Straw man thread if there ever was one.
To be accurate the man was a foreigner in service of the United States as he was not considered a citizen of either country before or during the war.
If this is a straw man, then it was not of my making. It was
@major bill who said
The correct term (for Hubbard Pryor) would be a Black Confederate Traitor or Confederate Turncoat.
It seems that you, as with others, disagree with that statement. So it seems,
@RobertP, there are actually things that we agree on.
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In 1862, US Attorney-General Edward Bates issued an
Opinion on citizenship:
OPINION. ATTORNEY GENERAL' S OFFICE, November 29, 1862.
(To) HON. S. P. CHASE, Secretary of the Treasury.
SIR: Some time ago I had the honor to receive your letter submitting, for my opinion, the question whether or not colored men can be citizens of the United States. The urgency of other unavoidable engagements, and the great importance of the question itself, have caused me to delay the answer until now.
Your letter states that "the schooner Elizabeth and Margaret, of New Brunswick, is detained by the revenue cutter Tiger, at South Amboy, New Jersey, because commanded by a 'colored man,' and so by a person not a citizen of the United States. As colored masters are numerous in our coasting trade, I submit, for your opinion, the question suggested by Captain Martin, of the Tiger: Are colored men citizens of the United States, and therefore competent to command American vessels?"
The question would have been more clearly stated if, instead of saying are colored men citizens, it had been said, can colored men be citizens of the United States; for within our borders and upon our ships, both of war and commerce, there may be colored men, and white men, also, who'are not citizens of the United States.
In treating the subject, I shall endeavor to answer your question as if it imported only this: Is a man legally incapacitated to be a citizen of the United States by the sole fact that he is a colored, and not a white man? Who is a citizen? What constitutes a citizen of the United States? I have often been pained by the fruitless search in our law books and, the records of our courts, for a clear and satisfactory definition of' the phrase citizen of the United States. I find no such definition, no, authoritative establishment of the meaning of the phrase, neither by' a course of judicial decisions in our courts, nor by the continued and consentaneous action of the different branches of our political government...
...Finally, the celebrated case of Scott vs. Sanford, 19 Howard's Reports, 393, is sometimes cited as a direct authority against the capacity of free persons of color to be citizens of the United States. That is an entire mistake. The case, as it stands of record, does not determine, nor purport to determine, that question...
...upon the whole matter, I give it as my opinion that the man of color, mentioned in your letter, if born in the United States, is a citizen of the United States, and, if otherwise qualified, is competent according to the acts of Congress, to be master of a vessel...
...your obedient servant, EDWARD BATES, Attorney General.
In that opinion, Bates essentially says that people of color are citizens of the United States, if they were born in the US. Within the text of the opinion, Bates notes in some detail that in the
Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court did not technically have the jurisdiction to adjudicate the issue of citizenship for free blacks, and therefore, the Court's ruling on that issue was not controlling.
Many blacks of the time, including, for example, Frederick Douglass, hailed Bates' opinion, saying that finally, African Americans were recognized as US citizens. This is an excerpt from a speech by the African American abolitionist and leader Frederick Douglass on July 6th, 1863. This is long, but the context provided in the earlier parts of the speech is useful for understanding the later comments.
... the difference between the fundamental ideas of the Confederate Government and those of the Federal Government (is that) one is based on the idea that colored men are an inferior race who may be enslaved and plundered forever and to the hearts content of any men of different complexion, while the Federal government recognizes the natural and fundamental equality of all men (applause). I say again we all know that this Jefferson Davis government holds out to us nothing but fetters, chains, auction blocks, bludgeons, branding irons and eternal slavery and degradation. If it triumphs in this contest, woe, woe, ten thousand woes, to the black man! Such of us who are free, in all the likelihoods of the case, would be given over to the most excruciating tortures, while the last hope of the long crushed bondman would be extinguished forever (Sensation).
