2010 Solomon-Tenenbaum Symposium
Gambrell Auditorium, 1st Floor 1:30 - 2:45 p.m.
"Human Rights and the American Civil War"
Symposium Panelists’ statements
The Invention of American Citizenship
Thomas J. Brown
Department of History, USC
The mobilization of Union forces and the emancipation of slaves prompted an unprecedented public discussion of American
citizenship. Although most intensively focused on freedmen, the debate also reassessed the meaning of citizenship for other groups
historically excluded from full participation in the political community, including women and immigrants. The struggle made the
concept of rights more central to the definition of American citizenship than ever before.
Bibliography:
Samito, Christian G. Becoming American under Fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Politics of Citizenship during the Civil
War Era. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2009.
Vorenberg, Michael. "Reconstruction as a Constitutional Crisis," in Reconstructions: New Perspectives on the Postbellum United
States, ed. Thomas J. Brown. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Now is the Day, and Now is the Hour: Black Carolinians and the Battle for Freedom and Justice
Bobby J. Donaldson
Department of History, USC
Only weeks after the fall of Fort Sumter in the spring of 1861, famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass implored African Americans
across the nation to condemn the “slaveholding rebellion.” Amid vehement opposition and public derision, Douglass issued a call to
action: “Let the long crushed bondman arise! And in this auspicious moment, snatch back the liberty of which he has been so long
robbed and despoiled. Now is the day, and now is the hour!” Drawing upon military reports, news accounts, and slave narratives,
this presentation examines how the Civil War and the activist sentiments espoused by Douglass dramatically redefined notions of
citizenship, freedom, and justice among African Americans in South Carolina.
Bibliography:
Donald Yacovone (ed.) Freedom's Journey: African American Voices of the Civil War (Chicago: Lawrence Hills Books, 2004)
Joel Williamson, After Slavery: the Negro in South Carolina during Reconstruction, 1861-1877 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975)
Two General Orders #11: Dilemmas of Human Rights in Wartime
Jonathan D. Sarna
Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University
On December 17, 1862, Ulysses S. Grant issued General Orders #11 expelling “Jews as a class” from his war zone. The order was
overturned by Abraham Lincoln, became an election issue when Grant ran for President in 1868, and was regretted by Grant for the
rest of his life. On August 25, 1863, Brigadier-General Thomas Ewing issued General Orders #11 in response to a horrific Confederate
massacre in Lawrence, Kansas, led by guerilla leader William Clarke Quantrill. His order expelled from their homes (most of which
were subsequently looted and burned) “all persons” living in four rural Missouri counties. In so doing, Ewing punished as many as
twenty thousand people, including women and children, because some of them had fed and sheltered the massacre’s perpetrators.
The order was never revoked. My presentation will examine both orders as part of a larger discussion of human rights in wartime.
Bibliography:
Jonathan D. Sarna and Adam Mendelsohn (eds.), Jews and the Civil War: A Reader (New York: NYU Press, 2010), 353-384.
Charles R. Mink, “General Orders, No 11: The Forced Evacuation of Civilians During the Civil War,” Military Affairs 34 (December
1980), 132-137.
Jewish Confederates (Not in the Attic)
Mark M. Smith
Department of History, USC
Based on my reading of Robert N. Rosen's important book, The Jewish Confederates, I explore what it meant to be Jewish in the
South during the Civil War. How and to what extent did southern Jews participate in the Confederate war effort? On what basis did
they remain loyal to the Confederacy? What were their views on slavery and states' rights? And what of legacies? While certainly
not "Confederates in the attic," to borrow the title of Tony Horwitz's influential book on the Lost Cause, the memory and meaning of
Jewish participation in the Civil is discussed. How might we best characterize contemporary debates in the Jewish community about
the meaning of the Civil War?
Bibliography:
Robert N. Rosen, The Jewish Confederates (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2000).