COLLECTIVE IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN BLACK ABOLITIONIST DISCOURSE: A CONCEPTUAL NETWORK ANALYSIS OF THE NEW YORK ANTI-SLAVERY PRESS
Timothy Shortell
Department of Sociology
Brooklyn College, City University of New York
Contact the author at Department of Sociology, Brooklyn College, CUNY, 2900 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn NY 11210, or shortell@brooklyn.cuny.edu. This work was supported, in part, by a grant from the City University of New York PSC-CUNY Research Award Program. Thanks are due to Nancy Sánchez, Mary Howard, George Cunningham, and Marc Steinberg for their generous assistance.
Word count: about 8,000
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN BLACK ABOLITIONIST DISCOURSE: A CONCEPTUAL NETWORK ANALYSIS OF THE NEW YORK ANTI-SLAVERY PRESS
The social movements literature includes a variety of theoretical perspectives on the symbolic dimension of movements. Framing theory remains the most common viewpoint, but a recent "discursive turn" in social movement research is taking place. The present study adopts an approach in which movement discourse is viewed as a networked field of concepts from which arguments are fashioned. This approach requires an examination of the socio-cognitive structure of a discourse, an analysis of its rhetoric, as well as its ideological foundations. In order to study the discourse of the black Abolitionists from this theoretical perspective, I have developed an analysis of the dynamic quality of meaning-making involved in collective identity construction. Through the description of probabilistic empirical patterns, I aim to demonstrate the discursive experimentation through which free blacks came to fashion a shared sense of themselves and an identity for their communities. Over the thirty year period of American Abolitionism, the black Abolitionist discourse employed a number of different conceptual constructions and rhetorics. The most important of these is the jeremiad. The present study documents the unfolding of this key strategy.
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN BLACK ABOLITIONIST DISCOURSE: A CONCEPTUAL NETWORK ANALYSIS OF THE NEW YORK ANTI-SLAVERY PRESS
Though most of the research on American anti-slavery over the past thirty years has focused on white organizations and leaders, black Abolitionism has received some scholarly attention. Researchers interested in the specific contributions of blacks have tended to focus on institutions and individuals; the history of black newspapers has received thoughtful analysis, for example, and biographies have been written for many of the leading figures. Study of black Abolitionism from a social movements perspective has been sparse. (A search of the recent literature turned up no citations for "social movement" and "black abolitionism" but 90 for "social movement" with "abolitionism.") With this study, I hope to bring some of the key concepts of sociological analysis to bear on black Abolitionism in New York State.
Recent social movements literature includes a variety of theoretical perspectives on the symbolic dimension of movements. Framing theory remains the most common perspective on movement discourse, but a "discursive turn" in the field is lately taking place. A more sophisticated understanding of semiotic content has exposed the framing perspective to be stiff and overly mechanical (see Steinberg 1998). The process of meaning-making in social contexts is more complex and subtle that framing can illuminate. Instead of thinking about social movement discourse as consisting of a static box into which the elements of a group's collective identity and worldview are tossed, the new dialogic perspective uses the insights of cultural psychology and semiotics to describe a field in which social actors participate in meaning construction and meaningful action as a result of both their individual interests and intentions as well as forces that are beyond their awareness and control.
The present study adopts an approach in which movement discourse is viewed as a networked field of concepts from which arguments are fashioned. This approach requires an examination of the socio-cognitive structure of a discourse and an analysis of its rhetoric and its ideological foundations. This work has as its focus the content and processes by which free blacks in the North constructed and maintained a shared sense of themselves at the same time as they asserted moral claims to full humanity and civil rights.
Race in Antebellum New York
New York had the largest black population in the antebellum North. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the state was home to more than 40,000 blacks, including more than 15,000 slaves (Berlin 1998). States feared that unless blacks' rights were restricted, they would attract a large population of freemen and fugitive slaves from neighboring areas. This led to a kind of competition to deprive blacks of civil rights (Tocqueville 1981). New York was not exceptional in this regard. Legal restrictions and white prejudice ensured that the economic prospects of Northern blacks were as limited as their political status (Litwack 1961).
Race prejudice was so common in nineteenth century America that its absence was startling. During his tour of America in 1831, Tocqueville noted, "Race prejudice seems stronger in those states that have abolished slavery than in those where is still exists, and nowhere is it more intolerant than in those states where slavery was never known. ... In the North the white man no longer clearly sees the barrier that separates him from the degraded race, and he keeps the Negro at a distance all the more carefully because he fears lest one day they be confounded together" (Tocqueville 1981:343). American slavery conflated race and servitude. White prejudice made it difficult for free blacks in the North to think of themselves in terms independent of this "peculiar institution."
