Foundation
I. Three-Fifths of the Man
It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind. 2
Published beginning in October 1787 in New York's Independent Journal, The Federalist Papers were a series of essays written to convince the voters in the New York Ratification Convention to ratify the Constitution of the United States. Although originally published under the pseudonym "Publius," it is now known that these essays were composed by three of our country's most prominent statesman: James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The excerpt above, taken from the first of the eighty-five papers, expresses not only Hamilton's sense of the grand historic nature of this project - to fail would be to "the general misfortune of mankind" - but also, to a certain extent, its tenuous foundation. This is understandable. Although, as demonstrated throughout the Federalist Papers, there was no lack of theoretical rigor or rhetorical prowess in the reasoning behind the Constitution, there was certainly a lack of relevant experience with democratic government. In fact, it was, conversely, the experience of the un-democratic nature of the aristocracy and nobility of Britain and other countries across the world that led these writers to theorize "a more perfect Union." This theoretical model was a response to their direct experiences of oppression, tyranny, intolerance and injustice, and thus held at its core the contrary concepts of equality, liberty, and justice. Although the course of politics over the past 200 years has led us to take these ideas for granted as the prerequisites for legitimate government, at the time they truly represented a radical shift in thoughts about social systems and distribution of power. For us to speak the words equality, liberty and justice for all in conjunction with America and democracy is common place; for them to put into place an American democracy that lived up to the values of equality, liberty and justice for all was a bold experiment.
However, the argument put forth through the Federalist Papers was not just the untangling of a theoretical problem, it also represented the negotiation of a political problem. Considering the diverse interests among the states at the time, certain concessions needed to be made to get the Constitution ratified. This creates a real tension in the text between the theory and the practice; a tension between the egalitarian principles of democracy and the concessions needed for ratification which in certain cases contradicted those principles. A notable example of this - and one that is central for the framework of this unit - involves the treatment in the Papers of the issue of slavery in the South. The profound injustice and moral offense that slavery represents seems to have no place in a democracy. And yet the desire to bring Southern states into the union necessitated a compromise. It seems obvious that this issue should merit a significant discussion in the text. Yet of the eighty-five papers, only one addresses the issue of slavery with any depth. In Paper #54, titled "The Same Subject Continued with a View to the Ratio of Representation," Madison discusses a plan for representation among the Southern states within the House of Representatives. What is unique, and telling, about this paper is the writing style that Madison employs. Rather than offering up the usual argument / counter argument that typifies much of the text, Madison quickly dissociates his voice. After introducing the question of whether slaves should be counted as property (for purposes of taxation) or persons (for expanded representation) he pulls back and writes from the perspective of his hypothetical "southern brethren." Speaking in that voice he proposes:
The true state of the case is that they partake of both these qualities. . . . In being compelled to labor . . . . . the slave may appear to be degraded from the human rank, and classed with those irrational animals which fall under the legal denomination of property . . . In being protected in life and limbs, and punished for violent acts . . . the slave is no less evidently regarded by the law as a member of the society, not as a part of the irrational creation; as a moral person, not as a mere article of property. The federal Constitution, therefore, decides with great propriety on the case of our slaves, when it views them in the mixed character of persons and property. This is in fact their true character. 3
This line of argument concludes with the declaration that "regards the slave as divested of two fifths of the man." Madsion then ends this paper by bringing his voice back and offering a tentative recommendation of the Southerner's point of view:
Such is the reasoning which an advocate for the Southern interests might employ on this subject; and although it may appear to be a little strained in some points, yet, on the whole, I must confess that it fully reconciles me to the scale of representation which the convention have established. 4
Put in the context of the Federalist Papers, #54 is atypical and a truly awkward piece of writing. At several levels the central argument is buried. It is surrounded by quotes, spoken in a fictional voice, half-heartedly supported, embedded in paper whose title gives little hint to the controversial nature of the topic, and then not brought up again. All of this suggests that Madison was uncomfortable with the issue.