Now what is the attitude of the Washington Government toward the colored race? What reason do we have to desire its triumph in the present contest? Mind, I do not ask what was its attitude towards us before this bloody rebellion broke out. I do not ask what was the disposition when it was controlled by the very men who are now fighting to destroy it, when they could no longer control it. I do not even ask what it was two years ago when McClellan shamelessly gave out that in a war between loyal slaves and disloyal masters, he would take the side of the masters against the slaves; when he openly proclaimed his purpose to put down slave insurrections with an iron hand; when glorious Ben Butler (Cheers and applause), now stunned into a conversion to anti-slavery principles (which I have every reason to believe sincere), proffered his services to the Governor of Maryland to suppress a slave insurrection, while treason ran riot in that State, and the warm, red blood of Massachusetts soldiers still stained the pavements of Baltimore.
I do not ask what was the attitude of this Government when many of the officers and men who had undertaken to defend it, openly threatened to throw down their arms and leave the service, if men of color should step forward to defend it, and be invested with the dignity of soldiers. Moreover, I do not ask what was the position of this government when our loyal camps were made slave-hunting grounds, and United States officers performed the disgusting duty of slave dogs to hunt down slaves for rebel masters.
These were all dark and terrible days for the Republic. I do not ask you about the dead past. I bring you to the living present.
Events more mighty than men, eternal Providence, all-wise and all-controlling, have placed us in new relations to the government and the government to us, what that government is to us today, and what it till be tomorrow, is made evident by a very few facts. Look at them, colored men. Slavery in the district of Columbia is abolished forever; slavery in all the territories of the United States is abolished forever; the foreign slave trade, with its ten thousand revolting abominations, is rendered impossible; slavery in ten States of the Union is abolished forever; slavery in the five remaining States is as certain to follow the same fate as the night is to follow the day. The independence of Haiti is recognized; her Minister sits beside our Prime Minister, Mr. Seward, and dines at his table in Washington, while colored men are excluded from the cars in Philadelphia; showing that a black man's complexion in Washington, in the presence of the Federal Government, is less offensive than in the city of brotherly love. Citizenship is no longer denied us under this government.
Under the interpretation of our rights by Attorney General Bates, we are American citizens. We can import goods, own and sail ships, and travel in foreign countries with American passports in our pockets;
Under the interpretation of our rights by Attorney General Bates, we are American citizens. We can import goods, own and sail ships, and travel in foreign countries with American passports in our pockets; and now, so far from there being any opposition, so far from excluding us from the army as soldiers, the President at Washington, the Cabinet and the Congress, the General commanding and the whole army of the nation unite in giving us one thunderous welcome to share with them in the honor and glory of suppressing treason and upholding the Star Spangled banner. The revolution is tremendous, and it becomes us as wise men to recognize the change and to shape our action accordingly (Cheers and cries of We will)…
Never since the world began was a better chance offered to a long enslaved and oppressed people. The opportunity is given us to be men. With one courageous resolution we may blot out the hand-writing of ages against us. Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters U. S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States (Laughter and applause). I say again, this is our chance, and woe betide us if we fail to embrace it.
The statements of the Atty Gen, and the end of the prohibition on black enlistment, led many African Americans to believe that the federal government was finally recognizing that African Americans had citizenship rights and privileges, as well as duties and responsibilities, on par with those of whites. At the least, they (or at least Douglass) saw black enlistment as a way to further the process and the case that they were in fact citizens.
I do not know if the Bates opinion was ever challenged in the courts, or if it was used elsewhere throughout the country to make the case for full citizenship for free blacks.
Of course, all of this was rendered moot by the 14th and 15th Amendments, which "guaranteed" citizenship and voting rights to all Americans (although as we know from further history that these rights were not really guaranteed).
One final note. Although Dred Scott said blacks could not be federal citizens, blacks could be citizens of a perticular state. So, for example: in NY, black men with $250 of property were able to vote. White men could vote with no such requirement. But it is significant that black could could vote under at least some circumstances. Free black men in North Carolina were able to vote until 1835. But I do not see where any state under any circumstances gave citizenship rights to slaves.
- Alan
Bringing the