• @PugJesusOPM
    link
    English
    14
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    Abolitionists were inherently secretive

    Abolitionists openly operated papers in the North. They were a major part of the Republican Party at the time, especially amongst the so-called Radical Republicans.

    as no one would admit to it even after the war.

    … many literally did admit to it after the war. Many admitted to it during the war.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      -114 months ago

      So no source for their numbers? I have DuBois’s own words saying people in the North didn’t care about black people. Where’s your proof?

      • @PugJesusOPM
        link
        English
        134 months ago

        I have DuBois’s own words saying people in the North didn’t care about black people. Where’s your proof?

        You have Dubois saying

        they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil?

        in reference to how even polite Northerners still saw African-Americans in terms of being an ‘issue’ that needed to be addressed, even if they phrased it positively. He was not seen as a ‘fellow American’, but still othered, even if in an innocently insensitive way.

        For those curious, this is a more full quote:

        Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.

        So no source for their numbers?

        Radical Republicans made up the majority of the Republican majority by 1864 in the Civil War. That would mandate a plurality of voters in at least a quarter of the nation’s electoral districts. Arguably, they made up an outright majority of Congress, which would mandate a plurality of voters in at least half of the nation’s electoral districts.