American Experience; The Abolitionists; Interview with Manisha Sinha, part 4 of 4

We are rolling. When does Garrison recognize that this has become a bigger than technique? The 1850s are a crisis decade for the United States. This is the moment, I think, or this is the decade, that it is quite feasible to argue that civil war was inevitable. Beginning with the fugitive slave law, the Kansas Wars, then with John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, the ways in which the abolition movement moves towards these increasingly militant stances, because the decade is so pro-slavery in terms of acts and decisions, fugitive slave law, Dred Scott decision, the Kansas Nebraska Act, and abolitionists are forced to be far more militant. Douglass is calling for arms of defense. Garrison is more militant.

It is in reaction to the fugitive slave law that he burns a copy of the law and then the US Constitution. That's his militancy. The abolitionists still represent that sort of pure pure and absolute resistance to slavery. And I think the 1850s in being the sort of crisis decade where these pro-slavery acts are being passed, gives the abolitionist movement also a move more towards war like and more violent solutions to the problem of slavery. And Garrison sees it coming, but he remains, I think, true to his principles by protesting or revealing his militancy in different ways. For John Brown, it was attacking Harper's Ferry. For Garrison, it's burning a copy of the US Constitution.

But it is true that the sexual crisis has reached a point where Garrison realises, and I think most abolitionists realise that this is going to be a point of no return. The question for abolitionists becomes, would it move towards then abolition that long cherished role? Would a conflict between the North and the South move towards abolition? And I think most abolitionists realise that if not abolition, then at least some anti-slavery measures are on the horizon. At least the non-extensionist position might be passed. And that is not to be scoffed at, given the immense power that Southern slaveholders had wielded over the nation's political life through much of the period before the Civil War. So it's not as if the abolitionists have become

irrelevant. It's just that they still represent a standard of anti-slavery that is outside the mainstream. But increasingly, they are getting more sympathisers and more people willing to listen to what they have to say about slavery. In that sense, the moral sewation campaign launched by Garrison had been successful in the North. It had shaken the national political consensus on slavery. And Garrison could look back, not just had been left out by what had become even larger than what he had started. But I would imagine with a certain measure of satisfaction that when he had first risen to speak about this, no one except African-Americans wanted to hear him. And now the entire country is debating this question. How did you react to the average to the news for Sumter?

Garrison and other abolitionists saw the news of Ford Sumter as perhaps the start of the Revolutionary Change that they had been hoping for. I don't think anyone could have visualized the amount of bloodshed of the war. They could not have visualized the issuing of emancipation proclamation, perhaps in their lifetimes. Many abolitionists were known to have said that we may die, and this may not come about, but we will continue fighting for it. But I think with Ford Sumter, Garrison realizes, perhaps, that this is the start of a new era. And even more than Garrison, it is Douglas, I think, who realizes that. Because Douglas had been a political abolitionist, and because he had been in touch with many free-soil politicians, with Republican politicians, his new mentor, Garrotsmith, I think it is really Douglas who realizes

the full import of the war. Douglas argues that a war should mean abolition, and he agitates for it, and he argues for it right from the moment go. For Garrison, it's a moment to step back and say, do I want to completely endorse violence in order to get what I've always fought for abolition? It's Douglas, who had never any doubts about fighting fire with fire, of using, perhaps, or even hoping to use the federal government to act against slavery, who said, cease Ford Sumter as the first tap towards abolition. In one of your pre-interviews, I wonder if you repeated it. You said something that the effect that it would be impossible to imagine

the civil war happened when it did, the way it did with that, the abolitionist. I don't think a civil war would have occurred without the abolition movement. By that, I don't mean to hold the abolitionist responsible for starting a war. Certainly not abolitionists who had for the most part argued their case using non-violence and pacific methods using moral soation. I don't mean to blame them for starting a war, but if abolitionists hadn't raised the issue of slavery, hadn't agitated over the issue of slavery, it's very difficult to imagine the sexual polarization that takes place over slavery. It's very difficult to imagine the fugitive slave issue achieving that kind of resonance that it did in the 1850s without the abolition movement. I hate talking about counterfactual history

