Category: First Close Readings

https://www.wevideo.com/class#view-media/projects/3828681669/3845192776/

In 2024, the Associated Press polled U.S. adults on which rights and freedoms meant the most to them. In this poll, 91% of adults considered the right to vote as being the most important core American value.[1] Today, almost all citizens over the age of 18, regardless of race, color or sex can vote, but all citizens did not always have that right. The Fifteenth Amendment was a key step in the process of achieving equal voting rights. In this amendment, Congress essentially granted African American men the right to vote. Many praised the achievement, but some criticized it for not expanding beyond African Americans and granting other groups the right to vote, with outrage coming from women in particular. Despite the limitations on sex, the amendment was revolutionary, and the framers believed that their actions were revolutionary enough for the country at the time, and that anything further might have jeopardized the progress for African American men.

Text

The Fifteenth Amendment contained two sections, consisting of 34 words in section one, and 12 in section two. It was fairly short, much shorter than the Fourteenth Amendment, the longest amendment ever written. Section One declared that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”[2] This section made it  unconstitutional for state governments to deny black men, even former slaves, the right to vote.[3] While all American born people –men, women and children– were citizens as defined by the Fourteenth Amendment, this Fifteenth Amendment did not include women and children. Its language clearly targeted African American men. Section Two declared that “the Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”[4] This section granted Congress the ability to pass laws to uphold the guarantees of the amendment, such as later voting rights acts. 

                                                         Context

The Thirteenth Amendment, passed by Congress and ratified by the states in 1865,  criminalized slavery and involuntary servitude, and the Fourteenth Amendment, passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified by the states in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons either “born or naturalized” in the United States, including those who had lived as slaves.[5] Additionally, there were the Reconstruction Acts in 1867 and 1868, focusing on the former Confederate States. These acts demanded that states enforce “peace and good order” until states established loyal and Republican governments.[6] Furthermore, Section 5 of the 1867 Reconstruction Act explained that the Constitution entitled a State to representation in Congress when the people “have formed a constitution of government…framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State, twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color or previous condition.”[7] Congress enacted these measures from March 2, 1867 to March 11, 1868. Section 5 of the 1867 law provided the basis for wording of what became the Fifteenth Amendment. 

The Fifteenth Amendment went through several developments before Congress sent it to the states for ratification. Senator Henry Wilson (R-MA) proposed a version to empower states to try “the experiment of woman suffrage,”[8] but the House and Senate excluded this addition in fear of the amendment not passing.[9] After the Civil War, according to historian James Oakes, many former slaves became the “backbone of the coalition with white Republicans that rewrote the southern state constitutions,” and “as Frederick Douglass foresaw, the black vote revolutionized southern politics just as emancipation had revolutionized southern society.”[10]  Republicans believed for political reasons that they should focus on African American rights.

 

Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment on February 26, 1869 by a vote of 144-44. In Congress, the vast majority of Republicans voted for it while Democrats voted against it. The amendment needed 3/4s of the support of the States, including the support of the former Confederate States, to achieve ratification. Some of these states opposed ratification, but other states that had radically reconstructed governments supported ratification. Furthermore, Congress required former Confederate States Mississippi, Texas, Virginia and Georgia to ratify the amendment in exchange for representation in Congress.[11] The states met the ratification threshold on February 3, 1870, nearly a year after its initial passage by Congress.

 

Subtext

Why did the framers of the Fifteenth Amendment exclude women? Feminists had been fighting for women’s voting rights for decades. Among them was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the author of the Declaration of Sentiments from 1848. In this document, Stanton wrote that “all men and women are created equal,” language that borrowed from the Declaration of Independence.[12] Sojourner Truth, another women’s rights activist, became noteworthy after a speech she gave at the Woman’s Rights Convention in 1851 where she stated, “I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man.”[13]

