Race and Rights: Fighting Slavery and Prejudice in the Old Northwest, 1830–1870

7 / The Potential for Radical Change: The Turbulent 1850s, the Civil War, and Resilient Racism

7 / The Potential for Radical Change: The Turbulent 1850s, the Civil War, and Resilient Racism The universe possesses no power that can elevate error into the dignity of right. —the illinois state convention of colored men, galesburg, october 1866 The Old Northwest’s racialized laws were the “error[s]” the Illinois Convention noted, which remained unresolved when they met, and indeed continued beyond 1870. Much as this history opened with an examination of the context of race and law in the Old Northwest, so in closing it explores how these same problems remained formidable from the 1850s through 1870, while slavery disintegrated. From the 1850s on, Old Northwest activists combated the “Black Laws” and other racially biased laws with an expanded set of tools, including fugitive slave aid, vigilance committees, and personal liberty laws. They also carried on using the pen, the press, petitions, lobbying, court cases, and the Black Convention Movement as they sought to create a more egalitarian world. The latter movement had its own limitations, however, as African American women found when they joined it. While anti-prejudice activism had been continual since the 1830s, the changes in the nation and the region presented reformers with new challenges . Partisan politics held the key to many of these shifts. Although plenty of people had opposed African American rights (much as they objected to abolition) for partisan reasons since at least the 1830s, over time these pressures had grown. The country’s increasing threat to fracture along sectional lines held the key for many who sought to maintain the Old Northwest’s racial status quo. The pressure to contain political change and shifts in rights was substantial, especially as the debate over slavery’s expansion heated up in the mid-1850s, and afterward. Even following the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, Old Northwest the potential for radical change / 201 activists faced down persistent legal bias against African Americans in the region. Across numerous northern communities, abolition and racial equality were unpopular ideas, to be sure, but the racial attitudes toward African Americans and the legal obstacles to their rights in the Old Northwest made activism all the more difficult there. The actions that framed reform activities in the Old Northwest—the “Black Laws,” the constraints they imposed, and action against them—reveal how and why people so strongly resisted change in this region. While race relations in the Old Northwest—and their interactions with partisan politics—have generally not received as much attention as other areas, when they have been studied the historical pendulum has swung widely. Recent efforts to refute the region’s racism, which historians had established in older works, go too far. Specifically, while Ohio repealed some of its “Black Laws” in the 1840s and some Republican politicians may have gained ground in the 1850s, the changes were largely superficial, and conditions were at least as inequitable for African Americans later. Thus the claim that the region was “against slavery” in a way that entailed reduced hostility to African Americans falls apart under closer investigation. Republican politicians—among whom there were few race radicals in the Old Northwest—did not represent the tenor of opinion on race in Ohio or the region. While such politicians occasionally took progressive racial positions, they were but a small subset of the region’s population, and one with only a tenuous hold on political power.1 The Old Northwest may have become the birthplace of many a subsequent president and of a number of important Republican politicians , but the majority of white residents of these four states continued their strong commitment to racial distinctions through Reconstruction and even after.2 In fact, more continuity characterizes the situation of race and rights in Ohio and in the region as a whole. Activists actually only somewhat eroded the “Black Laws” in wartime. Even as the Civil War’s inception helped Old Northwest African Americans make some slow progress, they seldom found welcome, and had to persevere in the fight for the basic rights that the federal government had newly guaranteed them. Reformers faced the increasing threats of the 1860s with an accelerating tone of militancy among both African American and whites.3 During the war and after, they expanded their efforts to repeal northern “Black Laws” and improve their status, even as most of the citizens of the Old Northwest held tight to racial stratification. 202 / the potential...