By the beginning of Abolitionism, citizenship was generally understood to be based on a community of shared identity. As a result, the meaning of citizenship was inevitably racial. Most whites could not conceive of sharing their community with anyone who was not of European, Protestant heritage. From the debate over Missouri in the 20s, to the Dred Scott decision, in 1857, Northern politics validated the prevailing view that the rights and privileges of citizenship were limited to whites. As a result of white prejudice, blacks would never be accepted into the American mainstream; if they were to be freemen, they would have to live elsewhere (Condit and Lucaites 1991; Litwack 1961).
Blacks recognized the persistence and virulence of American race prejudice, but rejected the idea of colonization. Instead, they sought to be admitted as equals into the American polity. New York remained a popular place for free blacks to get on with the business of living. There were modest opportunities for earning a livelihood, and a large enough population in many places to form the bonds of community. black culture thrived in New York City, as well as the other large population centers in the state (Franklin and Moss 1994).
Black leaders disputed the "self-evident truths" of nineteenth century racial ideology, demanding that the nation live up to its republican identity. They consented to the basic terms of American civic culture by seeking to be included in it. blacks in New York refused to be excluded from the American experience. At the same time, reflected critically on their own communities for failing to achieve, despite onerous circumstances, a status that would prove their worth to the majority.
Black Abolitionism
New York City was a hub of black Abolitionism. Beginning in the 1830s, blacks held a series of conventions at which both slavery and racism were passionately denounced. A network of safe-houses and vigilance committees protected the large fugitive slave population and the city's black churches were an eager audience for anti-slavery literature (Foote 1995). Ministers in the city, such as Henry Highland Garnet, Alexander Crummell, and Samuel Cornish, were among the leaders of the free black community in the North.
Black Abolitionists sustained a more radical critique of American society than their white colleagues. The same forces that generated a conservative outlook with regard to reform among Northern whites produced militancy among blacks (Barnes 1968). Because nineteenth century black institutions were not invested in the status quo, they were more likely to breed radicalization. (Levesque 1970).
Perhaps the most extreme note sounded by the black Abolitionists was a call to self-defense by any means necessary. The early years of the movement were dominated by William Lloyd Garrison's philosophy of nonviolence, and both white and black leaders were far more likely to favor "moral suasion." But, beginning in the middle of the 1840s, some black leaders began to develop a rhetorical strategy for framing the call to violent resistance (Ripley 1991). By 1854, black conventions went so far as to endorse the principle of "Liberty or Death!" (Franklin and Moss 1994).
The argument connecting anti-slavery and racial equality was not well received in New York, or elsewhere in the North. Jacksonian populism, the dominant political discourse of the first half of the nineteenth century, was constructed on the basis of a partisan appeal to white working men. The foundations of this appeal were racial superiority, male egalitarianism and expansionism (Saxton 1998); white workers were all too willing to believe that their status depended on keeping blacks at the bottom of the status hierarchy.
Black Abolitionist Newspapers
Free blacks constituted a crucial audience for the anti-slavery press. William Garrison often acknowledged the importance of the black community for his Liberator. black editors, such as Samuel Cornish, Frederick Douglass, and Charles B. Ray, would do the same. The writers whose words appeared in the black Abolitionist newspapers understood that they addressed, in some sense, the wider anti-slavery movement, but they were more deliberate in their attention to their black readers.
Black newspapers span the Abolitionist period. Some periodicals ran for a considerable time. Others were short-lived. The fact that efforts to publish newspapers were continued despite such onerous economic circumstances testifies to the importance blacks gave to the press (Franklin and Moss 1994; Litwack 1961).
Hutton (1992, see also Tripp 1992, 1995) has argued that black newspapers were an important source of socialization. The moral claims and the collective identity of American blacks rested on the condition of agreement with the prevailing moral standards. Editors were aware of their roles as socializing agents, and used the editorial like a pulpit. Indeed, many editors were clergy.
The Black Abolitionist Jeremiad
American culture has been strongly influenced by the belief that the nation is exceptional, called to redeem the world by the example of its perfection. This mixture of national pride and millennial eschatology was the basis of American self-identity, and the foundation of one of its most powerful rhetorics, the jeremiad. The sense that America is chosen but has not yet achieved its promise gives the jeremiad its unique character. It is an expression of indignation in the style of the biblical prophets. At the same time, it is an optimistic assertion of national identity. Its power derives from this dual nature: critical but hopeful (Howard-Pitney 1990).
The jeremiad is a religious rhetoric. It is, first and foremost, a prophecy of ultimate salvation. It makes its appearance, however, in times of decline. Present sinfulness is the occasion for a reconfirmation of the nation's special mission. In both sinfulness and redemption, the people are connected with their deity. In a country steeped in millennial Protestantism, this self-identity was the point of departure for much public discourse. For blacks in America, the dynamic of sin and redemption had an obvious attraction. Appealing to the idea of Americans as a chosen people played into the vanity of the white majority at the same time as it pricked their collective conscience (Moses 1982).