In 1866, the National Women’s Rights Convention merged with the American Anti-Slavery Society to form the American Equal Rights Association (AERA).[14] Abolitionist Frederick Douglass, a member of the AERA, aligned himself “firmly among the Republicans,” as a result of “the threat of an overtly racist Democratic Party.”[15] Douglass was a supporter of women’s rights and was friends with women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony, but in the aftermath of the Civil War, Douglass argued with Anthony over voting rights. Douglass believed that African American men were due the right to vote. He stated that the ballot was a “question of life or death” for southern Black men but not for women.[16] In 1867, Anthony and Stanton, both members of the AERA, traveled to Kansas to advocate for universal suffrage, but felt saddened when they learned that other members of the group had abandoned women’s suffrage in order to focus solely on African American male suffrage.[17] The AERA dissolved when the framers omitted sex from the Fifteenth Amendment.[18] Douglass’ assertion that the ballot was a “question of life or death” for black men but not women suggested how the Republican framers justified excluding women from the Fifteenth Amendment. They feared that promoting “universal” rights would jeopardize the progress for African American men.

                                                               Conclusion

Despite its limitations, the Fifteenth Amendment revolutionized voting rights for African Americans, many who had lived in slavery just a few years prior to its ratification. Yet while African Americans and abolitionists praised the ratification, the decision to not include sex as a protected characteristic angered women’s suffrage movements for decades. Today, Americans consider the right to vote to be one of the most important core American values, as illustrated by the recent AP poll.   But it is important to remember that people did not obtain equal voting rights easily. The Nineteenth Amendment finally granted all American women the right to vote in 1920.

 

 

 

 

[1] Gary Fields, “Yes, We’re Divided. But New AP-NORC Poll Shows Americans Still Agree on Most Core American Values,” AP News, April 3, 2024, [WEB]

[2] “15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Voting Rights (1870),” National Archives, Last Reviewed May 16, 2024, [WEB]

[3] [WEB]

[4] “15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Voting Rights (1870),” National Archives, Last Reviewed May 16, 2024.

[5] “14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868).” National Archives, Last Reviewed March 6, 2024, [WEB]

[6] “Reconstruction Acts (1867-1868),” National Constitution Center, 2025, [WEB]

[7] “Reconstruction Acts (1867-1868),” National Constitution Center, 2025.

[8] Malik Ali, “The Importance of the 15th Amendment,” Teaching American History, August 31, 2023, [WEB]

[9] Malik Ali, “The Importance of the 15th Amendment,” Teaching American History, August 31, 2023.

[10]  James Oakes, The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), 264.

[11] “Black Voting Rights: The Creation of the Fifteenth Amendment” HarpWeek, 2005, [WEB]

[12] “Declaration of Sentiments (1848) – Knowledge for Freedom Seminar.” (House Divided Project), [WEB]

[13] “Sojourner Truth, Woman’s Rights Speech (1851) – Knowledge for Freedom Seminar.” (House Divided Project), [WEB]

[14] Christopher Abernathy et al., “Reconstruction,” Nicole Turner, ed., in The American Yawp, eds. Joseph Locke and Ben Wright (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018). IV. [WEB]

[15] Oakes, 280.

[16] Oakes, 288.

[17] Yawp, IV.

[18] Yawp, IV.

By: Olivia Whittaker

 

Introduction

At just 22 years old, Amanda Gorman was the youngest inaugural poet ever, and faced a challenge not quite shared by her five predecessors. Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration came just two weeks after violent mobs had stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the presidential election. With her poem, The Hill We Climb, Gorman strove to promote national unity in the wake of an insurrection without lapsing into political neutrality or downplaying the trauma of the country. She struck this balance through her portrayal of a “ bruised but whole” America, acknowledging its flaws while emphasizing its triumphs in a hopeful look towards the future.

