ロゼッタ石碑

(this is a work in progress)

Whereas the aftermath of the Civil War and the Reconstruction opened up the floodgates of human rights development and accelerated America’s common law tradition into that of a modern liberal constitutional order, the pathways of liberal progress were inevitably obstructed by the American dichotomy of “civic and racial nationalism” . This conflict between whether to place priority in the advancement of civic ideals or promote majority racial superiority can be seen clearly at the aftermath of the Civil War and the Reconstruction through the enfranchisement struggles of the African-Americans and the American woman.

Civic nationalism—or the political faith based on the modern liberal ideals of “fundamental equality in all human beings”, “inalienable right to life”, etc —on the issue of African-American enfranchisement was placed into motion through the passing and ratification of the Thirteenth through Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Although the passage of the aforementioned amendments did indeed lay down the fundamental framework for what would eventually become the legalization of the black vote, the immediate prevalence of civic nationalism was marred by the polarizing effects of the Reconstruction, which conversely fueled mass-support of racial nationalism across both North and the South.

Evidence of racial nationalism’s victory over civic nationalism in postbellum America could clearly be seen in the landmark Supreme Court case of Giles v. Harris , a case which questioned the legality of barring an African-American citizen’s right to vote, contended 33 years after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment which established that one’s color or heritage could not serve as a demerit to one’s right to vote. With this guarantee in mind, defendant Jackson Giles approached the Supreme Court in the hopes of repealing a provision of the then-Alabama constitution which systematically disenfranchised black voters through levying a series of requirements (financial, educational, etc.) that were unfavorable to the African-Americans of the time, as a condition of voting. Although the Supreme Court reluctantly acknowledged the unconstitutionality of the provision, (or “not assume its validity,” as it was said) it ruled against Giles’ favor, claiming that “equity cannot take to enforce political rights” and upheld that federal government and courts at the time lacked the power to thwart and address unconstitutionality of State legislation concerning the right to vote.

The dichotomy of the civic versus the racial could thus be clearly seen in action here: whereas civic nationalism helped the passing of regulations which provided African-Americans with citizenship and the hypothetical right to vote, the prevalence of racial nationalism uprooted the notion that the average American voter should not be of any color, and prevented the aforementioned civic ideals from spreading into the greater public sphere for another half century.

Another instance of the civic/racial dichotomy in play was seen with the rise of feminism and the American woman’s right to vote. While the position of the American woman as actual citizens was never a subject of contention as it was with the African-Americans, the rise of the feminist movement challenged women to rethink their place in the public sphere. The likes of Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton encouraged women to fight against a society where women were seen only as indirect members of community as “attachments to men” , and claimed it their moral duty to “[hone] skills that lay outside the realm of domesticity” .

Thus, the women of the aptly named “New Departure” movement set out to correct their unfavorable social standing, which denied them representation in the public sphere unless through their husbands, fathers, and masters and began a long process of petitioning for the right to vote. In spite of the fact that it wouldn’t be semantically accurate to say that the “racial” and civic nationalism was once again in play here—as the issue of barring the American woman’s right to vote is not one that deals with race, but with gender—the same underlying issues can be seen here as well. Despite the fact that the principles expressed in both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence bestows all citizens with natural and inalienable rights which include the right to suffrage; that the text of the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment entitles all citizens with the right to vote; and the fact that African-Americans, who were once considered to belong to the lowest tier of American citizenship, were explicitly given the right to vote, the presiding “racial” nationalism effectively blinded the public sphere from acting against the iniquity under the premise that doing so was advancing the formation and bolstering of a pure, all-“American” society.

Granting that the issue of women’s suffrage/enfranchisement of the African-American was eventually resolved by the way of FDR’s New Deal and various other legislations following the Nineteenth Amendment, this dichotomy of racial and civic nationalism is still present within the American public sphere today; the definition of citizenship and what it entitles to the American fellow is still under contention, this time on the subjects of immigration and naturalization to name a few.