Howard-Pitney (1990) points out that the deliverance motif was central to American blacks' religious consciousness. The Exodus story, as a slave narrative, was an ideal vehicle for the Abolitionist critique. blacks saw their suffering and deliverance as a key to the redemption of the nation (Sweet 1976). In the Abolitionist jeremiad, the prophetic defense of the oppressed was woven into the story of America's eschatological fate.
The jeremiad is also a form of social critique. It is the nation, not the individual, being called to account. Originating in Puritan New England in the seventeenth century, the jeremiad was used to motivate the colonists to adhere to the strict morality of the original settlers. But, it developed into a potent political tool, deployed first by the Patriots and then the Abolitionists. According to Moses (1982), the Abolitionist jeremiad was the original form of black nationalism. White audiences could understand--though not necessarily accept--a social critique expressed in these terms.
Collective Identity in Social Movements
The issue of identity construction and maintenance is well studied in the social movements literature. Identity is often seen as a strategic part of collective action, and is analyzed from a political process or resource mobilization perspective (Bernstein 2002, 1997). Because this approach lacks a solid semiotic foundation, meaning is treated as a property of communicative message, giving the impression that identity is arrived at entirely through rational deliberation of the political and social context in which the movement is located. Like framing, it fails to consider the complex dynamic nature of symbolic content. What is needed, then, is a semiotic approach to identity construction in social movements.
The dialogic perspective on collective identity construction begins with the notion of discourse as a form of mediated action. Text is produced as an interaction among actors in specific settings. Meaning does not adhere to words independently of their use, but rather, only through social interaction within a system of hierarchical relations. As a result, the concept of dialogue suggests contention, negotiation, and struggle rather than merely transparent communication.
Steinberg (1998) proposes "discursive field" be used to describe how meaning facilitates and constrains collective action. He notes that "such fields contain the genres that collective actors can draw upon to construct discursively diagnosis, prognosis, and motivation. They are historically and contextually dependent, partially structured through hegemony, and the vocabularies, symbols, and meanings within them are dialogic" (1998: 856). The notion of a field, in which the interpretation of collective action and shared identity takes place, suggests that the ways in which meaning-making promotes and inhibits action is not fully conscious or intentional. But neither is it entirely outside the control of the actors involved.
Meaning, from this perspective, necessarily involves power. Thompson (1990) sees ideology from a conflict perspective, explicitly linking discourse to domination. Legitimation concerns arguments that justify current arrangements on the basis of their sensibility or familiarity. Weber's (1946) classic view is incorporated into this formulation; claims that social practices or institutional arrangements are rational, conventional, or traditional are considered instances of this ideological discourse. Challenges to such claims may properly be referred to as counter-ideological, but for the present study, were included in the coding as end-points of the same underlying dimension.
Conceptual Network Analysis
Conceptual network analysis is a relatively new and under-utilized approach in the social scientific study of discourse. The goal is to construct a "mental map" based on coding of the semantic links among concepts (Carley 1997; Carley and Palmquist 1992). This diagram of conceptual relations reflects either a cognitive map of an individual's knowledge domain or a socio-cognitive map of a group's discourse. Using public discourse, the technique can be used to estimate the shared understanding of a domain among members of a social group. Palmquist, Carley, and Dale (1997) have used the technique to describe the common understanding about writing among students in an introductory composition course.
Network analysis allows the researcher to categorize the kinds of relationships between the ideas, or concepts, that comprise the building blocks of a text. Carley (1997) argues that concepts have meaning only in relation to other concepts. Two concepts can be linked directly or indirectly, resulting in local and extended networks. These relations may be measured along several dimensions, including imageability, evokability, density, conductivity and intensity. When concepts have been categorized on the basis of the latter three dimensions, a semantic taxonomy of the network can be constructed.
Concepts that are low on all three dimensions are called "ordinary." These concepts are isolated or marginal to the topic of a particular discourse, but comprise a majority of the network. In contrast, "symbols" are high on all three dimensions. These reflect the specific focus of the discourse. Carley (1997:89-90) notes, "The movement from ordinary concepts to symbols is a movement from concepts with very general purpose and highly personal meaning and that are very astructural to concepts that are highly relevant to the task at hand, have strong social meanings, and are highly structured." Arguments constructed with symbols are more substantial than arguments with other kinds of concepts.
Some concepts in a network are high on only one or two of the dimensions, reflecting various kinds of communicative power. "Prototypes," for example, have well defined meaning, but lack regular usage and consensus. "Buzzwords," in contrast, are common, but lack well defined meaning or consensus. Finally, "emblems" are common and consensual, but with narrowly defined meaning. The full taxonomy includes additional types that suggest other forms of usage. Discourses can be contrasted by highlighting differential features of their profile.
