goals were somewhat more complicated they didn't just want to remember the civil war or the confederacy they wanted to tell a particular narrative of it these were white southerners who donated money through organizations such as the united daughters of the confederacy um and the narrative they wanted to tell we know today is the lost cause movement that the civil war well i should say when the civil war began the south southern states had ceded because they wanted to protect slavery and expanded into new areas but in the 1880s 1890s 1900s that didn't sound good they didn't want to defend slavery so they argued instead and this became the dominant historical narrative of the time that the south side succeeded for other intellectual views such as such as states rights uh a southern way of life based in agriculture and that they rallied around certain certain great leaders such as these military and political men so part of the way they told this narrative was to put up these statues to show these are the great men that we were focused on we weren't thinking about slavery we were thinking about them and another side purpose of that was that it helped enforce the jim crow system of white supremacy that if you look up at these big statues of great white men you see that they're the ones who lead our society then if you are not one of them if you're in particular a black person then you realize the idea is you realize you're not part of that leadership you shouldn't be involved in politics you should submit to your role in life is that why they made these statues so large they're often appearing larger than life could that could that be the purpose was to intimidate others uh yes and to to impress and to intimidate so yeah some of these are huge uh stone mountain in georgia probably the most famous of the really huge ones uh and uh can you tell us what stone mountain is uh a stone mountain is a an on an actual stone mountain it's um a relief of of southern leaders uh a military leaders um on the side of the mountain uh it's uh and one of the it sort of is a you could say a miniature version of mount rushmore  not quite on that scale but these very large statues or in this case relief yes they they intimidate they impress with the size the grandeur of of leaders of a society that was in fact based on slavery but they do it without talking about slavery you think in a way it was a way to legitimize um these uh civil war icons i guess you'd call them yes and to legitimize and celebrate them by divorcing them from the cause for which they fought now let's switch gears a bit um i know you've also studied the papers of susan b anthony and and katie stanton could you explain a little bit about what they did with regards to whether it was abolition or women's movement well the period before the civil war was a sometimes called the age of reform there were a series of reform efforts to improve americans culturally to improve their government and these fell along a variety of areas there was a temperance movement to convince people to temper their consumption of alcohol a movement to improve the treatment of prisoners and most famously a movement for uh to oppose slavery or in some cases to abolish it,  anti-slavery or abolition movements both elizabeth katie stanton and susan b anthony were involved in the anti-slavery movement in the 1840s and 1850s they a lot of women found that the reform movements were a way for them to have a much more public persona than they could otherwise and women were largely confined to what was known as the domestic sphere they were supposed to stay in the home take care of their families not take jobs out in the public or speak publicly but because these reform movements were connected with the idea of nurturing and helping unfortunate people they were thought of as something that it was more appropriate for women to be involved with and these generally were the first ways in which women - usually white women but also black women would be able to speak publicly both stanton and anthony became part of that and this led some women in the abolition movement to think well if we're if we're trying to expand these rights for the the men and women at the lowest uh rung of our society those who have faced the greatest discrimination blacks then why can't we also use this type of activism to improve the opportunities for white women and they did they started holding meetings local meetings around the country mainly in the north to call for more rights for women and in 1848 elizabeth katie stanton and lucretia mott organized the seneca falls women's rights convention in upstate new york which was one of the earliest uh what they referred to as national women's rights conventions attended by both men and women both blacks and whites frederick douglass the uh the leading black abolitionist was one of the attendees to call for among other rights uh women's getting the vote it took a very long time for that to happen but stanton and anthony remained leaders of that movement well beyond the civil war up into the early 20th century though unfortunately they didn't actually live to see the 19th amendment in 1920. so much work and so much we have to be thankful for that these women work so hard and we're so dedicated to the cause of voting um lastly on this topic what about uh black women getting the right to vote um what happened with that and and the 19th amendment well after the civil war there was really a debate among women who were pushing for uh for the women's vote uh they on one on the one hand they generally supported black rights and they had supported abolition and the civil war caused but now as they see a movement toward giving black men the vote it created a rift some some white women who supported women's suffrage said that yes blacks rights are most important here this is the moment to give black men the vote and we should put women's rights on the back burner others including anthony and stanton said that uh well we need to really push for white women's votes here and sometimes they would use what amounted to racist language uh saying that it's horrible that we're giving black men the lowest of men as they saw them the vote but not giving it even to refined middle-class educated white women now the men the black men got the vote with the 15th amendment in 1870 I believe that's correct and there had been a lot of these white women had wanted that amendment also to give the vote to women but it didn't uh that so these two movements kind of divorced between civil rights for blacks and uh and a movement to put white women's rights first those black women who continue to push for black women suffrage and women suffer generally they remained active in throughout the 19th and into the 20th century but they were largely shunned by the major organizations of white women the which ultimately became the national american women's suffrage association in the early 20th century uh and uh it was unfortunately uh two separate movements of blacks and black and white women pushing for that when women did get the vote with the 19th amendment uh some black women were able to vote but since the since the reconstruction period there had been large amounts of suppression of black men's votes in the south even though they legally had the vote through the 15th