What's Up With That?

“If our society really wanted to solve the problem, we could; it’s just that it would require everybody saying, ‘this is important; this is significant.’ And, that we don’t just pay attention to these communities when a CVS burns, and we don’t just pay attention when a young man gets shot or has his spine snapped, but we’re paying attention all the time because we consider those kids our kids.” —President Obama on the situation in Baltimore

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There were three essential questions for this lesson: Who "gave" freedom to enslaved Americans? Did freedom come from above or below? To what extent were Abraham Lincoln's actions influenced by the actions of enslaved Americans? The first thing we did to go about answering these questions was looking at image of Lincoln "giving" freedom to an enslaved man. Then we defined "from above" and "from below" by looking at a social pyramid, and inferring where different people in 19th century America would fit in this pyramid. Next we analyzed different documents. We looked at several written by Lincoln: the Open Letter to Horace Greeley 1862, the Emancipation Proclamation 1863, the Gettysburg Address 1863, and his 2nd Inaugural Address 1865. We also looked at two that were not written by Lincoln: a Letter from General Ambrose E. Burnside to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton 1862, and an engraving of slaves leaving the plantation of Jefferson Davis 1863. Then we examined a second image of slaves getting freed as compared to the first a statue with Abraham Lincoln, this time it was a statue of slaves helping themselves. This was a depiction of slaves helping themselves from the bottom of the social pyramid. 

Freedom finally occurred with the addition of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, an action made by "above" people. However, I believe there is the chance slavery might not have been abolished at that time if not for the actions of the slaves themselves. Change usually occurs when people from the bottom make a loud enough fuss that the above feels they need to react by changing their ways. In the letter from General Ambrose E. Burnside to the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, written on March 21, 1862, Burnside writes, "...after the enemy & citizens fled from the town, were committed by the negroes, before our troops reached the city...the city is being overrun with fugitives from surrounding towns and plantations...” This letter is an example of freedom from the bottom being effective. The slaves want little else but to be free, so they draw attention to themselves. Soon after that, the Secretary of War (a man with a high position in government) is being notified by a General. By drawing attention to themselves, the slaves forced the Union government to act on their behalf. This, and actions like it are what eventually led to the passing of the 13th Amendment, freeing all slaves in the United States of America.

If no fuss is made, no attention is drawn to the real problem. During this time, everyone seemed to be pretending that the Civil War was about preventing succession and not at all related to slavery. Abraham Lincoln admits this in his Second Inaugural Address in 1865. "One eighth of the whole population was colored slaves...These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than restrict the territorial enlargement of it." This statement, almost an apology from President Lincoln for skirting the truth before, clues in anyone that was, at this late stage of the war, still clueless. One important thing to learn is that the Government is no good at changing for the better on its own. It is the people who notice and are affected by a problem who are capable of instigating change. Then it is up to the government to listen and respond in favor of these people, granting them what they fought for, and ending the need to fight.

http://safety.transportation.org/htmlguides/peds/description_of_strat.htm

Sometimes, change comes after someone gets hurt. My mother has notices more attempts at making the crosswalks on Main Street safer now that someone was recently struck by a car. Other times, even after someone is hurt or killed, the government remains unresponsive. Most recently in Baltimore with poor Freddie Gray, died after being arrested under questionable circumstances.  These “protests from below" that have started in Baltimore after this death, are calling for an acknowledgement and end of police brutality. The protesters are in a position where they feel the most effective way to change unfair police brutality is by acting violently themselves. By destroying things they cannot be ignored by the government or the media. The obvious motive for these protestors is the hope that the government will make some kind of change to prevent unjustified deaths like this in the future. These people are speaking out against unfair targeting by local police. Progress starts from the people. In the quote from Obama that began this post, he points out it does not have to be this way. However, the government is not known for going out of its way to fix something that affects the bottom of the pyramid without first anyone in the bottom coming forward and asking for change. In most cases the cry for help must be extremely loud to have any chance at procuring even a little change.   

http://www.newsweek.com/photos-baltimore-riots-freddie-gray-325873


Works Cited 

Graham, David A. The Mysterious Death of Freddie Gray, April 22, 2015. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-mysterious-death-of-freddie-gray/391119/

Lincoln, Abraham. President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 (Excerpts) 

http://www.edline.net/files/_DMF17_/2a87c9edb0c248bf3745a49013852ec4/Freedom_from_Above_or_Below_Documents.pdf

Reprinted in Berlin, Ira, Barbara Fields, Steven Miller, Joseph P. Reidy, and Leslie S. Rowland, eds. Free At Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom and the Civil War. New York: New Press, 1992, pp. 34–35.