Black Republican

Brian P. Luskey
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Abstract

During the economic crisis of the 1850s and early 1860s that made northerners’ individual and household independence seem more precarious, men like Thomas Webster gave voice to their ideology and tried to protect their interest. In doing so, they embraced both caution and speculation not only to end slaveholders’ grip on the nation’s political economy but also to benefit from slave emancipation. Their cautious hedges proved risky, and led to profound soul-searching in political and cultural debates among northern devotees of free labor. By 1860, the financial uncertainty borne of the Panic of 1857 and the secession crisis forced Webster to look for patronage from Republican allies to access a new capital stream. It was through the work of middlemen like Webster—as much as through the efforts of abolitionists, Republican politicians, Union soldiers, and enslaved people—that slavery ended and free labor’s promise for workers was unmade during the Civil War Era. Webster represented the speculative—many said the fraudulent—impulses and activities in an economy founded on the fact that having capital meant having power. That capital would make these northerners more independent in a competitive market, and their speculations would shape the contours of war and emancipation.
黑人共和党人
在19世纪50年代和60年代初的经济危机中,北方人的个人和家庭独立似乎更加不稳定,像托马斯·韦伯斯特这样的人表达了他们的意识形态,并试图保护他们的利益。在这样做的过程中,他们既谨慎又投机,不仅是为了结束奴隶主对国家政治经济的控制,也是为了从奴隶解放中受益。事实证明,他们谨慎的防范是有风险的,并引发了北方自由劳动爱好者在政治和文化辩论中的深刻反思。到1860年,1857年恐慌和分裂危机带来的金融不确定性迫使韦伯斯特寻求共和党盟友的赞助,以获得新的资金流。正是通过像韦伯斯特这样的中间商的工作,以及废奴主义者、共和党政治家、联邦士兵和被奴役的人们的努力,奴隶制才得以结束,自由劳工对工人的承诺才得以在内战时期破灭。韦伯斯特代表了一个建立在拥有资本就意味着拥有权力这一事实基础上的经济中的投机——许多人说是欺诈——冲动和活动。这些资金将使这些北方人在竞争激烈的市场中更加独立,他们的投机将塑造战争和解放的轮廓。
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