“First Reconstruction: The Origins of African American Politics, 1790-1860”

This talk, based on a forthcoming book, proposes a basic revision of the narrative of antebellum black politics by focusing on partisan electoral politics (and thus power) rather than the “slave politics” of familial resistance or the “movement politics” of biracial abolitionism. As early as the 1790s, African Americans had a visible presence in ordinary party politics in Northern states. Long before the rise of radical abolitionism, they were repeatedly credited as a swing voter bloc in Massachusetts and New York, and Upper New England Federalists and Republicans vociferously defended their suffrage during the last stage of the Missouri Crisis. Despite creeping disfranchisement in the 1840s and 50s, men of color factored into the calculations of party leaders where they retained the franchise: New England (other than Connecticut), New York, and Ohio. Appeals to black voters multiplied in this context, as their support demonstrated a candidate’s antislavery credentials. A biracial politics flourished on the eve of the Civil War, with black men elected or appointed to local office, serving on party committees, and appearing alongside governors and senators on public stages. This history underlines what Lincoln pointed out in 1857–that Justice Taney’s famous dictum about African Americans having “no rights which the white man was bound to respect” was at odds with accepted practice in much of the North. Further, black men’s aggressive participation in mainstream politics long before the Civil War suggests that a peaceful First Reconstruction prefigured the violent, revolutionary transformation of the postwar South. This talk is part of the GLC Brown Bag Lunch Series. Bring your lunch and we’ll provide the drinks & dessert.