Assignment #9

Assignment Due 11/26: Choose a passage from Lincoln's speech on the Dred Scott case, interpret it and explain how it relates to class.

From the African-American Odyssey website, from the Civil War section, choose two parts, and summarize and explain them. If they include pictures, copy and paste the photo or image in your paper. 



"It is grossly incorrect to say or assume, that the public estimate of the negro is more favorable now than it was at the origin of the government."

The Dred Scott case was a decision by the US supreme court stating that African Americans free or not were unable to become American citizens. They basically did not have a word in suing the court. The above statement was part of Lincolns speech on the case. Stating that did not matter before the estimate of African Americans, is not going to matter now. Yes, they became free , but still weren't considered equal.

Freedom's Eve--Watch Night Meeting

Heard and Moseley. Waiting for the hour [Emancipation], December 31, 1862. Carte de visite. Washington, 1863. Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-6160 (4-21a)

On New Year's Eve many African American churches hold prayer and worship services from the late evening until midnight when they welcome the new year with praise, thanksgiving, prayer, and confession. These services are called watch night meetings. December 31, 1862, was a very special evening for the African American community, because it was the night before the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, freeing all the slaves in the Confederate states.

Watch night meetings were special events for the African Americans. It was a night before the Emancipation took effect which finally allowed slaves to be free. New Years is the beginning of a new year and many different things to come. For these people it was the best thing that could have happened on this night. After being abused and used they finally were going to be able to feel free and feel like a working dog.

"Contrabands" at the Nation's Capitol

Contrabands, Camp Brightwood. Washington, D.C., ca. 1863. Carte de visite. Gladstone Collection, Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-6158 (4-9)

Black slaves who fled to Union lines, or "contrabands," often proved themselves extremely useful, even before the government enlisted them into service. A group of "contrabands" appear on this calling card. Calling cards, or cartes de visite, with photographs were popular during this era partly because photography was relatively new and the cards provided a means of sharing likenesses with friends and relatives. This one includes images of white officers of the 2nd Rhode Island Camp at Camp Brightwood in the District of Columbia. On the left is Capt. B. S. Brown. In the center is Lt. John P. Shaw, killed in action at the Wilderness, Virginia, May 5, 1864, and on the right is Lt. T. Fry. The "contrabands" with them are not named.

Fleeing slaves who fled into contraband's and were later killed.

Assignment #8

Assignment Due (11/19): Choose a passage from Stanton or Anthony and one from Douglass. Write out the passage and explain what the author is saying and how it relates to the themes of the lecture, and then explain why you chose this quote.

Elizabeth Stanton
"He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.He has withheld from her rights, which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men -- both natives and foreigners.Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they are done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master -- the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement."


Stanton is explaining the beginning of the suffrage movement and the right to vote.She explains how women's weren't represented and they had no say or voice. She also states that even men immigrants have more rights then the women who are citizens here.When a woman has a voice, then laws are  created differently. If married you lose all the rights and your husband has a say for himself and on your behalf. Basically leaving you lifeless. Everything belongs to him that was once your in your head.To sum up he has been given the right to deprive her of her liberty. This relates to our lecture theme civil disobedience because is all about obeying the laws and following the rules. As a women these were the laws that were established. I chose this quote because you can clearly see how much inequality was occurring within gender.

Fredrick Douglas

“It was a long, lean, gaunt, shivelled looking creature, stretched out on two chairs, and his legs resting on the prostrate bust of Washington; projecting from behind was a cat o’ nine tails knotted at the ends; around his person he wore a belt in which were stuck those truly American implements, a bowie knife, dirk, and revolving pistol; behind him was a whipping post, with a naked woman tied to it, and a strong- armed American citizen in the act of scourging her livid flesh with a cowskin. At his feet was another group;—a sale going on, of human cattle, and around the auctioneer’s table were gathered therespectability,…”

Douglas is explaining the cruelty and the ignorance that was happening with slavery. How they weren't even considered humans they could be compared to animals.

Slavery and women s rights is a topic that has been fought for over years. Civil disobedience is more of fighting for those rights.

Assignment #7

Assignment (Due 11/12): Choose one passage from Thoreau write out the passage and interpret them and explain why you chose them.

Go to the link for African-American Odyssey and under the section Abolition choose two topics from part 1 and part 2, research these topics, and summarize them and explain how they relate to the readings by Thoreau.

"I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe- "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure"

Thoreau thinks a perfect government should leave the people alone to govern themselves individually. This isn't really something that can happen unless all individuals are willing to obey certain rules of social order without being forced.I chose this passage because i think in some ways people governing themselves would end in a disaster. The lack of agreement among st people would be the number one fail.

PART 1 Fear Of Slave Revolts In addition to numerous published accounts documenting white fear of slave uprisings, many private letters discuss problems brewing on individual plantations. In this letter, John Rutherford, an agent for Virginia plantation owner William B. Randolph, wrote to Randolph indicating that a concerned neighbor near Randolph's Chatworth plantation feared "fatal consequences" if the overseer did not cease his "brutality" toward the Chatworth slaves. After the Chatworth overseer received a demanding letter of inquiry from Randolph, he answered on September 14, 1833, stating that he had whipped some of the slaves because they were idle or had escaped. Although three escapees had not returned, the situation was under control and work was proceeding as usual. John Rutherford to William B. Randolph on the slave mutiny at Chatworth, Richmond, Virginia. September 1, 1833. Manuscript Division. (1-9)

PART 2 Humans For Sale To be sold. . .a cargo of 170 prime young likely healthy Guinea slaves. Savannah, July 25, 1774. Copyprint of a broadside. Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-16876 (1-2) Captured Africans were sold at auction as "chattel," like inanimate property or animals. Many literate ex-slaves discussed the degradation and humiliation they felt when they were treated like "cattle." This 1774 broadside, typical of the advertisements used in the North as well as the South before the Civil War, advertises the sale of slaves and land, the availability of employment for an overseer, a recall of debts, and a reward for anyone who captured two runaway slaves. The captors claim that the Angolan Africans, scheduled to be sold at auction in Savannah, Georgia, were "prime, young, likely healthy." The runaway advertisement on this same broadside gives specific information about two African-born male runaways which includes height, complexion, build, and clothing.

First, i would like to start by saying its incredible the type of things i just read about above. The sale of humans, or the maltreatment of the slaves. I now see the positives and negatives of being a self government. In a slave point of view he should definitely rebel and find a way of changing the world. What kind of humanity sells one another. Abuses and mistreat one another. I wouldn't want to only self govern i would want to rebel the world and try and get pay back. Slave owners don't know the pain they are causing these humans until they experience it themselves.