Graduate Program

History

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2006

Thesis Director

Mark Voss-Hubbard

Thesis Committee Member

Lynne Curry

Thesis Committee Member

Anita Shelton

Abstract

On February 12, 1853, Illinois legislated its notorious black exclusion law and soon after President Lincoln made public his Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, the Illinois legislature threatened to condemn this policy but Governor Richard Yates prevented them from doing so. On February 1, 1865, the same state ratified the Thirteenth Amendment and a few days later, repealed the state's Black Laws; then on January 15, 1867, it redefined the state's citizenship to include blacks by ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, on March 5, 1869, Illinois ratified the Fifteenth Amendment, granting nationwide suffrage to black men. This work deals with these events in an attempt to answer these questions: What circumstances in Illinois' politics and society changed to allow such a dramatic reversal in laws dealing with that state's race relations? To what extent did this reversal create permanent, positive change for blacks living in Illinois? How did national issues of race intertwine with Illinois' own political contestation of race?

In answering these questions, this work demonstrates that the racially liberal principle of equality that existed in the antebellum years in Illinois strengthened during and after the Civil War in spite of the prevalence of white supremacist outlook among whites during this period. In spite of the conservative element of free labor ideology that initially formed the platform of the new Republican party, there was another element within the free labor ideology that created tension with the party's ranks; the egalitarian ideal of racial equality. While many conservative free labor adherents may have expressed little or no interest in abolishing slavery, but merely in excluding it from western territories, the more racially liberal free labor adherents supported abolishment of slavery, and for some, even extending blacks equal political and social rights. This was the dynamic development in Illinois' politics of race during this period.

Chapter one discusses the political construction of race relations in the antebellum years of 1852 to 1860, in particular the impact of the passage of Illinois' black exclusion law and how this state-level controversy interplayed with national developments in the politics of race. Chapter two covers the Civil War years, focusing on the debates that raged on contraband policy, the Emancipation Proclamation, recruitment of blacks into the Union army, and towards the end of the war, the debates over the Thirteenth Amendment and repeal of Illinois' Black Laws. Again, I demonstrate the interconnection between national issues of race with the politics of race in Illinois. Chapter three discusses the immediate post bellum years, 1865 through 1869. This chapter focuses on the impact of the controversy of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments on the politics of race in Illinois at a time when blacks were now free to settle within the state. All three chapters demonstrate how the continual flux in the relations between racially conservative and liberal Republicans directly affected the politics of race in Illinois.

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