Reconstruction Lessons

The controversy inspired by Hillary Clinton's remark crediting Lyndon Johnson with the civil rights movement's successes seems to have subsided. Contrary to much recent punditry, this contretemps does not prove that the Democratic primary has been reduced to a zero-sum game of identity politics. Rather, it reveals the complexity of bringing together the aspirations of different social groups within a single political movement--something Americans have experienced before.

Some commentators have already compared Barack Obama to Frederick Douglass, the former slave and crusader for emancipation who insisted that the post-Civil War years constituted the "Negro's hour" and that the struggle for the rights of the newly freed slaves took precedence over gaining the vote for women. In this scenario, Hillary Clinton is a latter-day Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who broke with her male allies when they called on women to subordinate their claims. But like many historical analogies, this one distorts as much as it reveals.

American feminism was born of the abolitionist movement, with its powerful insistence on universal equality. Before the Civil War, abolitionists and feminists, male and female, worked together for an end to slavery and a new definition of citizenship in which rights would not be limited by race or gender. During the war feminists put aside the campaign for women's rights to join in the struggle to save the Union and free the slaves. But they saw Reconstruction as a golden opportunity to claim for women their own emancipation.

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