38 pages • 1 hour read
The Radical and the Republican
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Chapter 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “We Must Free the Slaves or Be Ourselves Subdued
Chapter 5 begins with the dual reactions of both the white and African-American communities upon the Emancipation Proclamation going into effect on January 1, 1863. Oakes then backtracks to discuss the final steps that lead up to the historic day, specifically the ways in which Lincoln managed to position himself so as to free the slaves with what otherwise could have seen to be either a kingly executive degree or an act of Northern desperation.
Still, there was much debate and concern, especially among Democrats, centered around the question: “What shall be done with the slaves?” (179). In this regard, Oakes does not gloss over the fact that Lincoln did contemplate the idea of colonization, even having his subordinates look into suitable locations in Africa and Latin America, which enraged Douglass, who “had always equated the struggle for racial equality with the struggle against slavery” (195). For Douglass, emancipation was only the first step in proving that blacks and whites could live side by side in a productive and peaceful society.
To this end, Chapter 5 continues with Douglass attempting to convince the federal government of the United States that emancipation should logically lead to opportunity and advancement for black people, and there was no better example than the chance for the newly freedmen to serve in the Union Army. Eventually allowed following the Emancipation Proclamation, this action and the reports of successes of all-black regiments helped, albeit in a small way, to erode certain aspects of prejudice towards African-Americans in the North.
Chapter 5 Analysis
By Chapter 5, Oakes has firmly established both the positions of Lincoln and Douglass and the proposed solutions to the issue of slavery in the United States; as such, Chapter 5 discusses the “what now” problem that comes with the eradication of slavery. The focus returns to Douglass and to his attempts to garner greater rights and freedoms for those who have been freed from bondage. Douglass realized that emancipation without equal rights was emancipation in name only, and if anywhere, it is here that the divide between Douglass and his white abolitionist contemporaries is made most clear. For the white abolitionists, it was enough that the slaves be freed. They did not, en masse, necessarily believe that blacks were worthy of total equality or that they were the true equal of the white man. If this had been the case, then it is clear that ideas such as colonization would never have been considered in the first place.
However, for Douglass, the end of slavery and the fight for equality were two sides to the same coin. It was impossible to have one without the other, and as such, he campaigned widely for the ability of the African-American community to serve in the Union Army, and most importantly, for the African-American community to have the right to vote, without which he feared they would just as soon come under a new type of bondage. His fears proved to be well-founded, as, with the death of Lincoln, many of the new freedoms won by African-Americans were either rolled back by white Southern legislatures or lost completely upon Democrats regaining national power in 1884.
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