amendment new provisions at the state level such as poll taxes grandfather clauses if your grandfather didn't vote you didn't vote and literacy tests was another yes literacy tests and sometimes very difficult literacy tests not just that you needed to prove that you could read basic english but that you were given some very difficult document to read or interpret such as the constitution and these same tactics could be applied to black women just as they were applied to to a black man w.b du bois the famous historian and black civil rights activist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries he supported women's women's voting because he said votes for women's votes for black women and in some cases black women as i said were able to vote but unfortunately they were very often suppressed just like black men's and um one one more topic i wanted to mention before we close is that james knox polk he had a family separation policy with his slaves and that he again was in the white house at the time and from what i understand he had straw purchases even purchased those slaves can you tell us a little bit about that yes a number of slave owners liked to think of themselves as kindly ones who had some uh concern for the well-being of the people they owned uh that applies to james k polk it applies to zachary taylor his successor whom i'm studying now um often these these efforts to be nice to their slaves were really at least in part economically motivated in taylor's case he kept writing to his ovaries here that he wanted the slaves to be treated well to be fed well he said in his will that he wanted to be sure they that they weren't overworked and all of this may have reflected in part a real concern for the slaves but it certainly was at least in part because if you treat them well if you feed them well then they'll live longer and produce more cotton for you and make more profit for you in the case of polk yes he had this policy that he didn't like to separate families unless he needed to and unless he needed to meant unless it was going to be profitable for him so he he didn't do it a lot but he did sometimes either through selling his slaves or buying slaves without their spouses with other children without their parents or sometimes by moving his own slaves around since uh he owned for a little while he owned uh plantations in different areas he would keep some of his slaves near his home in tennessee and most of them at his plantation in mississippi and a few at the white house in dc so he might send one spouse down to mississippi but leave the other in tennessee so they were in fact separated as far as his purchasing new slaves when he was in the white house he wanted to keep that quiet because he felt that there was nothing wrong with it and he wrote this explicitly in letters to uh family and friends that there was nothing wrong with buying slaves he wasn't breaking any laws he didn't think he was doing anything immoral but he recognized that a lot of people did think that that it was wrong to buy men and women to separate families and children so he would have colleagues of his business associates or sometimes family members by the slaves on his behalf in their own name then they would quietly transfer them into polk's name so that the newspapers wouldn't get wind of his having bought these people including a number of times teenagers without the rest of their families that's just terrible yes i i don't know how these people supposedly could be people of god the bible says treat others as you would want others to treat you and then how do they reconcile um treating others differently and even separating them from their own family i just don't understand that i've done some research into the religious arguments for and against slavery and both sides felt that they were on the side of god that they were on the side of the bible and the bible does refer to enslavement and people in favor of slavery they would argue that there is slavery in the bible therefore god has sanctioned slavery those against slavery would argue that yes there is slavery in the old testament but it's not endorsed in the new testament and that's a sign of progression that at one point in the ancient past um god may have recognized that humans had slavery but they were supposed to get out of it they were supposed to improve that now in the christian world slavery was wrong so both sides felt firmly that they were on the side of god and as a result someone like polk he paid money to support the building of a church for his slaves and for people enslaved by his neighbors um the lessons that would be taught in these slaves specifically set up for enslaved black these churches uh set up for enslaved black people were as i said earlier humility and hard work things that would encourage them to be good slaves not the more freedom-based principles uh individual conscience-based principles that might lead them to rebel against the system sounded like uh the people in charge needed to know needed to learn how to be good citizens themselves that's what it sounds like sometimes they showed their their hypocrisy in curious ways uh one of the people i've studied is a man named john little who was a u.s citizen he was from philadelphia and a black man through a very strange series of events he ended up being illegally enslaved in cuba in the 1830s and 1840s and when the u.s government found out about this polk and people under him his secretary of state james buchanan the future president uh and the u.s consul in in cuba a man named john campbell they worked very hard to free this man a black man who had been enslaved as they saw it illegally because he was a citizen he was a free american um yet at the same time these people were were doing nothing to free the african-americans in the u.s because they believe they were legally enslaved they drew this artificial distinction over some who deserve freedom some who deserved slavery it usually fell along racial lines but sometimes it didn't very interesting our history it's very interesting and from my own understanding zachary taylor was the last president to have slaves well in the white house yes that's correct yeah and that was well he owned over 130 slaves at the time of his death he died as president uh most of them were still in his plantations in mississippi and louisiana but some of them did work in the white house itself and that was how many years before the civil war um that was 11 years before well i want to thank you for your enlightening information where we have come as a nation and where we are right now and i do hope and i do hope um there will be some resolution with the race issues in our nation with regards to where we are now where we need to be and the statues coming down thank you so much thank you it's been great being here same here i want to thank our guest dr michael david cohen for sharing his research and opinions on the history of race slavery and equality in the united states and i want to thank you our viewers for tuning in for more information on today's topic and our guest visit us online at thelegaledition.com and remember this information is for general educational purposes it is not legal or professional advice and don't forget subscribe online find us on facebook youtube instagram and twitter