Claiming Exodus: A Cultural History of Afro-Atlantic Identity, 1774-1903

4. Exodus, the Civil War, and Reconstruction (1861–1877)

83 CHAPTER FoUR Exodus, the Civil War, and Reconstruction (1861–1877) Abraham Lincoln and not Jeff. Davis becomes the Pharaoh of the mystic Egypt. —Henry M. Turner, “The Plagues of This Country” Lincoln was mild, and meek and good, Like Moses who on Pisgah stood; He thought upon the peaceful plan, That must take place throughout the land. —Jacob Rhodes, “The Nation’s Loss: A Poem on the Life and Death of the Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Late President of the United States, Who Departed This Life, in Washington, D.C., April 15, 1865” I feel as if I could laugh to scorn all the long line of malignant slave traders who have defiled and devastated this wretched coast of Africa, and fling in their teeth the gracious retort of Joseph: “As for you, ye thought evil against us, but God meant it unto good, to save much people alive.” —Alexander Crummell, “A Sermon, Preached in Trinity Church, Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa, to the Barbadian Emigrants, May 14, 1865” We have a woman in our country who has received the name of “Moses,” not by lying about it, but by acting it out (applause)—a woman who has gone down into the Egypt of slavery and brought out hundreds of our people into liberty. —Frances E. W. Harper, “We Are All Bound Up Together” 84 CLAIMING ExoDUS During the early 1860s, the events leading to the outbreak of the Civil War compelled African American activists, white abolitionists, proslavery advocates , and white writers to develop distinct Exodus narratives to advance their disparate agendas for emancipating or subjugating African Americans. Economic policy disparities between the North and South, particularly taxation, continuing disagreement regarding states’ rights and slavery, and the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln were the major catalysts for secession in South Carolina, which eventually led eleven states to withdraw from the Union. As the crisis intensified, African American writers maintained their reliance on Exodus to demand liberty and civil rights. Antislavery activists still turned to the story to augment their efforts to end slavery and elevate freedmen, primarily through moral suasion, and to counteract the proslavery argument that cited Mosaic law as justification for the continued existence of human bondage. White authors remained invested in the biblical story to establish themselves as God’s New Israel and promote westward expansion. While many white Americans prospered in their Canaan, however, African Americans languished in oppressive Egypt-like conditions within the young republic. Although the North took up arms against the secessionist South, they did not immediately advocate equal treatment of African Americans. Nevertheless , the Civil War and Reconstruction encouraged African American activists and their supporters to create fragile, short-lived new national Exodus narratives for both white and black citizens. President Lincoln proved unreliable, however, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation for enslaved African Americans in Confederate states, but also publicly advocating colonization and initially banning the recruitment of African Americans for the Union Army. African Americans variously viewed Lincoln as Pharaoh and Moses, depending on the stances he took toward emancipation and the elevation of slaves and freedmen. But the assassination of Lincoln brought him Mosaic martyrdom and ushered the nation to the brink of unprecedented unity in a reconstructed republic. other writers anointed figures such as Andrew Johnson as Joshuas who could facilitate the nation’s transition into its new status as Canaan. In the biblical narrative, Exodus required leaving the land of bondage and included the destruction of former oppressors. African Americans faced the daunting challenge of transforming their Egypt into a promised land still populated by proslavery advocates who had been forced to abandon a way of life they had been willing to die to maintain and presided over by politicians like the duplicitous Johnson, whose fidelity to the freedmen was questionable. Ultimately, the failure of Reconstruction under Johnson’s ExoDUS, THE CIVIL WAR, AND RECoNSTRUCTIoN 85 leadership led to the revival of the three-pronged approach to American Exodus stories. African Americans reappropriated the biblical narrative to reformulate their struggle for citizenship and search for new leadership to revitalize their protracted journey to an American promised land. Exodus and Slavery on the Eve of the Civil War The secession crisis of 1861 revived and intensified the controversy regarding Exodus and slavery. New, influential voices from the North and Europe figured prominently in the debate. In “The Bible View of Slavery” (1861), a sermon delivered on the “day of...