In the present study, I have taken a somewhat different approach. Using probabilistic relationships between concepts as the basis for links in the conceptual network, I have borrowed some of the key ideas of the structural analysis of networks in order to bring a new vocabulary to the discussion of discursive fields. By studying the development of the conceptual network over time, this research can show how conceptual hubs develop and describe how network properties such as fitness (see Albert and Berabasi 2002) gave direction to that development. The discursive field emerges out of the social context interacting with the structure of the conceptual network.
By using the structure of networks as one of the explanatory factors, conceptual network analysis has the potential of offering more than simply a description of discursive change. In addition, the causal agent for such change is not limited to the creative (or other) intentions of authors, but rather, is the result of opportunities within the discursive field, defined, in part, by the state of the conceptual network at a particular time. In other words, the play of meanings in the discursive field is not unlimited. Concepts are tools whose utility is restricted by the pattern of links to other concepts. In this way, we can perhaps grasp why it is that, as Foucault observed, not everything can be said at any particular moment. Thus, whereas meaning in language adheres to words and phrases, meaning in discourse is pragmatic (see Leetch 1983); it has to do with the situated perspectives of social agents and the pattern of their interactions.
METHOD
Texts were collected from black Abolitionist newspapers published in New York State. Probability samples were not constructed. Rather, texts were selected from published collections (Ripley 1985; Douglass and Blassingame 1979) and available microfilm reels at the New York Public Library's Schomberg Center for Research in black Culture. Four time periods were compared: (A) 1827-1829, (B) 1837-1842, (C) 1848-1855, and (D) 1859-1861. Because some of the newspapers were relatively short-lived, this time comparison is unavoidably conflated with editorial direction and authorship. For the most part, the samples come from five newspapers: (A) Rights of All and Freedom's Journal, both published in New York City; (B) The Colored American, published in New York City; (C) Frederick Douglass' Newspaper, published in Rochester; and, (D) The Weekly Anglo-African, published in New York City.
The sample for time A contained 126 paragraphs and more than 13,600 words. For time B, the sample included 170 paragraphs and more than 13,700 words. The sample for time C was largest, including 176 paragraphs and approximately 24,800 words. For time D, 103 paragraphs and about 9,500 words were included. In total, 575 paragraphs and more than 61,000 words were analyzed.
Content coding was undertaken using SemioCode, a software program designed for semiotic analysis (Shortell 2002). Because the focus of this research is on argumentation, rather than word meanings (that is, pragmatics rather than semantics), the paragraph was used as coding unit for all analysis. Concept coding was based on keyword matches. Thirteen concepts were selected, including WE, JUSTICE, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, UPLIFT, AMERICA, SLAVERY, BROTHERHOOD, BLACK, LABOR, CHARACTER, SUFFERING, and POLITICS. The first entity, which is a grammatical category, was included to capture references to the in-group in order to examine links with the content concepts. Properties of the conceptual network over time were calculated based on the patterns of links, expressed by probabilistic relations between concepts.
Next, rhetoric and ideology coding were completed. SemioCode uses weighted algorithms to code for specific kinds of complex semiotic content. Previous work has provided some support for this approach (Shortell in press a, in press b). In the present analysis, JEREMIAD was coded for rhetoric and LEGITIMATION for ideology.
The jeremiad rhetoric was defined as a combination of the dimensions America, politics, suffering, sin, god, and judgement. Keyword matches were used for the dimensions and a weighting algorithm evaluated whether the JEREMIAD was present based on the combination of breadth and density of content along these dimensions.
To code for ideology, keywords for the domain were generated, including power, status, rights, authority, government, economics, public, and inequality, among others. Keywords for six aspects of ideological arguments were generated, including legitimacy, sensibility, intelligence, tradition, popularity, and efficacy. Since ideology concerns meaning in the service of domination, only arguments about power, relations of authority, etc., can be considered ideological. I included economics and government in this domain because they imply power relations, even if not explicitly mentioned. Paragraphs in which the any of the domain keywords were found were coded for the six aspects of legitimation. Because not all aspects are equally important as indicators of the ideological dimension, a weighting algorithm was used in the coding.
Finally, exemplars were identified from each time period in order to illustrate some of the distinctive articulations at each stage of the development of the conceptual network. Paragraphs were identified based on the pattern of concept links that reflected the hubs of the network at each stage.
RESULTS
Table 1 shows the conceptual profile of the discourse at the four time periods. Some concepts, such as JUSTICE and EQUALITY were relatively rare, occurring in less that 6 percent of the paragraphs for each sample. Others, such as UPLIFT, BROTHERHOOD, and POLITICS were common, occurring in from 25 to 45 percent of the paragraphs in each sample. The grammatical category, WE, was most prevalent, as expected. The conceptual profile shows evidence of continuity and change. AMERICA, or SUFFERING, for example, appear in roughly the same proportion in each time period. On the other hand, there are significant increases and declines in prevalence. Some concepts, such as LIBERTY, SLAVERY, increase over time. Others, such as UPLIFT, decline. Still others fluctuate from period to period.
