Hope and History: A Struggle for Liberty
Throughout time, hope and history have rhymed, especially in the early American period as the people of a land rose into a great nation. Writers have even acknowledged this, like in Sophocles’s poem “The Cure at Troy,” and James W. Fraser’s book, A History of Hope. These authors and certain historical events show that through endured human suffering, hope was formed, and America was born from their belief that there was a better existence to be had.
The endured suffering of the American population (including Native Americans) was purposefully caused by cruel tyranny, because we humans, “…torture one another" (Sophocles). Evidence of this is in the time leading up to the Taos Revolution and the American Revolution, as people were dominated, and repeatedly crushed if they didn’t like it. The Native Americans of New Mexico were the conquered subjects of the Spanish, their oppression ranged in labor to religion, as the Pueblos were twisted to the whims of their “masters.” The comienda and repartimiento systems forced native farmers to involuntarily hand over portions of their crops to the Spanish military, and work in Spanish-held fields like slaves. The Inquisition persecuted them for being of another religion, justifying their enslavement on “…charges of heresy and witchcraft” (Fraser 4).” On the other side of the continent, American colonists were being just as badly treated by their motherland, but mentally and economically. Their dream of expanding their land was quashed by the Proclamation of 1763, as Parliament forbade their colonists from land west of the Appalachians. There was an additional insult as this land was reserved for the French, and ten thousand British troops brought in to enforce the policy. Denying their own people and handing it over to an ancient enemy was unthinkable to Americans, their plans and egos were seriously hurt. In 1765, Parliament hit again, this time directly with the Stamp Act, which undermined the legislation of the thirteen colonies and their ability to properly tax themselves. This was completely opposite of one American principle of popular sovereignty. Colonists believed that, “…all governments exist for the governed” (Digital History 1), and these acts certainly went against what they held as truth. Both peoples were suffering underneath these tyrants, but nothing was going to change suddenly, because, “history says, don’t hope/ On this side of the grave…” (Sophocles). It did not seem possible, but all they needed was for someone to believe.
Through endured suffering, hope was formed in venture that perhaps something could be done. For revolutionaries, they needed more, “…than a set of grievances against the standing order…It also requires articulate leadership and a sense of hope that things actually can change” (Fraser 4). The Native Americans found deliverance in a medicine man named Popé, who convinced his people enough to drive the Spaniards from their land than continue living like they were. Over little more than a decade, his hope for the future drove foreign culture from the Pueblo land, and these was peace for a while. The Americans under Britain found the same guidance from their revolutionist leaders and public figures. Indignation arose from being treated like they were, and colonists endeavored for a way to break free, knowing and believing they could find a way for themselves. The ultimate action in hope was the Declaration of Independence in 1776 that established out of their suffering, “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” America took to war with Britain, a victory that depended on the hope in thousands of ordinary Americans and leaders who fought for liberty. Like Sophocles says, “The longed-for tidal wave/ of justice can rise up/ And hope and history can rhyme…” people’s hope leads to action, and the dispersal of tyranny can occur. With their secured freedom, Americans cried that their new life was at hand, and our nation was born from hope.
The new America was an idea founded on hope, and led its people to pursue a free and hopeful life. This, “…outcry and the birth-cry/ Of new life at its term” (Sophocles) was especially shown as the Constitution and Bill of Rights was written, and as communities emerged, seeking the ideal utopia. The Constitution was based on building a solid background for the hope that America could survive as a new nation. Disagreement did rise between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, that there was no future with such a document, even if it was ratified. Legislators restated their hope for their nation by including the Bill of Rights that did not argue with the former document, but rather enhanced it. Establishment of an ideal society was clearly in the minds of the population too, as Utopian communities began to emerge, in the New Harmony, Shaker, and Oneida communities. Robert Owen of the New Harmony community said, “ ‘…you have yet to acquire a real mental liberty, and if you cannot possess yourselves of it, your political liberty will be precarious and of much less value” (Fraser 40). His hope that was by finding a set personal way of living, the new society would work. America was born on the idea of hope, and continued on by establishing it through its people and government.
The populations of American, both Native American and American colonists suffered under their tyrants, yet they endured. They were spurred on by hope, and managed to unify themselves beneath that banner, making change occur. America was born as the idea of hope, evident in her establishment for the future in her communities and government. This history and hope have truly rhymed, immortalized in the works of authors and the minds of its people.
