I don't know where to put this.

Delegate Foster, Indiana 1851

"Gentlemen who profess the greatest sympathy for the negro, have, in their admiration of his character, compared him and his struggles for freedom to the Hungarians and Poles, who fought against desperate odds for their political rights. But, sir, there is this great difference between the two: The Hungarians fought as a nation, and were recognized as a nation—not as isolated individuals; the case of the negroes cannot be compared to this, for they have no name or existence as a nation; even on their native continent they live in barbarian tribes of the lowest scale of sentient being; in this country, they exist only in two classes—the slave and the nominally free—and no one expects that we shall be engaged in a civil war with them. There is a vast difference, sir, between the moral spectacle of a national army, arrayed against the armies of another empire seeking to subjugate them, as was the case with Hungary, and here and there a straggling " nigger" absconding from the cotton field or kitchen of his master? [Laughter.] No, sir, there will never be a civil war between the two races in this country, unless, indeed, through the misguided sympathy of certain gentlemen, known as Abolitionists."

I am compiling a dataset on the justifications given by delegates to state constitutional conventions for exclusion or inclusion into the suffrage. This does not fit. But I intuitively feel that it is important, that it captures an undercurrent to American racism that has long been present. We live, even now, in an age of nationalism: the nation is an appropriate and legitimate actor, ideal, community. The 'race' used to be, it is no longer. I have often encountered various claims that African Americans are de-racinated; that they were stripped of any ethnic identity, and thus the potential for a national identity. This is, in one sense, the Moynihan thesis. Stripped of the capacity to be a nation, they could never achieve what the Irish achieved, the Quebecois mostly achieved, what colonized peoples the world over have achieved: national liberty and self-determination. I find this bunk, but it potentially had de-mobilizing consequences.

What the language of race offered, when embraced and developed by blacks--throughout the Americas--was a counter to the 'nation.' The death of race is to be celebrated [1]; but its contribution, when claimed, should not be forgotten.


[1] Of course, like shit, it will come again in the evening. We'll see what the substance is this time, who will be included in the demarcation. I suspect that a good place to look will be on the subway, Sunday evening, when custody-sharing parents, without a car, responsibly raising their families, make the trade and bring home their children--backpacks on--for the week. Color will be less important in this racialization--although it will likely be pretty important--than the combination of struggling to eke out a working class life when there are no more structural or institutional supports for the working class, and the opprobrium heaped upon you for having 'failed' in your 'duty' to raise a family in a two-parent home.