How far back must we go to find our political will - to a place and time when democracy worked - when politics was able to advance the best interests of the people? Perhaps we must travel to a time when those not yet enfranchised to vote and participate fully in their own government spoke with voices no one could ignore. Before we equated money with speech, speech and actions forced this nation to address glaring errors in our original Constitution. Though there is a human tendency to glorify and mythologize history, some historical episodes really do change the direction of human events. As headlines and upcoming Court decisions focus on issues of equality, on race and on voting, we should realize that these kinds of questions have deep roots. This weekend marked a humbling anniversary, one that calls upon us to remember our long lost political will to address them.
On June 2, 1863, on the shores of the coastal low country of South Carolina, Colonel James Montgomery commanded some of the early commissioned African American troops, freedmen of South Carolina, on a raid of Combahee Ferry. Getting to the spot required traveling through tricky waterways. The ships that arrived did so only due to the navigational skills and knowledge of the area by the African Americans aboard including the newly commissioned 2d South Carolina and a woman named Harriet Tubman.
They called her Moses. Her expertise directed the raid; her presence allowed those held in bondage to grasp the magnitude of the moment. People who had been denied the opportunity to read, to write, to dream and who only dared to hope saw Harriet Tubman on the John Adams and knew they had been delivered from slavery. Descriptions of the event included women carrying pots full of rice, babies clinging to their parents, pigs squealing from sacks and rushes of humanity toward the boats. Indeed, not everyone could fit aboard and those onshore refused to let go until Harriet Tubman promised to return. Making several trips, she ensured that every one of the 750 people there would be ferried to freedom. Many of the men who scrambled on deck would be commissioned into the Union military and have a hand fighting for their own liberty. These newly free folks would help inch our country closer to the promise of the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence.
Col. Montgomery and his crews would go on to loot the storehouses and burn the homes they found in South Carolina that day. He held an ardent belief that the lot of slaveholders was to feel the burning wrath of justice; though his zeal throughout the war would destroy many homes holding only women and children inside. Montgomery demonstrated his commitment to the cause well before Kansas bled. He had purchased a claim in the southeastern part of that territory and routinely stole property from pro-slavery factions, selling them at a profit as far away as Iowa. This was not so much Robin Hood (he kept the money) as it was a fervent attempt to introduce Kansas as a free state. In an odd irony, he was also a minister of the Christian (Campbellite) Church, a Second Great Awakening establishment interested in restoring the primitive church in a kumbaya peace, love and abolition kind of way which, apparently, involved some New Testament horse wrangling. All of this fades in the discussion of how he brought Moses to free the slaves on South Carolina plantations: stealing, burning and pillaging in the name of freedom has a certain cache that gives him grace in history books.
Yet, Montgomery never could have gotten into the South Carolina river system without Harriet Tubman and the low country sailors on board. The fact that they were able to contribute is a testament to political will driven by the necessity of war. Abolition and African American troops became essential to Union victory and so the political will for abolition and African American troops emerged. Routinely, Civil War battles claimed thousands of lives in a matter of hours. The war seemed endless. Volunteers were dwindling (while Southerners had slaves running their farms and businesses, Northern farmers and business owners relied upon the women and children to keep their entities afloat). Conscription issued and riots broke out claiming that the draft was beyond the reach of the federal government (it was not, even then; US Const Art. 1 Sec. 8). As morale in white America suffered, African American communities came to the rescue.
While African Americans fought in the Revolution and some, unofficially, in the War of 1812, the military had been closed to African Americans by 1792. Yet, these were the men itching to fight. Here was a willing population with little voice whose courage, strength, and skills were desperately needed by the federal government. Months before the Emancipation Proclamation issued, Congress passed the Second Confiscation and Militia Act permitting the president to bring African Americans into the military effort...which Lincoln actually declined to do...but that did not stop unofficial regiments from forming in Louisiana, South Carolina, Kansas and Missouri on their own (all eventually would be mustered into service). After issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln did authorize full service by African American troops. Entry of these men into the military, without question, turned the tide of the war. Their participation was instrumental in securing a Union victory.
The spoils of war included some long overdue changes to the Constitution. Those changes - the Reconstructionist Amendments - altered forever the relationship between the states and the federal government and the sound of the voice of the American people. There is no doubt that the original Framers were leery of a strong federal government (although each of them who actually held the office of president sought to centralize power), but that fear existed partly because of concerns that the government would not survive and partly because self-governance was still experimental. Eighty years into the gig, the Civil War affirmed that these United States were united for eternity and that unity required a more cohesive - and powerful - federal government requiring representation of all communities. What the courts had denied, the political will - albeit political will driven by mounting war casualties and devastation - would ensure. America would be united...even if it killed us.