Slavery: The Root of Strife
The institution of slavery was the idea and motivation behind the events that led up to and caused the Civil War. Politicians and citizens alike were adamant about what slavery’s position should be, proving costly in the end for both sides. The war grew out of the suffering Africans went through, the beliefs of both the abolitionists and the proslavery population, and the lashing out of both sides to get what they wanted.
The suffering and conditions slaves were subjected to had no limit of horror. Slaves on their way to America first found their misery in the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, as slave dealers captured them and crammed onto inhumane ships of death. Underfed and mistreated, they arrived only to find a destiny doomed to suffering at the hand of another human being. “Slaves could be bought and sold, traded, leased or mortgaged like a piece of livestock” (Digital History, 1). They were nothing but property that could be expected to make people money, while being worth a certain value of money themselves. This power over others almost always became terrible, like Frederick Douglass says about one of his masters, “The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work…soon [she] became red with rage” (chapter 6).
Even kindly people could be seduced to the maltreatment of slaves for, “Because they are under the personal dominion of an owner, slaves were always vulnerable to sexual exploitation and cruel punishment” (Digital History, 1). Families were broken up and sold, all were savagely beaten or even dismembered; women were raped by their masters, the resulting illegitimate children even being maltreated. Their predicament led some slaves to attempt freedom in revolts and running away. A slave named Nat Turner led a rampage that killed more than sixty whites, while more quiet activists like Harriet Tubman led many down the Underground Railroad to freedom. Others simply walked off their plantations or slowed down the day-to-day labor processes, frustrating their masters. These were not always successful, and did bring mass executions to those involved, runaways often caught and cruelly beaten in retort. In their time their pain would have to be dealt with, and there would be people who sought to free them from their predicament, but obviously the other side wouldn’t want to agree.
As the suffering of Africans continued, many opposed the institution of slavery and its ethics, while the proslavery population had other ideas. Slavery expanded and the amount of slaves subjected to inhumanity grew along with it as their families sought more money and land. The Mexican War in 1846-1848 especially was an opportunity for its expansion into new territory as people invested in Manifest Destiny and the belief that America had a special fate to stretch across the continent. Northerners and critics argued, “…the war was an expansionist power play dictated by an aggressive Southern slave owners intent on acquiring more slave states” (Digital History 6). The newly annexed state of Texas did become a slave state, partly due to the proslavery beliefs of the current President at the time, James Polk. Abolitionists continued to grow as well as their beliefs took gained more conviction from all the suffering, because, “…. we are free and independent, -all men are created equal, and why should these, my fellow citizens, my equals, be held in bondage?” (Dr. Bloomfield, 2). They wanted to break a derogatory system, which they believed had no right to exist, as all people should be created equal. Proslavery people constantly held up their opposite ideals, even in Congress. New states like Kansas were delayed from statehood in an effort by both sides to prevent a tipping of power in the slavery question. As abolitionist and slave-owner alike held onto their certain beliefs, it became inevitable that people would have to act upon them.
Someone had to take action before ideals were put into reality, the abolitionists trying to free Africans and the proslavery crowd wanting to hold on. A few abolitionists like John Brown took to violence in protest, leading a group of people on October 16, 1859 to an armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to start a revolution among the slaves even possibly deeming it, “…necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends pf justice” (Fraser 80). Proslavery activists used his actions and similar ones to retaliate, in an equally violent form of militant abolitionism. A mob even attacked an abolitionist newspaper editor in Elijah P. Lovejoy in Alton, Illinois, destroying his printing press and murdering him. Nearby Kansas erupted into violence as it struggled to statehood and the decision of free or slave state was put upon its people. The Civil War was on its way, because of all the violence and fear that Southerners had of the North and its abolitionists. There wasn’t a mere question of the Union sticking together or individual states being able to be equal, because like Fraser says, “…state’s rights would have remained a vague philosophical concept, worth perhaps of argument in Congress or the local debating society but hardly rebellion” (87). They were afraid of not having slavery, and the people who wanted to take it from them.
Slavery was the driving force for pro and anti slavery movement, and in the end would come to spark the dividing of our people. Africans held beneath it were subjected to innumerable horrors, abolitionists and slave-owners held strong to what they believed about it, and both sides lashed out in an attempt to secure what they thought out to be done. The growing tension and violence brought the inescapable Civil War upon the United States.
