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Democracy and Racial Closure in the Nineteenth Century United States |
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Abstract:
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This study seeks to amend three shortcomings in the social science literature on racial closure in the nineteenth-century United States: a restrictive temporal focus, an over-emphasis on the role of elites (whether economic or political), and a neglect of the crucial role of political institutions. Most explanatory studies isolate the Compromise of 1877 and developments in the 1890s South (commonly identified with the ‘rise of Jim Crow’ in the historical literature). The 1890s, however, marked the legal codification of widespread exclusion and segregation already prevailing by custom and, to some degree, law. This study seeks to apprehend why widespread racial closure was available for codification. Such an inquiry entails a two-part question. Why was there pervasive racial closure across both the northern and southern regions by the time of the Civil War? Why did Reconstruction efforts to dismantle racial closure lead to regional divergence--legal prohibition in the North and legal codification in the South? I show that racial closure was not a historical constant, but rather grew in a context of democratizing mass politics wherein the Democratic Party--bolstered by an alliance of westward settlers, European immigrants, and slaveholders--promoted its expansion. After the civil war, the continued logic of mass, competitive politics with a resilient Democratic Party would thwart Republican efforts to reverse closure in the South while enabling some success in the North. |
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democrat (172), state (141), parti (138), republican (126), racial (109), white (90), polit (72), vote (71), one (67), would (67), south (66), reconstruct (63), closur (58), elect (58), war (57), suffrag (48), whig (47), slaveri (46), two (46), northern (45), north (45), |
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Association:
Name: American Sociological Association
URL: http://www.asanet.org
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Citation:
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MLA Citation:
| Hiers, Wesley. "Democracy and Racial Closure in the Nineteenth Century United States" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, TBA, New York, New York City, Aug 11, 2007 <Not Available>. 2009-05-24 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p182631_index.html> |
APA Citation:
| Hiers, W. , 2007-08-11 "Democracy and Racial Closure in the Nineteenth Century United States" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, TBA, New York, New York City Online <PDF>. 2009-05-24 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p182631_index.html |
Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study seeks to amend three shortcomings in the social science literature on racial closure in the nineteenth-century United States: a restrictive temporal focus, an over-emphasis on the role of elites (whether economic or political), and a neglect of the crucial role of political institutions. Most explanatory studies isolate the Compromise of 1877 and developments in the 1890s South (commonly identified with the ‘rise of Jim Crow’ in the historical literature). The 1890s, however, marked the legal codification of widespread exclusion and segregation already prevailing by custom and, to some degree, law. This study seeks to apprehend why widespread racial closure was available for codification. Such an inquiry entails a two-part question. Why was there pervasive racial closure across both the northern and southern regions by the time of the Civil War? Why did Reconstruction efforts to dismantle racial closure lead to regional divergence--legal prohibition in the North and legal codification in the South? I show that racial closure was not a historical constant, but rather grew in a context of democratizing mass politics wherein the Democratic Party--bolstered by an alliance of westward settlers, European immigrants, and slaveholders--promoted its expansion. After the civil war, the continued logic of mass, competitive politics with a resilient Democratic Party would thwart Republican efforts to reverse closure in the South while enabling some success in the North. |
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| Document Type: |
PDF |
| Page count: |
41 |
| Word count: |
21169 |
| Text sample: |
| Democracy and Racial Closure in the Nineteenth-Century United States Wes Hiers Department of Sociology UCLA whiers@ucla.edu ASA Submission August 2007 Meeting “An isolated individual may surmount the prejudices of religion of his country or of his race; and if this individual is a king he may effect surprising changes in society; but a whole people cannot rise as it were above itself. A despot who should subject the Americans and their former slaves to the same yoke might perhaps |
| and Ethnic Conflict: Shadows of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood Forrest G. (1968) Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Wood Gordon S. (1993) Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Vintage Books. Woodward C. Vann (1988) “Strange Career Critics: Long May They Persevere ” The Journal of American History. 75(3): 857- 868. __________ (1974) (3rd ed.) The Strange Career of Jim Crow. New York: Oxford University Press. |
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