Table 2 displays the pattern of co-occurrence for BLACK with other concepts by time period. The odds ratio is a ratio of the cross product of the 2x2 contingency table (concept present or absent); it expresses the extent to which the odds of one theme are contingent on the condition of the other. Values larger than one indicate positive association (see Rudas 1998; Knoke and Burke 1980). For example, in Table 2, BLACK was about four times more likely to occur in a paragraph if JUSTICE is present than if JUSTICE is absent.
Again, there is both similarity and difference. BLACK and BROTHERHOOD significantly co-occur through the antebellum period under study. The same is true for BLACK and UPLIFT. BLACK and SLAVERY are contingent in the in the earlier periods, but not in the later ones. BLACK and SUFFERING are contingent in the earliest period, but not significantly so later.
Table 2 is of special interest as an indicator of the conceptual hub concerning collective identity. Several patterns suggest which kind of arguments were most essential to identity construction and maintenance. BLACK and UPLIFT, as well as BLACK and BROTHERHOOD give substance to the identity throughout the period. (The UPLIFT theme includes moral improvement and education--various avenues by which the community could elevate its standing.) BLACK was connected to SLAVERY early in the Abolitionist era, but not later. Instead, issues such as EQUALITY, LABOR and POLITICS are contingent with BLACK in the period immediately preceding the Civil War.
Table 3 shows the saturation of the conceptual network by time period. Saturation is a ratio of the number of existing links between a concept and the others to the total possible number of connections, if every concept were connected to every other one in every paragraph. Saturation may be interpreted as the probability that a concept will be connected to others in the network. As such, it is an approximation of the structural property of fitness. In a conceptual network, fitness is an important pragmatic (rather than semantic) property, because it suggests utility. Concepts that are needed in order to connect ideas out of which arguments are fashioned are more essential. The relative fitness of concepts is one possible constraint on the manner in which the discursive field may change over time.
The conceptual network is more saturated in the first and third periods than in the second and forth. The fitness values in the first period suggest what might be called a "self-help" orientation. (This is, of course, an anachronistic label.) The Protestant perfectionism that inspired reform movements in the first half of the nineteenth century has a distinctive conceptual profile. The emphasis on UPLIFT, CHARACTER and SUFFERING are signs of this perspective.
Though this is where the black Abolitionist discourse begins, it undergoes a transformation into the more recognizable political Abolitionism associated with Frederick Douglass. By the middle period of the movement, there is a complex association of concepts linking identity and claims themes. There is less emphasis on moral self-reform and more attention devoted to citizenship. Politics as a dimension of collective identity persists in the immediate pre-war period. Indeed, much of the other typical anti-slavery linkage is abandoned in favor of cultural concerns.
Table 4 shows the use of the jeremiad rhetoric. Using a conservative coding algorithm, the prevalence of the jeremiad is relatively low. It is more common in the early period, and again in the third period (from Frederick Douglass' Newspaper). It was quite uncommon in the immediate pre-war period. Because of the small number of possible co-occurrences, there were no significant contingencies with BLACK.
It may be more useful to adopt a somewhat looser interpretation of the jeremiad by looking at contingencies for BLACK with SLAVERY and SUFFERING. (This is probably better regarded as prophetic rhetoric rather than the jeremiad.) In this case, there is a significant contingency for the earliest period (Odds Ratio = 6.67, p < 0.01), but not for the later periods.
Table 5 displays the use of legitimation ideology. As would be expected from Thompson's (1990) view of ideology, the prevalence of legitimation in the anti-slavery discourse is quite high. Abolitionist arguments use concepts to contest the elements of the dominant discourse that connected race and slavery. In this protest movement, the community is saying "no" to the proposition that they consent to the order of things. Positive contingencies with BLACK were found for all time periods. It is clear that identity construction for the free black community could not avoid confronting the dominant, racist American worldview.
Using tables 2 and 3 as a guide, I have selected some exemplary passages that characterize black Abolitionist discourse across the time periods of the study.
1827-1829
If ignorance poverty and degradation have hitherto been our unhappy lot, has the Eternal decree gone forth that our race alone are to remain in this state while knowledge and civilization are shedding their enlivening rays over the rest of the human family? The recent travels of Denham and Clapperton in the interior of Africa and the interesting narrative which they have published, the establishment of the republic of Hayti after years of sanguinary warfare, its subsequent progress in all the arts of civilization, and the advancement of liberal ideas in South America where despotism has given place to free governments, and where many of our brethren now fill important civil and military stations prove the contrary.