 

Text

The Hill We Climb is a 723-word poem composed of 110 lines, with stanzas varying by publication. The poem is free verse, meaning that it doesn’t rely on a consistent rhyme scheme or meter, resulting in a more speech-like cadence. Its opening evokes the emergence of a new era, establishing the motif of a new “dawn.” Early lines allude to America’s ongoing fights against racism and other forms of prejudice, and subtly reference the COVID-19 pandemic as a unifying common struggle. The middle of the poem reflects on the January 6th insurrection and the resilience of democracy. Finally, the poem concludes with a powerful call for unity, urging the nation to “rise” together and build a brighter future for all. The Hill We Climb’s thematic structure can be read as a recurring arc: what we have been through, how we’ve responded, and who we are becoming as a nation. For example, after “never ending shade,” we “braved the belly of the beast,” and we now strive to “forge our union with purpose.” Though we experienced “a force that would shatter our nation,” we “found the power to author a new chapter” and emerge “a country that is bruised but whole.” This repeating pattern reflects the ongoing but often nonlinear or even cyclical nature of progress.

 

Context

Gorman was born in Los Angeles and raised by a single mother alongside her two siblings. As a child, she had an auditory processing disorder and speech impediment, which she overcame through poetry and public speaking. In 2017, she became the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate at 19 years old, and toured the country reciting poetry with themes such as social justice and climate change. Jill Biden discovered Gorman at a reading in the Library of Congress during this time, three years before recommending her to the inaugural committee.[1] The Hill We Climb was the sixth ever inaugural poem, continuing a tradition that began in 1961 with the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, and has been sustained by nearly every democratic president since.

The inauguration came at a time of great national tension. Racial conflict and political divides had been on the rise for the past four years, and the wounds of the COVID-19 pandemic were still fresh throughout the country.[2] Two weeks before the inauguration, while Congress convened to certify the 2020 election results, President Donald Trump claimed that the election was “stolen,” declaring to his supporters: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol…we have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated.”[3] During the speech, mobs of Trump supporters swarmed the U.S. capitol. Within minutes, thousands had surged past police and breached the capitol building. Staff barricaded themselves in rooms and hid under tables as the violent mob tore through.[4] Political conflict had always been integral to American democracy, but so too had peaceful transfer of power (at least since the Civil War), and the January 6 insurrection shook the country by defying that tradition.

 

Subtext

            Gorman described her primary goal with The Hill We Climb as inspiring unity. “What I really aspire to do in the poem is to be able to use my words to envision a way in which our country can still come together and can still heal,” she told the New York Times. “It’s doing that in a way that is not erasing or neglecting the harsh truths I think America needs to reconcile with.”[5]

Black writers throughout American history have walked a tight line between criticizing and alienating their white audiences. In 1773, Phillis Wheatley’s poem, On Being Brought from Africa, carefully challenged the racist assumptions of her white Christian audience, reminding them that black people “may be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.” She padded her sharp anti-racist message with appeals to Christian morality, even describing her American captors as merciful for bringing her to a Christian land where she could seek “redemption.” In an age of slavery, the poem’s sympathetic tone was the armor it needed to promote abolition without provoking or antagonizing its audience. And while Gorman operated in a contemporary culture without slavery and where racism is condemned, her rhetorical balancing act was not so different from Wheatley’s. Her most political stance was against the January 6 rioters as “a force that would destroy our country,” but she did not linger on the topic to criticize the insurrectionists. Instead, she focused on America’s shared struggles and triumphs, unifying her audience under collective experiences and the aspiration of “a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.”

 

Conclusion

The Hill We Climb garnered widespread acclaim. Democratic political figures such as Michelle and Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Stacey Abrams sung its praises, as well as writer Lin Manuel Miranda, whose musical Hamilton Gorman referenced in the poem.[6] Conservative reactions were more mixed, though relatively mild— the work was not notably divisive upon its debut, with even right-leaning news outlets like Fox reporting on it favorably. But stronger pushback came in 2023, when a Florida school controversially restricted the poem after a parent claimed that it would “cause confusion and indoctrinate students,” that it was “not educational” and that it contained indirect “hate messages.”[7] The poem was removed from the elementary school library. The 2023-2024 book ban surge saw over 10,000 instances of banned books (from 4,218 unique titles) in public schools. One organization has documented “nearly 16,000 book bans in public schools nationwide since 2021, a number not seen since the Red Scare McCarthy era of the 1950s.” [8]

