TOW #18: "The Moses of the Colored Men" by Andrew Johnson (written, Speech)

The period after Civil War was full of chaos with reconstruction. Although slaves were lawfully freed in all slave states, there was some tension and objections at such a radical idea among Americans. In 1864, the military governor Andrew Johnson delivered a speech to proclaim freedom to every man in Tennessee, which was still found with racism and harsh treatments towards African Americans. Johnson uses powerful tone to deliver his speech that enforces his beliefs that all men have freedom. He especially uses short anecdotes to give life to his stories of racism to prove that a law to protect the African Americans is necessary. He said that when slaves were officially freed, “Thank God! thank God! came from the lips of a thousand women, who in their own persons had experienced the hellish iniquity of the man-seller’s code” (6).This appeals to pathos of those former slaves who have actually experienced this rush of joy. He also utilizes repetition to respond to counter argument. He claims that the freed slaves should get a share of the lands of the rich landowners of the South. Expecting harsh objections from the South who would claim that he has no right to take away the land that was officially given to them with various paper works and money, he repeats, “I am no agrarian” (3-4). He explains how it would be just to distribute land to the new citizens by taking away the land of the rebels, who, in actuality, did not have to compensate for anything. Although this is a very powerful speech that attracted many Northern supporters as well as former slaves, this speech was not as effective as it could have been. It silently alienates the Southerners as the rebels, and at some points, treats them as like a threat to the Union because of their former acts to secede. He should not have described the Southerners as “them”, because at the end, both Northerners and Southerners are citizens of the United States. He should have avoided using invectives such as “representatives of the corrupt, this damnable aristocracy” (5). This only opens bad feelings of the South towards the North. His speech was too polarized in favor of the North, and this is dangerous when speaking publicly to all states of United States as it could only provide further bitter feelings between the two already divided regions.

http://www.nps.gov/anjo/historyculture/moses-speech.htm