The book North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States: 1790 – 1860 by Leon Litwack is an illustration of how African Americans were treated in the northern states just before the start of The Civil War. Before the Civil War, the ideology of white supremacy was embraced almost as tenaciously in the North as it was in the South. In his book, Litwack illustrates that emancipation from slavery did not automatically confer status on par with that of white people. According to the author, although the lack of rights for slaves in the South was more pervasive, “even the more subtle forms of twentieth-century racial discrimination had their antecedents in the antebellum North” (64). Although the slave had been freed from his shackles, he still carried the stigma of a degraded inferior and was seen as a burden at the very least. This attitude toward the negro led to a concentrated attempt to keep him in roles that belonged to people of lower breeds, which was kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The whites from the north and their political representatives aggressively discriminated against the African-Americans because they felt that the two races were genetically inferior.
Litwack takes caution not to make a strong argument. The majority of northern white people opposed slavery, and northern African-Americans enjoyed greater rights than slaves. Furthermore, the majority of northern whites would continue to draw a clear line between giving black people political and social equality as well as legal protection and the theoretical right to life, liberty, and property. Although there were differences in the forms of prejudice between the northern states, the psychology of discrimination coupled with legislative boundaries restricted the northern blacks in practically every area of existence. Northern politicians who attempted to outlaw slavery at the federal level were thwarted by this system.
Politicians openly and blatantly declared their allegiance to white supremacist principles. They competed with one another by making similar claims of loyalty to the pre-battle American way of life, which presupposed that this was a country run by white people, with black people having no political voice and only a predetermined social and economic role. Litwack in his book carefully outlines the social and economic roles that African Americans were required to undertake. After tracing the gradual abolition of slavery in the North, Litwack observes that since there is no mention of race in the Constitution and Congress did not adopt a consistent approach to determining whether the free black person was a citizen, the individual states were given free rein to deal with the free black person. A black person was excluded from voting during a time when it was being opened to the whole public. Politicians were only held accountable to the whims, biases, and demands of a white public because the majority of northern states had disenfranchised African Americans. Few of them were willing to take the risk of political death.
The African Americans in the northern states had few political choices as they were mainly barred from the electoral process and participating in the legal system. As suffrage spread throughout the Jacksonian era, it frequently came at the expense of African-American segregation. Equal voting rights were granted in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont where northern African-Americans were allowed to take part in the electoral process. Certain northern states prevented African-Americans from not only testifying in courts against whites but also from serving in courts. As a result, justice in the northern states became “two-sided,” with the sentence for African-Americans being disproportionately harsher.
Political segregation, in Litwack’s opinion, has significant psychological, social, and economic effects. The education and literacy levels were lower in segregated educational systems, which had the dual effects of triggering political mobilization and severely restricting African-Americans’ employment options. African Americans were restricted to low-wage employment and as a result, they could only afford to reside in the worst areas. Even when it was financially feasible, moving into better housing prompted violence and threats from white neighbors. As a result of the aggressive segregation of black people from white communities, Litwack claims that leaving the ghetto was almost impossible. Therefore, it was exceedingly challenging for many African-Americans to have much confidence in a brighter future due to economic and social discrimination. In summary, northern whites constructed a system to support their belief that blacks were inferior.
Contrary to the South, the North did support a strong abolitionist movement, but it was weakened by prevalent racial biases. Some abolitionists prioritized eradicating southern slavery over improving the lives of free black people. Many of those who did speak up for black people in the North were cautious to distinguish between advocating integration and extending civil protections.
The Philadelphia Antislavery Society said that it was not their duty to encourage social intercourse between colored and white families, yet voted by a very slim margin to accept black members. The abolitionist literature, according to Litwack, “contributed its contribution to the public idea of the Negro, alluding to his frequent references to his meek, subservient, humorous, minstrel-like features”(203). In contrast to what was unimaginable in the South, African-Americans actively engaged in Northern abolitionism. According to Litwack, “William Lloyd Garrison and The Liberator appeared some years after negro abolitionism” (204). Naturally, the fact that black abolitionist leaders were regularly ignored by a movement that claimed to be on their side infuriated them. Others see it as a serious risk to tie emancipation’s future to a predominately white movement.
In the end, Litwack adopts a positive perspective on the conflicts within abolitionism. He asserts that the movement “shared these weaknesses with nearly every organized social movement and political party in antebellum America,” despite conceding the “factionalism, strong partisanship, restricted class views, and even hypocrisy” of the movement (230). The fact that abolitionists refrained from letting these flaws significantly impede their fight for civil rights attests to their earnestness, at the very least.
It is natural to draw comparisons between the situation of the Negro in the pre-battle North and the slave in the South. Indeed, a lot of publicists and politicians from both sides frequently used that analogy to imply that the lives of slaves and free African Americans were the same. The conventional contrast between Northern racial generosity and Southern intolerance, however, is just as crude an oversimplification as this stance. There were significant discrepancies between the conditions of northern free Negroes and southern slaves, just as there were significant differences between the conditions of northern white industrial workers and southern bondsmen.
With this investigation, Litwack established new ground, and his thesis is solidly substantiated. Even while it might not be fair to demand that he do something other than what he set out to do, his effort nevertheless makes one ponder about the system’s beginnings and development. What were the effects of Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson, to name a few further queries? Despite being crucial in developing American racial relations, Litwack pays scant attention to each case in this article. Most crucially, how did Northern exclusionary regimes and Southern slavery interact? Did they have any mutual impact besides diminishing abolitionism? In other words, North of Slavery is a good book because it makes readers think about the subject it explores and encourages additional study.
Work Cited
Litwack, Leon F. North of Slavery: The Negro in The Free States: 1790 – 1860. 1st ed., The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London, 1961, pp. 70-76.