When we reflect upon the apathy of the coloured population of the middle and eastern States with respect to education and refinements, when we see the coloured people of large towns and cities and throughout whole regions of highly improved country perfectly dead to the importance of improving their own mind and securing to their children the benefits of an enlarged education, our heart sickens within us. I ask why have we not a system of education established among us connecting by one strong chain--the common the grammar, the collegiate and the professional school, where every thing relating to a polished and useful education may be taught--why have we not mechanical institutions where our children may obtain a thorough knowledge of all the useful arts is because we have not the means? NO! It is because we grasp after flowers and neglect solid and wholesome fruits. Is there scarcely a family of any respectability among us who does not spend from ten to fifty dollars annually in unnecessary gratifications. Let us sacrifice, or rather, consecrate the means of these unnecessary and sometimes sinful indulgences to the lid of a sealed box for the purpose of education. It is truly said that knowledge is power,and let our coloured population once become as learned as refined and as wealthy as other classes of community, and prejudice will hide her face--the tyrants spell will be broken.
1837-1842
The reason why we have so many empty minds and idle hands is our deficiency of literary and scientific institutions. Where the acquirement of knowledge--mental and moral--is neglected, there the vices grow and luxuriate. As an evidence of this fact we leave only to go into certain parts of our city, which are cursed with tippling and gaming houses instead of being blessed with institutions of science and literature, and there we find all sorts and complexions of people living in ignorance and given tip to the practice of every vice.
Is it possible that this foolish thought of moral elevation suffers us to remain inactive. If so, than remain inactive and you but raise another generation of slaves and your children's children, to the last posterity, will spend their lives in as bitter oppression as ye do now today.
1848-1855
But in the national Constitution are incorporated some guarantees for freedom--the right of speech, the freedom of the press, the right of a citizen of one State to the privileges and immunities of citizenship in another State; these have been carried out extensively at the North; for although the hand of violence has been raised against those that should dare be so bold as to contend for a practical application of the principles of '76, the sons of the South may stand over the very graves of those who struggled and fell in defense of these principles, on the very spot enriched by their patriot blood, and insult their hallowed memory by declaring that "slavery is the cornerstone of democracy," that "all communities must settle down into classes of employers and laborers, and that the former will sooner or later own the latter" and, "and no hand of violence will be raised against them."
Allow me to present a few thoughts with regard to the position always held, as far as I know, by Ethiop, and recently taken, as I think, by Communipaw. I allude to their position of preserving and maintaining the African identity of the colored people of the United States. Did I not know personally "Ethiop" and "Communipaw," I should suspect that they were colonizationists in disguise, urging the colored people to preserve their identity with the African race, that thereby the propriety and necessity of African colonization might be made to appear most plain to all men, without dispute and without contradiction. This would so appear, first: because if the colored people are in fact Africans, what business, it may be asked, have these three millions of inferior degraded Africans here in the United States trying to mix themselves up with 24 or 30 millions of whites? You cannot mix nationalities, nor can you mix black and white; and if you could mix black and white, what benefit could possibly result to either party, while each would preserve its identity.
1859-1861
When Senator Seward, in his celebrated Rochester speech, alluded in distinct and emphatic terms to the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery, a wolfish howl leaped from the brazen throats of menstealers and their confederates all over the land. This illustrious statesman was denounced and vilified from one end of the Union to the other. Republicans began to inquire whether or not the prospective President of these United States had not, by his rather too bold utterances, placed himself in a dilemma from which he could not be extricated in time for election. Some of the weak-kneed brethren declared that Mr. Seward did not mean what he said, and in some "respectable" quarters an evisceration of the speech was attempted.
The Abolitionism of the North, so far from making war on, or being inimical to, the institution of slavery, has been for the last twenty years its great safety valve; the escape pipe through which the dangerous element incident to slavery found vent. Prior to the existence of Abolitionism, outbreaks and fearful mutterings and threatenings among slaves were frequent, and to the holders alarming. We can all trace back to the Nat Turners and the Denmark Veseys and others. The slave then had no hope of deliverance except by his own right arm, however feeble. He saw no farther, and believing that it was appointed to man but once to die, felt willing to do so or gain his liberty. But when Wm. Lloyd Garrison and his coadjutors enunciated the doctrines of Abolitionism and non-resistance, the slave received a new and far different lesson. He was taught to hope for deliverance--to feel that he was not forsaken nor forgotten--that some day, however distant, he would be enabled to lay aside his chains and be acknowledged a man. With these hopes the fierceness of his passions subsided, he agreed to submit to his hard task, and thenceforth up till recently but little comparative discontent has been manifested, and yet the South to this important fact has also been blind. Let them henceforth read Abolition journals and Abolition literature-let her read our paper, if she wishes to study and know the signs, and interpret the meaning thereof, as they appear in the moral horizon of the North, be wise.
DISCUSSION
Black Abolitionists generated a coherent, positive identity in the process of reporting on slavery and exhorting the nation to righteousness. As the conceptual network illustrates, black Abolitionist discourse shares many properties with other nineteenth century reform discourses. And yet, the specific moral claims asserted, and the collective identity of free blacks, gave the Abolitionist discourse its distinctive voice. The rhetoric and subject matter of commonplace public discourse were appropriated for the purpose of rallying Northern opinion against slavery.
