In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

100 Chapter 3 African Americans, Emancipation, and Military Service IncontrasttoslaveryandthedoctrineoftheDredScottcasethatblacks“hadnorights which the white man was bound to respect,” federal law began to acknowledge the personhood and rights of African Americans during the Civil War. The Confiscation ActsandEmancipationProclamationsoughttoremoveslavesfromtheirConfederate owners, and the Union armed forces began to enlist African American soldiers in the army. On one hand, blacks saw this as a great moment of hope—as Frederick Douglass pronounced, “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters U. S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on the earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.”1 On the other hand, prejudice persisted in the army. Inequality in pay led to low morale and protests among the black troops, but their ultimate success on this issue proved to be one of the first civil rights victories borne by African American action. Due process under the same military code applied to white soldiers marked general courts-martial of black soldiers, creating a model for future equal treatment. In the end, the service of nearly 200,000 black troops created a corps of civil rights leaders. The following documents are exceptional not only in how they show that black military service affected legal history and constitutional law but because they emphasize the profoundly personal effects of these legal changes. Moreover, the choice to enlist in the armed forces compelled soldiers, families, and communities to consider, often for the first time, the issues of individual allegiance and identity. Few slaves, for example, likely considered before the war whether they owed allegiance to any nation—and if they did, to what nation they owed it. Even free-born blacks in the North found themselves excluded, by Chief Justice Roger Taney’s decision in Dred Scott, from national citizenship. The choices involved in deciding whether to volunteer for the federal armed forces, or to support the Union in other ways, forced blacks to confront and determine the issue of their personal allegiance. The black military experience in the Civil War was, in the words of Ira Berlin, a “complex, ambiguous experience,” one that included pervasive racism at the same time it advanced black claims to the rights and privileges of citizenship.2 Moreover, African Americans and Military Service 101 military success or failure defined public support on Republican policies, including emancipation, so that by helping advance the Union cause, blacks also fueled acceptance for an agenda they supported. For blacks, military service shattered the old order, necessitated the end of slavery, and fueled demands and expectations for rights and inclusion. A process of change and validation took place in the camps of African American soldiers, and blacks asserted their belief that serving in the military affirmed their admission to equality and citizenship.Whilesomeblacksmayhaveenlistedforfinancialmotivationsorbecause ofconscriptionbyfederalagents,manyothers joinedthearmyforpoliticalreasonsor grew to understand that their service had broader significance and meaning. Moments that instilled in blacks pride or symbolized their admittedly incomplete integration into the fabric of American society—from flag presentation ceremonies to proving valor on the battlefield, from exchanging slave garb for the soldier’s uniform to the exhilaration of helping strike slavery’s death blow—generated confidence within African American soldiers that manifested itself in political ways. By the war’s conclusion, a little over 178,000 blacks served in the Union army and between 10,000 and 18,000 more in the Union navy. Success as to some issues, such as the struggle for equal pay, awarded black soldiers with self-affirming victories that acknowledged their change in status and sharpened developing leadership qualities, something that carried forward into a reenergized black convention movement during and after the war. While racism in the army undeniably persisted throughout the Civil War era, this period also presented an opportunity for change upon which blacks eagerly seized. Black military service during the Civil War bore a long-lasting and positive impact. In the 1860s, African American leaders and tens of thousands of black soldiers in blue built on the theme that their service to the Republic affirmed and guaranteed their citizenship. The erosion during Reconstruction and beyond of some of the civil rights victories gained during the Civil War era does not diminish the successes won at that point and the template for future action and argument that blacks molded. 1. An Act to suppress...

Share