Racism, Revolution, Reaction 1861-1877 NNEW E W OORLEANS
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Racism, Revolution, Reaction 1861-1877 NNEW E W OORLEANS. RLEANS, 1874 WWh1tc hite LeagueLec1gue forces attack the RadicalRad1cal state government Racism, Revolution, Reaction 1861-1877 THE RISE AND FALL OF RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION Peter Came jo PATHFINDER NEW YORK LONDON MONTREAL SYDNEY Copyright © 1976 by Pathfinder Press All rights reserved ISBN 0-87348-821-0 paper; ISBN 0-913460-49-4 cloth Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 76-24184 Manufactured in the United States of America First edition, 1976 Sixth printing, 2001 Pathfinder 410 West Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A. Fax: (212) 727-0150 E-mail: [email protected] PATHFINDER DISTRIBUTORS AROUND THE WORLD: Australia (and Asia and the Pacific): Pathfinder, 176 Redfern St., 1st floor, Redfern, NSW 2016 Postal address: P.O. Box K879, Haymarket, NSW 1240 Canada: Pathfinder, 2761 Dundas St. West, Toronto, ON, M6P 1Y4 Iceland: Pathfinder, Klapparstig 26, 2d floor, 101 Reykjavik Postal address: P. Box 0233, IS 121 Reykjavik New Zealand: Pathfinder, P.O. Box 3025, Auckland Sweden: Pathfinder, Domargrand 16, S-129 47, Hagersten United Kingdom (and Europe, Africa except South Africa, and Middle East): Pathfinder, 47 The Cut, London, SE1 8LL United States (and Caribbean, Latin America, and South Africa): Pathfinder, 410 West Street, New York, NY 10014 CONTENTS Introduction 7 1 Between two revolutions 13 2 Wage workers and the Civil War 34 3 Class alignments in the South after A ppom attox 55 4 The rise o f Radical Reconstruction 7 1 5 Class struggle under the Radical regimes 95 6 The industrial capitalists consolidate their victory I 18 1 C ounterrevolution— the Mississippi model 157 8 The final defeat 179 9 The Republican Party’s betrayal 192 10 Industrial capitalism and Conservative rule 214 I I Racism and historical mythology 236 12 Therm idor 260 Notes 283 Bibliography 291 Index 299 INTRODUCTION This 200th year since the Declaration of Independence also marks the 111th year since slavery was abolished. Yet nonwhites continue to suffer flagrant discrimination throughout America. Although the fact is admitted by almost everyone, there are few consistent expla nations of why this injustice persists and seems to many unsolv- able. During the 1950s and 60s the civil rights movement raised the hope that, with the elimination of all laws specifically discriminat ing against Blacks, a gradual process would set in leading to full equality. Gains were made at various levels through the mass struggle itself. But now, a decade after the crest of the civil rights movement, it is clear that, despite the elimination of anti-Black laws and even passage of laws specifically protecting the rights of Blacks, oppres sion and discrimination remain with no end in sight. Recently the disparity in income between Blacks and whites has begun to widen. Black income is now about 56 percent that of whites— that means Blacks live at about half the standard of living of whites. Segregation in housing, jobs, and education is prevalent. Unemployment among Afro-Americans continues at twice the rate for whites, and in some areas the disparity is even greater. The evils and injustices are indisputable. Yet accredited social scientists seem incapable of explaining the secret of their persis tence. This problem, usually called racism, seems to have such a grip on U.S. society that it is able to prevent the discovery of its cause. The usual explanation given is highly simplistic: namely, the prejudice of whites, especially working-class whites, which liberal politicians, commentators, and sociologists are constantly bemoan 7 8 RACISM, REVOLUTION, REACTION ing. We are told that, for some unaccountable and perverse reason, people with white skins seem determined to dislike those with darker skins. Why this is so and why it is so persistent is shrouded in mys tery. Not knowing the source of the problem, the liberals find them selves unable to offer an adequate solution. If an individual, brick in hand, waited in front of a school to kill or maim a child because of the child’s color, such a person would be considered deranged, arrested, and sent to a mental institution. But when a few hundred stand together with bricks and bats yelling “kill niggers,” that is considered a political protest. What this proves is that this psychotic disorder is generalized and has its source, not in an individual aberration, but in the social structure. What are we to conclude when mayors, governors, and even the president of the United States, as well as the editors of many major dailies, express sympathy with the goals of these psychotic people? O f course, these notables, like Pontius Pilate washing his hands of the affair, dissociate themselves from the “methods” used. Clearly the matter goes far beyond considerations of individual