What is interesting to consider is that the argument was probably not an unfamiliar one to him. In fact there are several examples of similar reasoning on racial differences used among prominent thinkers from the enlightenment. Writing in 1742, David Hume in his essay "Of National Characters" states:
I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences . . . In JAMAICA indeed they talk of one negro as a man of parts and learning; but 'tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly. 5
In 1764 Immanuel Kant in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime reacts to and expands upon Hume's ideas:
The Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling. Mr. Hume challenges anyone to cite a single example in which a Negro has shown talents . . . So fundamental is the difference between these two races of man, and it appears to be as great in regard to mental capacities as in color. The religion of fetishes so widespread among them is perhaps a sort of idolatry that sinks as deeply into the trifling as appears to be possible to human nature. A bird's feather, a cow's horn, a conch shell, or any other common object, as soon as it becomes consecrated by a few words, is an object of veneration and of invocation in swearing oaths. The blacks are very vain but in the Negro's way, and so talkative that they must be driven apart from each other with thrashings. 6
Considering this context, Madison's argument can be read as a continuation of this tradition. However, as discussed above, his presentation seems awkward and tentative. This is certainly due to the hypocrisy the slavery argument represented within the context of this treatise on democracy. While both the race argument and the political theory behind the Constitution were products of Enlightenment thought, their direct juxtaposition within the Federalist Papers creates an awkward tension. It presents a real problem when Madison, in Federalist #51, unequivocally states, "Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit" 7; and then three papers later declares that he is "reconciled" to the belief that blacks are but three-fifths of a man. That Madison tried to side step the slave issue was understandable considering the political context. Unfortunately, it was not a problem that was going to disappear.
Writing almost fifty years after the Federalist Papers and the ratification of the Constitution, the French social scientist Alexis de Tocqueville in his epic work Democracy in America makes some critical observations concerning the issue of slavery in the Southern United States. In certain respects his presentation of this topic is similar to Madison's. For example, like Madison, his reflection on slavery is buried in one chapter subsection of a 700-page book. And, like Madison, when he does address it, he falls back on very similar language that classifies Blacks as "being intermediate between beast and man." 8 However, what makes Tocqueville's argument interesting is his discussion of the problem of slavery in American Democracy and his elaboration on the possible outcomes of this contradiction. Among these he mentions (1) the "danger of a violent conflict," which, he suggests "is a nightmare constantly haunting the American imagination"; 9 (2) the idea of separation or "transporting to the guinea coast at their expense such free Negroes as wished to escape the tyranny weighing down upon them"; 10 or finally (3) miscegenation, that is "to free the negroes and to mingle with them." 11 What is not presented is a solution that involves equality and black enfranchisement into democracy. In fact he clearly states, "I do not think that the white and black races will ever be brought anywhere to live on a footing of equality." 12 Along those lines, Tocqueville concludes his argument with a grim prediction:
Whatever efforts the Americans of the South make to maintain slavery, they will not forever succeed. Slavery is limited to one point on the globe and attacked by Christianity as unjust and by political economy as fatal; slavery, amid the democratic liberty and enlightenment of our age, is not an institution that can last. Either the slave or the master will put an end to it. In either case great misfortunes are to be anticipated. If freedom is refused to the Negroes in the South, in the end they will seize it themselves; if it is granted to them, they will not be slow to abuse it. 13
American democracy was a radical experiment. Hamilton opened Federalist #1 with "the important question:" that is, "whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice." 14 On paper, the Constitution and its defense in the Federalist Papers seems well reasoned enough for us to believe that 'yes, we are capable.' However, hidden within (and behind (and as a uncomfortable footnote to)) the primary texts of American democracy, is the supreme injustice of slavery. It was a contradiction that could not go unaddressed. For the framers of the Constitution to do little more than stand silent on the issue undoubtedly, and significantly, changed the course of American history and world history. And in this respect I think Tocqueville is correct: there were inevitably "great misfortunes" to come. Where Tocqueville's argument fails, in my assessment, is in its lack of hope in regards to the enfranchisement of Blacks into the promise of American democracy. And that failure is rooted in his acceptance of the argument for racial differences.
Returning for a moment to those arguments, their claim is that Blacks are inherently inferior to whites, comparable, in ways, to beasts. The empirical evidence used to support this claim is the writer's perception of Blacks' lack of learning or culture. Hume states, "No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences." Kant adds a second dimension of evidence by citing what he perceives as the deficiency of the culture they do exhibit: "A bird's feather, a cow's horn, a conch shell, or any other common object, as soon as it becomes consecrated by a few words, is an object of veneration and of invocation in swearing oaths." The implied warrant for this argument is that the humanity of a given racial group is measured by the degree to which they express European standards of high culture. The logical flaws of this argument are multiple, and its moral implications are offensive, especially considering its use as a rationalization for "thrashings," slavery and oppression. It rests on questionable assumptions about race, culture, notions of humanity, justice and justifications for violence. And yet it leads to an important question. If this is part of the rational foundation for the political walls that kept blacks disenfranchised from democracy, in what ways does it suggest a solution to the problem of "the Black Race in the United States" that Tocqueville presents?