At the same time, black Abolitionist discourse reveals its dependence on the Jacksonian worldview. It articulated criticisms of slavery based on normative beliefs about labor. Instead of a total rejection of American society, black Abolitionists reassured the majority that American blacks wanted to be Americans; even as they maintained solidarity with “their colored brothers in bondage.” Their complaints demanded change at the same time as they affirmed allegiance to the emerging liberal capitalist belief system.
The energy spent contesting the dominant attitudes about racial differences testifies to the power of the hegemonic view. Black Abolitionists asserted that oppression, rather than nature, determined their degraded state. Their arguments consented to the notion that race was a biological category--that Blacks were fundamentally alike, and as a group might achieve equality with whites--and underscored its importance in structuring American society. The idea that race was a social construction designed to perpetuate inequality was simply outside the discursive field.
The collective identity constructed in Abolitionist discourse changed over the thirty years of the movement, but without radical discontinuity. It may seem odd at first to consider that, over time, the conceptual link between the meaning of “blackness” (or, as the Abolitionists themselves would have put it, “coloredness”) and slavery loosened in favor of a more explicitly political interpretation. The role of opposition to slavery, as such, diminished relative to the need for a positive identity. Their claims to full humanity were expressed in challenges to the legitimation of racial hierarchy and a demand for political and civil rights. In a sense, the collective identity of free blacks moved from being defined principally by a quest for freedom from slavery to freedom from oppression, and from the assertion of being “not property” to a claim to citizenship.
Analysis of the conceptual network suggests that the initial perfectionist emphasis on self-improvement also gave way to concerns about politics and legal equality. The idea of moral elevation remained a part of black Abolitionist discourse throughout the antebellum period--and, indeed, is a prominent part of black public discourse at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The conceptual linkages opened up different subject positions as other concepts became connected to the central identity ideas: blackness and community.
Similarly, the jeremiad was a part of the black Abolitionist discursive repertoire throughout the life of the movement. It appears to have waxed and waned somewhat. This serves as an important reminder that not all forms of change in the discursive field should be interpreted as evolutionary. That is, the discourse isn't continually marching toward some unseen goal. The role of individual agency must be acknowledged. I suspect that the jeremiad would not have occurred as often during the years 1848-1855 were it not for the enormous oratorical talent of Douglass. His creativity was well suited to exploit the possibilities of this particular rhetoric. (The appearance of the jeremiad in the mid-twentieth century is also probably the result of an oratorical gift, that of Martin Luther King, Jr. Sánchez-Badillo (2002) has demonstrated the similarity of the two discourses, Abolitionist and Civil Rights.)
As expected, black Abolitionist discourse was thoroughly ideological (or, rather, counter-ideological). In order to create a space for the articulation of a positive identity, the taken-for-granted character of white racism had to be contested. In rendering the idea of an inevitable racial hierarchy problematic, black Abolitionists made their moral claims, for full humanity and civil rights, urgent and compelling. The fact that public opinion in the North shifted on slavery but not on race speaks more to the virulence of white prejudice than to the ineffectiveness of blacks' collective identity construction.
The present analysis has made progress in the development of a vocabulary for accounting for changes in social movement discourse. As such, it is an important step forward in the "discursive turn" of social movements theory. Rather than simply describing how black Abolitionist arguments changed from 1827 to 1861, I have attempted to identify some of the structural characteristics that shaped the nature and extent of that change. Analysis of movement discourse as a kind of network promises the possibility of an explanation of social semiotics that is independent of particular social agents, but at the same time, does not require a questionable commitment to communication as a fully rational and transparent process. Network analysis is still in its infancy, and a full set of analytical concepts and metaphors is yet to be developed. None the less, conceptual network analysis shows great potential.
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Table 1. Percent of Paragraphs Containing Concepts.
|
|
Time Period |
|
||||
|
Concepts |
1827-1829 |
1837-1842 |
1848-1855 |
1859-1861 |
p < |
|
|
BLACK |
26.2 |
34.7 |
23.9 |
21.4 |
n.s. |
|
|
WE |
60.3 |
60.0 |
50.6 |
44.7 |
0.05 |
|
|
JUSTICE |
5.6 |
4.1 |
5.1 |
2.9 |
n.s. |
|
|
LIBERTY |
19.8 |
11.2 |
26.1 |
32.0 |
0.001 |
|
|
EQUALITY |
4.0 |
3.5 |
4.0 |
5.8 |
n.s. |
|
|
UPLIFT |
38.1 |
38.2 |
28.4 |
17.5 |
0.001 |
|
|
AMERICA |
27.8 |
21.2 |
31.7 |
20.4 |
0.05 |
|
|
SLAVERY |
15.9 |
21.2 |
40.3 |
37.9 |
0.001 |
|
|
BROTHER |
36.5 |
42.9 |
30.7 |
22.3 |
0.01 |
|
|
LABOR |
8.7 |
14.4 |
13.6 |
10.7 |
n.s. |
|
|
CHARACTER |
20.6 |
19.4 |
27.8 |
11.7 |
n.s. |
|
|
SUFFER |
19.8 |
18.2 |
21.6 |
16.5 |
n.s. |
|
|
POLITICS |
41.3 |
21.2 |
34.7 |
30.1 |
0.01 |
|
|
Paragraphs |
126 |
170 |
176 |
103 |
||
Table 2. Odds of Co-occurrence for BLACK and Other Concepts.
