Free
At times, family members have differences.
They may believe different things, have different ways of behaving, or have different priorities. Sometimes those differences are so great family members actually stop talking to each other. This is similar to what happened between the states in our country in the early to mid-1800s.
◀ John Brown was an abolitionist – someone who opposed enslavement. On October 16, 1859, he and a group of 20 people led a raid on a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. An armory is a place where weapons are kept. The raid was intended to start a rebellion among enslaved people, but hundreds of local militiamen plus Colonel Robert E. Lee and 90 marines arrived to fight off the raiders. Militiamen were citizens with some military training. A newspaper of the time describes the raid and predicts the future this way:
The Harpers Ferry invasion has advanced the cause of disunion more than any other event that has happened since the formation of the government.
◀ In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was one of four candidates running for president of the United States. Lincoln’s idea about enslavement was that it should not be expanded or extended to new territories. “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” he said. Lincoln won the election with 40 percent of the vote. By the time he was sworn into office on March 4, 1861, seven states had already seceded, or split, to form their own country, the Confederate States of America. On April 17, 1861, Virginia joined them.
Not everyone in Virginia agreed that their state should secede from the United States. People in the western part of the state had small farms rather than large plantations. Many worked in factories. Soon after Virginia voted to secede, those in the west voted to split off and form their own state. In June 1863, when West Virginia was born, it became official. ▶
◀ Harriet Tubman was born into enslavement in Maryland. When she was 27, she escaped. With the help of a network of Black and White people she found her way to Philadelphia and freedom. But Tubman wanted freedom for others as well, so she returned to the South. In all, Tubman used the network – known as the Underground Railroad – to lead at least 70 enslaved people to freedom. “I never ran my train off the track,” she claimed, “and I never lost a passenger.” After the Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army hospital at Fort Monroe, Virginia. (The Union Army was the army of the northern states.) First, she was a nurse and later a matron, or head nurse. Later still, she served on the front lines of the army in South Carolina.
Noteworthy Virginians
William Harvey Carney was born enslaved in Virginia. He escaped to freedom and planned to be a minister but joined the Union Army instead. Carney said this about his decision: “I could best serve my God by serving my country and my oppressed brothers.” He went on to be the first Black person to win the Medal of Honor for his actions during the war.
After the war, the U.S. government made Confederate states reconstruct, or remake, their state government before being allowed back into the country. This time period is known as Reconstruction. Virginia wrote a new constitution that set up free public schools and established a poll tax – a tax someone had to pay in order to vote. It also accepted the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. ▶
▲ The 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished enslavement. The 14th Amendment gave U.S. citizenship to people born (or naturalized) in the U.S., including formerly enslaved people. (A naturalized citizen is someone who is born in one country but becomes a citizen of another country.) The 14th Amendment also established that all citizens – including Black people – would have equal protection of the law. The 15th Amendment said that a person could not be denied the right to vote based on race, color, or having ever been enslaved. It set the stage for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Check It Out!
How did the 14th Amendment affect Indigenous peoples?
The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the 14th Amendment did not give citizenship to Indigenous peoples. The court said that instead, Indigenous peoples owed loyalty to their own tribes. It wasn’t until the U.S. government passed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 that Indigenous peoples were recognized as U.S. citizens.
◀ Before the Civil War, most Black people were prevented from getting an education. After the war, freedmen’s schools were set up, often with the help of the Freedmen’s Bureau of the U.S. government. Andrew Johnson, who became president after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, was no “friend” of Reconstruction. And he did not support the Freedmen’s Bureau. One reason was that he didn’t think the U.S. government should be helping one group of people and excluding other groups. Individuals known as Radical Republicans expressed a different point of view:
We’ve got to take care of freed people right now, with the Freedmen’s Bureau. We've got to get food in the hands of people who have no food. We’ve got to get clothes on the back of people who have no clothes. We’ve got to get schools started, so that these children can learn to read and write.
Think Piece!
Do you agree with President Andrew Johnson’s ideas or those of the Radical Republicans?
Reconstruction ended in 1877, when the time of Jim Crow laws began. The name Jim Crow refers to a Black character created by a White actor who rubbed burnt cork on his face to blacken it. The actor made his character look foolish. The Jim Crow laws passed in Virginia were similar to laws passed in other southern states: Schools, restaurants, and hotels had to be segregated, or separated, by race. Hospitals and parks too. These “rules” were the result of a decision in a Supreme Court case known as Plessy v. Ferguson. The policy came to be known as “separate but equal.” Jim Crow laws were in effect until 1964. ▶
Reflection
Reflect on the idea of “separate but equal.” What is your opinion of the idea?