Even those ruing tactics of James Montgomery who slashed and burned everywhere he went, surely all Americans speak with awe and pride and reverence when recounting Harriet Tubman's contribution to the raid on Combahee Ferry - and her voice in enunciating the idea of unalienable rights. Surely Americans laud the fortitude and will of Frederick Douglass in urging for African American troops to have the opportunity to serve in the armed forces and to vote. Indeed, it was Douglass who argued that, rather than a fatally flawed document, the Constitution should be the empowering tool for abolition and inclusion. The Reconstructionist Amendments opened the door for that to occur. Our collective pride in the history - even when shrouded in mythology - for great leaders in our nation who have spoken with grace and courage and righteousness is palpable. We could not imagine an America that would deny full participation in government to any such citizens. We are an eternally grateful nation to all of those who - despite, or perhaps because of, injustice they endured- elucidate our own identity as Americans; liberty has a hollow ring without their explanation of freedom. When people discuss the greatness of America, images of these men and women come to mind.
Yet, there are voices - some on the Court, some in Congress, many in the media who want to ignore the Civil War chapter of Constitutional jurisprudence. They talk about the 18th Century Constitution failing to recognize the alterations of the 19th Century Amendments. This is not only misguided, it is wrong. The original Framers designed a document that could grow and change - not on a whim, but for necessity - and it has. Changes including abolition of slavery, prohibiting the denial of the right to vote due to race, and the very definition of citizenship all altered the relationship between the states and the federal government forever. They paved the way for direct election of United States Senators, the prohibition of the denial of the right to vote due to gender, and the prohibition of poll taxes. The current document changed the very structure of our government from the timid conflagration of separate states with a very limited central government to one of national pride. This is not to deny the 10th Amendment, or the 11th Amendment for that matter, it is just that the focus on the powers of states as though these Reconstructionist changes to the Constitution never occurred is ludicrous and dishonest.
As we await decisions from the Court on voting rights
and issues of race in school admission and equality of marriage, it
might do us good to recall the raid in South Carolina 150 years ago.
African Americans who had been denied basic individual liberties steered
boats through intricate riverways in order to emancipate their
brothers and sisters. Those men and women - who never before had legal
authority over their own bodies - would willingly surrender their
now-free lives for the Union cause. And, when the war ended, we had the
political will to ensure the finality of slavery, to bestow belated
citizenship with all of its privileges and immunities and to prohibit
interference with voting due to race. The contributions of those men
and women to our collective history is immeasurable as is the
contribution of the members of the 38th, and especially the 39th Congress whose
legislative prowess sought to complete the war by winning the peace.
Today's 113th Congress boasts
40 elected and 2 appointed African Americans (40 in the House and the 2
appointments in the Senate), 36 members of Hispanic or Latino heritage
(33 in the House, 3 in the Senate), 9 Asian and 2 Native
American members (all in the House), 99 women members (79 in the House and 20 in
the Senate) and 7 openly gay members
(6 in the House and 1 in the Senate). The composition of this Congress
is a direct result of the political will of past elected bodies who saw
fit to empower all Americans. With pride we should celebrate the
diversity of this Congress as a living legacy of the courage of those earlier legislators. Yet, we should be ashamed that this reflection of America cannot do more than stall at an impasse on significant issues facing the country today: important issues that concern equality and voting and immigration and how we care for the frail and infirm - issues almost identical to the ones faced and tackled 150 years ago.
The 39th Congress declared the 13th Amendment ratified, passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Freedmen Bureau Bill, sent the 14th and 15th Amendments to the states for ratification, legalized the metric system, reduced the number of Supreme Court justices from 9 to 7, admitted Nebraska as a state, began welcoming back the states formerly in rebellion - all while mourning the untimely death of the president, figuring out how to pay for the last 4 years of war and overseeing the completion of the Capitol dome. Much of the legislative prowess was due to many vacant seats and thus less discussion and dissent. But, the problem with a democracy cannot be too much democracy. Those elected should serve in a way that advances the ideals of the nation - disagreement is welcome, but not if its purpose is to halt progress. The blood shed to keep this Union together cannot be spilled in vain. The 113th Congress owes its forbears a duty to legislate constructively and progressively to continue the quest by peaceful means. Anything less is simply criminal.