|
|
Time Period |
|||
|
Concepts |
1827-1829 |
1837-1842 |
1848-1855 |
1859-1861 |
|
BLACK and: |
26.2% a |
34.7% a |
23.9% a |
21.3% a |
|
WE |
4.04 ** |
1.66 |
1.42 |
6.10 *** |
|
JUSTICE |
4.14 |
2.62 |
2.76 |
8.00 |
|
LIBERTY |
5.49 *** |
1.11 |
1.18 |
2.68 * |
|
EQUALITY |
1.94 |
1.93 |
1.29 |
23.53 *** |
|
UPLIFT |
3.00 ** |
2.25 * |
2.75 ** |
7.60 *** |
|
AMERICA |
4.43 *** |
3.05 ** |
2.94 ** |
1.65 |
|
SLAVERY |
3.61 ** |
3.54 *** |
1.01 |
1.49 |
|
BROTHER |
2.79 * |
3.13 *** |
4.02 *** |
3.31 * |
|
LABOR |
3.91 * |
1.73 |
0.82 |
8.98 *** |
|
CHARACTER |
4.00 ** |
1.76 |
1.63 |
1.26 |
|
SUFFER |
3.52 ** |
1.46 |
1.66 |
1.16 |
|
POLITICS |
0.76 |
4.12 *** |
0.80 |
3.05 * |
|
Paragraphs |
126 |
170 |
176 |
103 |
Notes: a Percentage of paragraphs in which BLACK occurs.
* p < 0.05
** p < 0.01
*** p < 0.001
Table 3. Saturation of Conceptual Network.
|
|
Time Period |
|||
|
Concepts |
1827-1829 |
1837-1842 |
1848-1855 |
1859-1861 |
|
BLACK |
0.093 |
0.097 |
0.078 |
0.069 |
|
WE |
0.218 |
0.180 |
0.219 |
0.163 |
|
JUSTICE |
0.038 |
0.014 |
0.036 |
0.021 |
|
LIBERTY |
0.093 |
0.047 |
0.098 |
0.086 |
|
EQUALITY |
0.041 |
0.011 |
0.022 |
0.028 |
|
UPLIFT |
0.111 |
0.104 |
0.098 |
0.063 |
|
AMERICA |
0.111 |
0.071 |
0.119 |
0.074 |
|
SLAVERY |
0.065 |
0.072 |
0.119 |
0.096 |
|
BROTHER |
0.114 |
0.112 |
0.097 |
0.066 |
|
LABOR |
0.048 |
0.057 |
0.062 |
0.034 |
|
CHARACTER |
0.102 |
0.076 |
0.108 |
0.049 |
|
SUFFER |
0.086 |
0.066 |
0.103 |
0.053 |
|
POLITICS |
0.097 |
0.077 |
0.111 |
0.091 |
|
Paragraphs |
126 |
170 |
176 |
103 |
Note: Saturation represents the ratio of the total number of links for a concepts to the total possible links, if every concept were connected to every other theme in every paragraph..
Table 4. Profile of Jeremiad Rhetoric.
|
|
Time Period |
|||
|
|
1827-1829 |
1837-1842 |
1848-1855 |
1859-1861 |
|
Prevalence of JEREMIAD |
6.3% |
2.9% |
6.3% |
1.9% |
|
Odds of BLACK and JEREMIAD |
1.76 |
- |
0.69 |
3.81 |
|
Paragraphs |
126 |
170 |
176 |
103 |
Notes: Prevalence is indicated by the percentage of paragraphs in which JEREMIAD occurs. A dash indicates that the odds ratio could not be calculated.
* p < 0.05
** p < 0.01
*** p < 0.001
Table 5. Profile of Legitimation Ideology.
|
|
Time Period |
|||
|
|
1827-1829 |
1837-1842 |
1848-1855 |
1859-1861 |
|
Prevalence of LEGITIMATION |
36.5% |
33.5% |
43.2% |
36.9% |
|
Odds of BLACK and LEGITIMATION |
5.75 *** |
2.27 * |
2.73 ** |
3.24 * |
|
Paragraphs |
126 |
170 |
176 |
103 |
Notes: Prevalence is indicated by the percentage of paragraphs in which LEGITIMATION occurs.
* p < 0.05
** p < 0.01
*** p < 0.001