II. Spiritual Strivings
Seventy years after Tocqueville, W.E.B. Du Bois opens his collection of essays The Souls of Black Folk by asking the question that he claims America is afraid to ask to the African American: "How does it feel to be a problem?" 15 His response to this question culminates with a very personal and poignant description of how the tension between America's ideals and America's reality affects the psyche of the African American.
the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, — a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. 16
What is especially useful here is that by shifting the perspective on the problem from white (Hume, Kant, Madison, Tocqueville) to black (Du Bois), the issue is complicated in ways that help us imagine solutions. Part of this involves the way Du Bois clarifies the oppressive experience of being the subject (person) / object (property) of racial prejudice. In this, the metaphor of the veil seems particularly appropriate. Was is it the veil between white and black that led many white writers to blindness and silence on the issue? Was it the veil that, when they did see, led them to see only three-fifths of the man? By taking the problem and externalizing it, Du Bois deconstructs the idea of racial difference as being in anyway natural; a veil is something that can be removed. Furthermore, he takes the experience of the white man's gaze and develops it as a potentially empowering African American identity. For the gaze not only imposes a veil; it also gifts the African American with "double-consciousness," with "a second-sight in this American world." 17 While being pushed by the gaze from the center surely leads to a loss of social and political power for African Americans, it also allows for a critical liminal perspective on America's injustice that is lost from those who benefit from their central status. We could say that Madison and Tocqueville struggled and failed to theorize a solution to the problem because they lacked that second-sight.
Another important point to make about Du Bois, is that at the heart of his writing is an unwavering commitment to the dream of American democracy. It seems that the long history of injustice against Blacks, and his personal experiences of living behind the veil would have engendered anger towards whites and made him cynical about the American system of government. However, his writing expresses a reverence for American ideals and a hope for racial reconciliation.
Work, culture, liberty, — all these we need, not singly but together, not successively but together, each growing and aiding each, and all striving toward that vaster ideal that swims before the Negro people, the ideal of human brotherhood, gained through the unifying ideal of Race; the ideal of fostering and developing the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to or contempt for other races, but rather in large conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic, in order that some day on American soil two world-races may give each to each those characteristics both so sadly lack. We the darker ones come even now not altogether empty-handed: there are to-day no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes. 18
One effect of Du Bois' argument is to centralize the importance of Blacks to America. At one level he does this by claiming that African Americans are the clearest examples of the "pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence." Who better understands the experience of resistance to oppression and tyranny upon which our country was founded? He also suggests in the passage above that the realization of the ideals of the American Republic requires an exchange between races. Although he doesn't specifically elaborate on this, he presents the idea that there are important qualities to successful democracy that both black and white "sadly lack." Only an equal exchange between them will allow the races, together, to fulfill the promise of America. Along these lines, he concludes his essay:
Merely a test of the underlying principles of the great republic is the Negro Problem, and the spiritual striving of the freedmen's sons is the travail of souls whose burden is almost beyond the measure of their strength, but who bear it in the name of an historic race, in the name of this the land of their fathers' fathers, and in the name of human opportunity. 19
For Du Bois the fate of the African American people is critically intertwined with the fate of American democracy. And his analysis of the problem makes both black and white responsible for its resolution. To realize the promise of America is not just a matter of white folks changing the legal barriers to the enfranchisement of Blacks, or about the more difficult task of changing their racial attitudes that create the veil. For Du Bois, it is just as important that Black people step up to take action on their "spiritual strivings" despite the overwhelming burdens of injustice.
Du Bois, writing in the very beginning of the 20 th century, was a central figure in a broad community of African American intellectuals who were making arguments about Black empowerment at the time. Although these writers were in no way unified in their analysis of the causes of injustice or in their message about how to respond, they did share a common goal of lifting the black race and its issues into the center of public discourse. Consequently, Du Bois' call for African Americans to fulfill their spiritual strivings was echoed by others and led to an explosion of publications. Magazines appeared such as Opportunity, edited by sociologist Charles S. Johnson; Messenger, by socialists A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen; Negro World, by black nationalist Marcus Garvey; and The Crisis by Du Bois. In addition, there was a tremendous increase in the number of volumes of poetry, essays, plays, and works of fiction and non-fiction published. Writing in 1921, James Weldon Johnson, in his famous preface to his anthology, The Book of Negro Poetry writes,
The matter of Negro poets and the production of literature by the colored people . . . is a matter which has a direct bearing on the most vital of American problems. A people may become great through many means, but there is only one measure by which its greatness is recognized and acknowledged. The final measure of the greatness of all peoples is the amount and standard of the literature and art they have produced. The world does not know that a people is great until that people produces great literature and art. No people that has produced great literature and art has ever been looked upon by the world as distinctly inferior. 20
This brings us back once more to the argument concerning the racial inferiority of Africans. Johnson seems to be directly addressing this argument by affirming its warrant - 'yes, the measure of a people's greatness is related to the quantity and quality of their cultural production' - but then challenging its evidence and claim by offering his anthology of African American poetry. As the African American writers, artists, academics, and musicians took their place and asserted their voice in the public sphere, the argument about Black inferiority slowly crumbled. And Johnson goes further to suggest boldly that not only is the work of the Black artists a legitimate part of American culture, but also that Blacks are responsible for "the only things artistic that have yet sprung from American soil and been universally acknowledged as distinctive American products." 21 Like Du Bois, Johnson sees the cultural production of Blacks not just a part of America, but perhaps as the quintessential expression of America.
