Others were equally committed. They formed antislavery associations, edited papers, spoke publicly, and by 1841 claimed 200,000 members. Religious passion and enlightenment fervor spread throughout the North. In the South, it was opposed by "Southern rights" societies that used the Bible to claim "slavery fulfilled God's purposes." It produced schisms and strife, got Garrison paraded through Boston with a rope around his neck, and vigilante welcoming committees awaited northern abolitionists coming south.
Nonetheless, abolitionism grew, congressional antislavery petitions mounted, Congress claimed no authority to act, and thousands of slaves took matters into their own hands. They resisted by "evasion, sabotage, suicide, or running away." There were also slave revolts - in 1800 in a march on Richmond; 1811 on a plantation near New Orleans; 1817 and 1818 in Florida; and Nat Turner and 70 other slaves in Virginia "kill(ing) all whites" and sparing no one.
Most disruptive was the Underground Railway with whites and free blacks involved. It defied federal antifugitive laws and freed tens of thousands of southern slaves. Abolitionist disruptions "inevitably penetrated electoral politics." It fragmented both parties, made compromise impossible, and led to the emergence of the Republican Party. It opposed expanding slavery as new states entered the union, and in 1860 got Abraham Lincoln elected president. His platform - containing slavery and condemning threats of disunion as treason.
The South responded. Seven states seceded, Fort Sumpter was attacked, the Civil War began, four more slave states joined the others, and Lincoln committed to war to restore the union. As conflict wore on, its horrific toll drove him toward emancipation. Piven notes that the "insurrectionary role of the slaves....was probably critical to his decision." During the war, hundreds of thousands of them refused to work, deserted plantations, and crippled the Confederacy's ability to feed itself. In addition, around 200,000 slaves fought with the North, and their numbers were significant in achieving victory.
Abolitionism grew, southern secession spurred it, and in January 1865 Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment banning slavery. Nominally, former slaves got more rights from the Fourteenth (due process and equal protection) and Fifteenth (forbidding racial discrimination in voting) Amendments as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
"Abolitionists had triumphed," they did it through electoral politics by splitting the parties, yet their victory was limited. Post-emancipation, the movement "melted into the Republican Party," southern and northern leaders became accommodative, and elites in the South "moved rapidly to restore their control over blacks." Nonetheless, an impressive victory was won even if only marginally, and it would take another century before blacks got any of their constitutional rights.
Movements and Reform in the American Twentieth Century
Throughout American history, disruptive protests were common, yet rarely did any have a "big bang" effect. Decades elapsed between successful abolitionism and New Deal reforms. In the 20th century, Piven notes that almost all important labor, civil rights and social welfare legislation got passed in just two six-year periods - 1933 - 1938 and 1963 - 1968. There was one exception - the 1972 Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for the elderly poor and people with disabilities.
Great Depression hard times spurred important reforms to provide emergency relief:
-- the Civil Works Administration (CWA) for work relief; it reached 28 million people (22.2% of the population);
-- overall social spending rose from 1.34% of GDP in 1932 to 5% by 1934 and showed that government works for the people when it wants to;
-- the 1935 Social Security Act established the framework for all future income support programs - retirement benefits, unemployment, supplemental income, subsidized housing, and all categories of "welfare;"
-- most entitlements expanded in the 1960s - old age pensions; unemployment insurance; quadrupling the numbers of women and children receiving Aid to Dependent Children; Medicare; Medicaid; new nutritional programs, including food stamps and school lunches; federal aid to education; and inner-city development through the Model Cities Act of 1966.
Overall in the 1960s, social spending rose from $37 billion to $140 billion in the post-1965 decade. By the mid-1970s, poverty levels were down from 20% in 1965 to 11%.
Each period also saw political rights expand. Mass strikes of the early 1930s produced the landmark 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). For the first time, it gave labor the right to bargain collectively on equal terms with management and provided legal protections to strike actions. The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act established national minimum wages and maximum hours. These laws advanced worker rights over the next three decades.
In 1964, civil rights actions got the Twenty-Fourth Amendment passed. It prohibited poll taxes in federal elections, and along with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act overrode state and local franchise restrictions that were in place in the South since Reconstruction. As Piven put it: The 1960s civil rights movement "finally won, a century later, the reforms first announced (but never gotten) in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments." In addition, the 1964 Equal Opportunity Act (antipoverty program) provided federal funds for poor communities.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