psychol ogy and political hypocrisy. The mentally disturbed few who are impelled into the streets consciously seeking to harm Blacks, and the condoning officials, are but by-products of the larger and more powerful socioeconomic forces that give rise to racism, forces that derive enormous material benefits from the perpetuation of rac ism. Racism to one degree or another exists in all advanced capitalist nations, including Japan. But the extreme forms of racism found in the United States have been matched only in Nazi Germany and South Africa. As recently as the 1930s the phenomenon of public lynchings still existed here. Thousands of people would gather to watch another human burned alive or tortured to death. Elected representatives and law enforcement officials would often partici pate in these Roman holiday events. Sometimes Democratic Party officials would address these gatherings— not to halt, admonish, or recommend psychiatric help— but to encourage the lynchers. When the schedule of a lynching was known far enough in advance, news Introduction 9 papers and radio stations often would announce the time and place. There were even instances when the railroads ran special excursion trains to the scene. The federal government, whether under a Re publican or such a liberal Democrat as Franklin D. Roosevelt, would always refuse to interfere. Although the political climate today, thanks primarily to the mass civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, has caused this par ticular form of murder of nonwhites to lapse, we must ask our selves how such racist atrocities, as well as the current forms of rac ism, can be explained. Marxists and most serious non-Marxist historians recognize that racism had its origin in the establishment of chattel slavery in the early stages of the development of capitalism. While slavery had generally disappeared in Europe during feudalism, it took a new lease on life in the West as commercial capitalism grew. Slavery was introduced into the New World colonies to solve the problem of an acute labor shortage. Racism, the theory that those with white skins are superior to those with black skins, was gradually elaborated to justify this chattel slavery. First came slavery, then racism. Racism also played its part in justifying the clearing of the land of the na tive populations through wars of genocide. This historical fact poses the question: Why has racism and ra cial oppression survived the abolition of the original cause, chattel slavery. What is responsible for its perpetuation? This question is particularly crucial for the study of American history because chat tel slavery was ended in such a cataclysmic manner. The existence of slavery in the southern part of the United States created a social formation which found itself in conflict with the development of industrial capitalism. The struggle for supremacy between the two finally led to a military showdown and a titanic civil war, the most momentous event of the nineteenth century. In that conflict the deaths on both sides totaled 623,000. This is a figure only slightly less than all the deaths sustained by the United States in World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, combined. If the wounded are added, the casualties reached 10 RACISM, REVOLUTION, REACTION 1,094,453. For the Union, which had 22 of the 31 million popula tion at that time, this meant one out of every ten adult males was a casualty, and for the Confederate states (including the Black popu lation) it meant one out of four. A conflict of such magnitude had a profound effect on the entire population. Existing attitudes of whites toward Afro-Americans were especially shaken by the fact that the decisive turning point in the conflict was the freeing and arming of Blacks. This great revo lutionary war destroyed chattel slavery forever in the United States. That development in turn confronted American society with a most formidable problem: What would now happen with the Afro- American people and other nonwhites? Would they be considered equal to whites and assimilated as those from Europe— Irish, Ger mans, Scandinavians and Italians— had been and would be? For a short period significant steps were taken in this direction. Then the course of the nation was sharply reversed. The interconnection of events in the phases constituting this sec ond American revolution and its aftermath are not as confusing and impenetrable as most historians like to make out. Why racism survived slavery can be concretely and scientifically explained. The reason our present society has so difficult a time with this problem is that an honest accounting points the finger of guilt directly at the present capitalist system and its ruling class. The same social sys tem that gave rise to chattel slavery found it necessary to abolish it, but it also found the by-products of slavery— racial oppression and the ideology of racism— extremely valuable for further use.