Our nation is discussing fundamental issues of racial equality. I offer a new perspective, the view of Rep. Luke Poland (R.-Vt.). He was a lead sponsor of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. Republicans, at the time, were anti-slavery, pro-civil rights.
Here is how Rep. Poland explained why the free labor of blacks was a threat to a large segment of poor whites in the South:
A large number of men had lived in idleness, and the fruits of idleness had ripened. The country was full of dissipated horse-racing, cock-fighting, roystering fellows, many of whom by the war had become desperate and dangerous men. The liberation of the slaves had deprived them of their means of living, and they were reduced to the desperate and disagreeable duty of earning it for themselves. That this class could, under the circumstances, tolerate equal rights, civil and political, in a negro could hardly be expected.
To me, this sounds like the unemployed and under-employed older white males, particularly in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin (and other places) who have warmed to anti-immigrant appeals, and now race-baiting. Whether you agree or disagree, I welcome your views at mhl@illinois.edu.
PS: Teachers/history buffs, if you want to share a fascinating speech from the House of Representatives, click on this link: https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=106/llcg106.db&recNum=548. You can make it more readable by clicking on the page, anywhere. To your lower-left, a file will open. Click on it-- you can enlarge the page, and the middle passage is especially rich.
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