and most historians don't like talking about counterfactual history because that simply did not happen. But I do not think a war would have happened or events would have unfolded in precisely that manner without the abolition movement. Even a genuinely anti-slavery man, not an abolitionist, but a man who morally opposed slavery like Lincoln could visualize an end to slavery a hundred years later in the 20th century. Abolitionists were not ready for that. African Americans were not ready for that and not ready to wait that long. So I do think that the war and emancipation would not have happened without the abolition movement. At the same time, I would argue that we can blame the abolitionist for emancipation but not the war. They had tried their best to overt it. I'm going to put you as hard as I am

to just to... Because I'm actually thinking of some, you know, in just the pithiest statement you can make in this respect because it's not a matter, you know, we don't need to go into counterfactual history but to simply say that it's impossible to imagine a war happening that is... I don't think... The strongest statement that you're comfortable making the strongest pithiest statement... I don't think the civil war would have occurred or the events preceding the war would have occurred in the way they did without the abolition movement. At the same time, I don't blame the abolitionist for starting the war. Now, how did... So, Garrison and to a greater extent,

Douglass felt that change was coming with the beginning of the war. Our next snapshot is in August 62 for the preliminary proclamation. How did they feel about the war by this point and about Lincoln? Both Douglass and Garrison had become rather impatient with Lincoln and what they saw as his foot dragging over the issue of emancipation. They were ready for Lincoln to announce that this was a war for abolition right from the moment go and Lincoln did not do that. In fact, in his public statement just before issuing the preliminary proclamation in August 1862, Lincoln had gone so far as to say that his main goal was to end the war and if he could do that and save the union and if he could do that with freeing the slaves, with freeing some of them, with freeing none of them,

he would go ahead and do that. Privately, of course, he had already decided by early summer 1862 to issue the emancipation proclamation. I think the preliminary proclamation and then finally the issuing the emancipation proclamation greatly raised Lincoln's stature in abolitionist size. It sort of redeemed him in their eyes and especially for Douglass and Garrison. This was what they had been waiting for. This is what they had wanted Lincoln to do and they finally, I think, understood that Lincoln, though not an abolitionist, had come over to their ground and they recognized that and they praised him for doing that. And after that, I think, except for the criticism of Lincoln's colonization views, they remain pretty strong supporters and defenders of Lincoln, both of them. How did...

was Garrison conflicted when his own son wanted to a list and can be mass-produced? Perhaps more so than Douglass. Okay, all right. Garrison probably viewed his oldest son's enlistment in the 55th Massachusetts, George Thompson Garrison, with more trepidation than Douglass. When Douglass's son's enlisted, Douglass was a defender of black enlistment into the Union Army. He was a stun supporter of getting rid of slavery at that point, but through violent means for Douglass slaveholders had always been a hated personal enemy. This was a chance for him, even his family, to participate.

Besides the usual misgivings probably that a father felt seeing their sons go off to battle, seeing Douglass probably had fewer reservations about taking up arms against slavery. For Garrison to eventually support his son's enlistment, meant again to personally confront his commitment to peace principles, and also realize that he would be willing not just to sacrifice his son, but also the idea that his own son would take up arms against slavery, and he should not just condone it, but support it full-heartedly. And I think all these events that happen move Garrison farther and farther away from non-resistance, and that abstract devotion to peace principles and pacifism that he had held through much of the anti-bellum years.

Do you need to approach pushments? If it's fine, how so? I'm just going to go back there. Okay. Would you describe the scene in Charleston as Garrison's touring, and I'm thinking that's not the church yet, but touring through the ruined city, that it must have been where it would have become in New York to picture the bomb that city and stuff, but you hadn't seen anything like this in the New York City. It was immensely, I think, gratifying for Garrison to go to Charleston and see the ruins of slavery. And it is also interesting the places that he chose to visit during that visit to Charleston. He goes to a newspaper

and sets the type as a printer, as he had done at the start of his career as an abolitionist. He sets the type for Henry Ward Beecher's speech for the Charleston career. And the printers are amazed looking at him, this old man doing this, and they said he did it so definitely and adeptly, exactly as a printer would. His roots as a mechanic, as a printer. You know, Garrison has always viewed as this sort of, in terms of middle-class respectability, the way he presented himself, but he was really still the printer, the abolitionist printer, who went and set the type. And then he went to Calhoun's grave, the man who had defended slavery so ardently, throughout his life, the South Carolinian politician, who could be called the father of secession for coming up with extreme versions of state strides that justified both nullification of federal law