Two Halves of a Whole
The women’s rights and organized labor movements were similar and different in striving for fair treatment. Both fought for better existence beneath their employers and men who dominated society, hoping to fulfill their hope of equal opportunity, and be recognized as part of humanity. Comparisons and contrasts can clearly be seen in their grievances, tactics and strategies, and their setbacks and achievements, as their campaigns waged on.
The grievances these groups endured were related, but still separate in some of the ways it treated them. Mutually, women and labor unionists were spurred on by the inequality and belittlement of a domineering “hierarchy”. “…many American workers feared that their status was rapidly eroding. The expanding size of factories made relations between labor and management increasingly impersonal” (Digital History, 2). These activists were treated second-rate, and women suffered this too. Sarah Grimke says that man, “He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind…the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior” (Fraser 127), and dealt with women as an afterthought. Though these movements were both thought of as substandard, they were divergent on the further reasons they were protesting society. Workers sought rational economic and labor policy from their employers to fix the sour conditions they were forced to toil in. “Many working men and women feared that the great industrialists were imposing a new form of feudalism in American, which was reducing ‘freemen’ to ‘wage slaves’…” (Digital History 3). Their bondage was the salary and labor imposed upon them, that was strong standard and very hard to break. Unlike the workforce, women wanted democratic change that would spell out their rights as citizens of the United States of America. Susan B. Anthony stood up and often announced, “ ‘…it is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic republican government- the ballot’ ” (Fraser 130). The interpretation of the laws bound them with less rights and gave them a lower cause as a human being in legal situations. Married women could not own property and in divorce cases, they had no chance for custody of their children. These movements were under similar and different grievances, and both would be impelled to take action against their subjugation.
In striving for rights, women and laborers used parallel but differing tactics and strategies. They both saw that the best way to be heard was a uniting of people, whether it was nationally or nearby. “Labor organizers, especially in the early decades of the movement, saw organized labor as one essential element in the reorganization of a larger society along more egalitarian lines” (Fraser 159). Unions were formed so that masses of employees could be heard together, women gathered in conventions and meetings to voice their grievances or cause for improved rights. Their protests however, were opposite in the ways they tried to change things. Unions and laborers became increasingly violent in their protests, even causing, “Some 500 times government sent in militias or federal troops to put down labor strikes…” (Digital History 1). Very often injuries and deaths would occur from the clashes. Women went through a much more peaceful means, by demonstrating for their democratic rights so their voices could be heard in the call for transformation. Susan B. Anthony affirmed this; “ ‘I think that I shall be able to prove to you that the only possibility of her securing bread and a home for herself is to giver the ballot’ ” (Fraser 131). Their protest for women’s rights started as a passive movement through the vote and privileges they had been denied for so long. The struggle for these parties, whether aggressive or passive, was not in vain, and their voices would be heard, though the reward might be hard to attain.
There were similar and different setbacks on the way to their goals, but both movements kept pushing forward. The two were very alike near the end of the struggles, as society decided that something had to be done. Congress narrowly approved the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution that said, “The rights of the citizens of the united States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on the account of sex…” (The U.S. Constitution). After the infamous Lawrence Strike of 1912, everyone decried industrial actions against the employees, until, “ ‘Hours of labor were reduced, wages were increased from five to twenty percent…and there was no discrimination against anyone who had taken part in the strike’ ” (Fraser 182). This strike was a beacon for many other protests afterward, and instituted influential changes in the ways of labor. Policy in law and industry was affected alike for women’s rights and organized labor. However, the setbacks on the way there were quite unlike, chiefly in severity. Labor activists like Eugene Debs were imprisoned for a number of years after being arrested at a protest, while suffragists like Susan B. Anthony were only arrested and fined. The setbacks and achievements of both movements indeed were comparable, and in the end they had managed to achieve something great.
The women’s rights and organized labor movements simultaneously fought for their place in society. Both sought to end their inferior status to others, worked against it with mass unity, and created a policy change in how their entitlement was spelled. They diverged on what they were hoping for, women striving for a more democratic place in peaceful protest, with lesser penalties on them, while the laborers went after economic status with more violent objection and harsher consequences. There is much resemblance, yet differentiation between the two parts of the reform movements.