III. Poets' Voices
There is a tension in the discussion and critique of African-American literature between reading works through the lens of race, or simply reading them as expressions of the human experience. In "Talking Books" the introduction to the 2004 Norton Anthology of African-American Literature, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay develop this idea: "The social and political uses to which this literature has been put have placed a tremendous burden on these writers, casting an author and her or his works in the role of synecdoche, a part standing for the ethnic whole." 22 In truth, it is hard to make generalizations about the work of African American writers. Their content, thematic focus, literary forms, aesthetic sensibilities, and explicit address of politics span a broad spectrum. To identify a singular African American style or singular African American voice would be impossible. For the purposes of this project, I am interested in assembling a diverse collection of literary work that is unified in the way it resonates with the arguments that have been laid out in sections one and two of this foundation. In certain respects, all work published by African Americans, meet this criteria. Each work is a cultural product that stands as a challenge to the argument of racial prejudice. However, what I am more interested in is writing which in its content is directly political; specifically, I am interested in writing that explicitly addresses the contradictions between the rhetoric and reality of American democracy. In this section I'd like to discuss several examples to hint at the range of voices even within this thematic subsection of writing.
Jamaican born Claude McKay is often considered one of the first writers of the Harlem Renaissance, and his work embodies the complicated negotiation of the split African-American identity. While some of his poems, such as "The Tropics in New York" and "Flame-Heart," are read as genteel and culturally uplifting nostalgic reflections on his youth in Jamaica, others take the form of sharp indictments of racial injustice and bigotry in America. In his poem "The White House" published in 1922 he writes,
Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
A chafing savage, down the decent street;
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate
Against the potent poison of your hate. 23
The speaker of this poem struggles to suppress the violent impulse to attack the system that has spread its "potent poison" and shut the door in his face. There is a sense in which his commitment "to hold to the letter of your law" is extremely fragile. This poem certainly resonates with Tocqueville's suggestion that violent conflict is a "nightmare constantly haunting the American imagination" and with Du Bois' suggestion that "an educated negro" is "a dangerous negro." McKay constructs a powerful image of African-American anger that seems likely to explode at any moment. This tension between passion and restraint is reinforced by his choice of the sonnet, a classic western poetic form that is strictly dictated by a set of rules. McKay, while giving voice to his "savage" impulse to take such violent action, ultimately draws on his pride, courage, grace, and the sonnet form to contain his passions.
Like McKay, Langston Hughes wrote a number of poems that struggled with the contradictions of American democracy. However, in both form and content his resolution of the contradiction was very different. In his poem, "Let America be America Again" he writes,
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars? 24
It is easy to see the direct influence of Du Bois on Hughes. Not only does Hughes use the imagery of the veil, but the poem speaks in multiple voices that depict "two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings" and seems to reflect the idea of double-consciousness. And while the poem has some formal elements of regular rhyme and meter, they are not consistent as in McKay's poem. Hughes sets up the regularity of the verse only to break it with the conflicting voices. While this poem suggests the hypocrisy of the American system, it is ultimately a much more optimistic poem than "The White House." Like Du Bois, Hughes wants to believe in America as the land where "equality is in the air we breathe."
For a final example, I'd like to return to James Weldon Johnson. Certainly one of the most famous examples of poetic verse written on the theme of the African American struggle in democracy is "Lift Every Voice and Sing," also known as the "Negro National Anthem." It begins,
Lift ev'ry voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won. 25
On June 10 th 2008, Armstrong held its 138 th graduation at Richmond's Landmark Theater. Of the 600 plus students who started as freshman in 2004, 216 of them had struggled through to senior year and now, in cap and gown, were ready to receive their diplomas. The ceremony started not with the Star-Spangled Banner, but rather with the principal leading the theater in a group rendition of "Lift Every Voice and Sing." More than McKay or Hughes, Johnson's song, written in 1900, is full of the hope for the realization of the African American place within the republic. There is slight reference to the "dark past," but none of the anger of McKay or complications of the divided voices within Hughes. And this is appropriate for its form as an anthem. It is suppose to be patriotic and optimistic.
As I stood to the side with the other Armstrong faculty and listened to the voices of the graduates as they stood and sang, I thought about the long history of the song and the long history of the school and the struggle for justice that continued. I hope this unit will help some of the students in future graduating classes think in new ways about these histories and this struggle and the promise that the song signifies.
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