and secession. And he looked at Calhoun's grave, and he said in my paraphrase, I'm here, that slavery had gone down to a deeper grave than Calhoun. It must have been immensely gratifying for Garrison to see that happen in his lifetime, and to watch the celebrations. It must have, because throughout so much of the war, even after the Emancipation Proclamation, they didn't know that if the South could be defeated so unconditionally, that there were all these provisions for armistices, and you know, what states had the right to be instated, and Calhoun, even at the last minute, it must have been such a relief that it was such a complete victory in the end. Yes, and the moment that Garrison goes to Charleston for the raising of the flag in Port Sumter

for the raising of the United States flag for the first time, this is before Lee has surrendered. And so it is clear that the Union is going to win. The Union side is going to win. But for Garrison, the idea that abolition would be the result of the war, I think most people at that point realized that this was the point of no return, that the Union victory at arms meant a victory for abolition, that the cause of the Union had been irrevocably tied with the cause of the American slave, and that the cause of American democracy was tied with the cause of abolition, and the freedom of African Americans. It was something that Garrison and Douglas had been arguing right from the start, and now they actually got to watch it, come to fruition. They knew there would be many more battles ahead,

but just that moment was important. I do think, however, that for Garrison, more than his witnessing of the raising of the flag, more poignant and more moving for him, was his visit to the Zion Church, to this Black Church, where a slave preacher hailed him and his work. I think for Garrison, that was much better sort of gratification for what he had done, than to simply see the raising of the flag on Fort Sumter. It's amazing. It's like one of those dramatic scenes of the Civil War when a former slave in the Union Army, uniform would meet his former master, and things like that happen.

It was one of those dramatic moments that really brought out the meaning of the war, and in abolitionist terms, a here is a slave preacher with his two daughters, walking up to Garrison and telling him that but for his labors, but for this moment, he would not have been reunited with the two daughters who sold away from him, that that is what slavery meant, and that is what abolition meant, that he had his two daughters here with him. And Garrison teared up, and he was not a man known to tear up, and it was that moment that he teared up, and he probably saw in a way the result of his life's work that he would not on many other occasions. So what is Garrison's legacy? Garrison has a very important legacy for this country.

Garrison was seen as somewhat, was impractical, who did not go the political way, but arbitrarily stuck to his agitational role, but in a way Garrison was right, no political victory, no matter how immense would be lasting without changing the hearts and minds of people, and you saw that with the fall of reconstruction. It would literally be another hundred years the civil rights movement before the abolitionist legacy was completely fulfilled, before black people were acknowledged as equal citizens of this republic. So Garrison was right, that you really had to change the way people thought about slavery,

about race, in order to have a complete victory over that institution. On the other hand, I think Douglas was right too. He knew that without going the political way, abolition would remain a distant visionary dream of a few, and African Americans did not have the time or luxury to wait until every white American had got rid of racism from their hearts. Douglas knew it was important to use the powers of the federal government, to use whatever weapons that were available to end slavery, and in fact that is exactly how slavery ended, the way Douglas and the political abolitionists had visualized it, using the powers of the federal government through federal enactment, through laws, through political parties, winning elections, all those things did come to pass. So in a way both of them were right,

and I think that is the legacy of the movement as a whole, that both ways had truth on their side, and in a way you needed to do both in order to completely get rid of our slavery and racial injustice in this country. You mentioned the civil rights movement. It's interesting, of course, how many parallels there are between abolition and civil rights movement, but also between them and God needs open, and you know, were they pioneering, you know, I guess that kind of democracy was relatively new when they were working, and were they just improvising their way through what had meant to be a dissentering in democracy? The... What was their legacy in terms of... You know, we talked about how repressive... I have to say it was different in the 1830s, and did they leave the legacy in terms of

how change comes in a democratic side? The abolitionist movement certainly pioneered the idea of a social movement, of a radical social movement, having such immense political significance. It was a kind of a movement that could take place in a society that believed in some democratic precepts that empowered its citizenry to think and to form public opinion and to agitate. And in this respect, the abolition movement has an important legacy for the United States and for the world at large. The abolitionists really pioneered the radical social movement in democratic countries. In the United States itself,

