Race and the Making of American Liberalism

Abstract

American liberalism has appeared in many variants since the mid-nineteenth century. Practically all forms either were unable to crack the nut of racial inequality or actively buttressed it, according to Carol A. Horton's new study. Anti-caste liberals, who were briefly ascendant during Reconstruction, pressed for an expansive interpretation of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution that created a single standard of national citizenship and eliminated legal racial discrimination. Some aimed to attack racial inequality at its economic roots through land redistribution, but they were in a minority; most anti-caste liberals held private property-ownership sacrosanct and believed that formal equality of individuals was sufficient to end discrimination. In any event, both groups were eclipsed in the 1880s by Darwinian liberals who narrowly interpreted the Reconstruction amendments. They accepted formal civil rights for blacks but rejected federal oversight and were white supremacists. They would not obstruct the rights of African Americans to make contracts, for example, but they adhered to a divine racial hierarchy and would not prevent the enactment of many laws premised on the natural subordination of blacks. With liberalism dominating political discourse, African Americans hurtled toward the nadir.