the populist movement, the civil rights movement, would evoke their legacy, their... even use their... call themselves the neo-abolitionists, call their movement as resulting in a second reconstruction of American democracy. They would explicitly evoke the abolitionist movement. So within the United States itself, I think a powerful model was formed of the concerned citizen beginning a radical movement. In other ways too, I think the abolition movement is important because they are old-fashioned moralizers but they also modern agitators. They use terms that we commonly use today. They sort of invented that, the concept of human rights. It's not just the natural rights that the Revolutionary Generation talked about. Increasingly you find in abolitionist rhetoric, not just the idea of slavery as a sin,

as a moral sin, old-fashioned rhetoric, but modern ideas of slavery as a crime, as a crime against humanity, modern notions of human rights, of universal human rights. In that sense I think the abolitionists are really important for the world as a whole. You think of somebody like Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. They're old-fashioned moralizers and modern agitators of human rights. And I think that's... That happy mixture that the abolitionist movement represented in a way it is a link to our past. And it is a past that I think is there not just for the United States but for the world as a whole. It was pretty internationalist even when it was born. It was very mindful of the Haitian Revolution, the British Movement and slavery.

Abolitionists in America knew that they were part of a broader movement as Garrison had using Thomas Payne said so well in the motto of his newspaper. Our country is the world. Our countrymen are all mankind. In that sense I think abolitionism has very important lessons for our day in terms of practical organizing, radical movements, and also in terms of being visionaries, of being able to imagine a better world and then agitating for it to an extent that actually makes change happen. Very nice. The last thing I want to do because in the course of the program, of course we're looking at these different characters that make it the roles. And it seems that those roles also come up again and again. That this, you know, Garrison is really the idealist. And this is what the pragmatist and still is propagandist

around as a terrorist. Or however you want to put that. And Grimke is kind of like his rebel. But you get all of these civil rights who have had schisms over the same kinds of issues. And the woman is what they did. And so I wonder if you would speak to that of the roles that these different people play that there are functions in bringing change in the democratic side. The abolition movement serves as that prototypical radical movement with those age-old questions and issues being debated within it. Just as the way that the abolition movement gave birth to the women's rights movement, the civil rights movement gave birth to the second wave feminism. There are so many parallels between the civil rights movement and the abolition movement mainly because their goals were somewhat similar.

Of course, the people who led the civil rights movement like Martin Luther King Jr. could point to the Constitution and say it really is in our favor because of the results of the abolition movement, because of the results of the civil war and reconstruction. But the abolition movement does, I think, pose those questions about radical social movements that, I think, be devil nearly all radical movements within American history. Questions over working within the system or outside the system, the use of violence. When is it justified? Is it justified at all? Are concerned over other issues, whether it was plight of Native Americans, women's rights, the rights of working people. How far should those be addressed within a radical movement

or should one remain focused on simply one goal? These were debates that abolitionists had with each other constantly and many of the schisms, the divisions, the tactics, ideology, you could change the terms, but the terrain would be the same in other radical movements. So I think today, especially young people who might want to be involved in a movement for change, would be well advised to maybe read about the abolition movement and they will see a resonance of many of the issues they are concerned with that arose originally for the abolition movement. I'm not surprised that when Barack Obama won his first victory in the Iowa caucuses during the primaries of the last presidential election,

he woke the abolitionists and he says this cause was as improbable as theirs and like them, he had achieved victory. And I was taken aback to hear someone refer to the abolition movement in that manner and I realize that what Obama had said was actually on the mark. It was extremely improbable for a slave holding nation to get rid of its vested interest in slavery and abolitionists began this quest that's to some seemed fantastical and utopian and they managed to win. And that can be said of very few radical movements in history. Very nice. The only thing I'll get to do is because I mentioned Barack Obama in the last primaries but the last election, but by the time this is broadcast, there'll be another election.

Oh my god. Don't say that. Sorry, immigrant back to my country. I want to appear not partisan camera. OK. When Barack Obama won his first primary election, the Iowa caucuses in the 2008 presidential election in his acceptance speech, he evoked the abolitionists. He said that his cause was as improbable, as visionary, as theirs, but that he had achieved victory just as they had. And I thought that was a really apt analogy. So now I just need to hold it open. OK.