 

Trump also won a second term in the 2024 election, and has since issued an executive order titled Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling (2025), which, among other things, aims to cut federal funding for public schools that critically discuss systemic racism, stating that “innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics.” How Gorman’s declarations of national harmony and triumph will age throughout this new era is uncertain, but one line in particular stands out as a reminder: “ while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.”[9]

 

 

[1] Liesl Schillinger, “How Amanda Gorman Became the Voice of a New American Era,” The Guardian, January 22, 2021, [WEB].

[2]  Pew Research Center, “How America Changed During Donald Trump’s Presidency,” Pew Research Center, January 29, 2021, [WEB]

[3] NPR, “Read Trump’s Jan. 6 Speech, A Key Part of Impeachment Trial,” NPR, February 10, 2021, [WEB].

[4] “Capitol riots timeline: What happened on 6 January 2021?”, BBC News, August 2, 2023, [WEB].

[5] Alexandra Alter, “Amanda Gorman Captures the Moment, in Verse,” The New York Times, January 19, 2021, [WEB].

[6] “Amanda Gorman: Biden Inauguration Poet Calls for ‘Unity and Togetherness’,” BBC News, January 21, 2021, [WEB]

[7] Bill Chappell, “Amanda Gorman’s Poem Was Banned in One Florida School. Now It’s a Bestseller,” NPR, May 25, 2023, [WEB].

[8] PEN America, Cover to Cover: An Analysis of Titles Banned in the 23-24 School Year, February 27, 2025, [WEB].

[9] Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb, [WEB].

 

Abraham Lincoln’s Letter to George Robertson (1855)

https://www.wevideo.com/view/3836940215

In 1855, Abraham Lincoln sounded worried. “I think, that there is no peaceful extinction of slavery in prospect for us,” he wrote to George Robertson, an acquaintance and political ally from Kentucky [1]. Was he predicting a civil war? Understanding why Lincoln tried to warn Whigs like Robertson to mobilize against slavery requires a close reading with political context from the 1850s and an understanding of why Lincoln turned to the Republican Party at this time. Republicans stood firmly against the spread of slavery and were more open about denouncing its evils than the Whigs had ever attempted.  To persuade Robertson about the wisdom of this approach, Lincoln emphasized the American Revolution and the value of freedom.  He chose not to mention the horrors of slavery to this Kentucky slaveholder.

Description of the Text 

Lincoln wrote the 503-word letter in cursive on two pieces of lined paper, using both the front and back of the first page. When he needed to edit, Lincoln crossed out several words and wrote their replacements in with carets. To close, he signed the letter “A. Lincoln.” He started by admitting that the recipient had “very reasonable” views on slavery and the Missouri Compromise. However, Lincoln moved to counter these ideas by pointing to Henry Clay‘s failure to secure gradual emancipation in Kentucky in 1849 after the state amended its constitution. Clay did not hold abolitionist views and did not think that the federal government had the power to abolish slavery nationally as the Constitution does not explicitly mention the topic. Lincoln wrote that this event had “extinguishe[d] that [gradual emancipation] hope utterly”[2]. He then lamented the dead spirit of the Revolutionary War and how many Americans had locked themselves to their ideals of slaveholding. He said that the Declaration of Independence’s idea that “all men are created equal” had proven to be “a self evident lie” for “fat” politicians who had forgotten the country’s founding egalitarian principles. Lincoln used sarcasm to remark that the Fourth of July’s only purpose was “for burning fire-crackers!!!”[3]. Lincoln did not let the irony of Americans celebrating independence while others were enslaved go unnoticed, underlining “for burning fire-crackers” and adding three exclamation marks. Finally, at the end of the letter, Lincoln pointed to the future, doubting if the country could remain together while so strongly divided on the issue of slavery. He asked “Can we, as a nation, continue together permanently— forever— half slave, and half free? The problem is too mighty for me”[4]. Lincoln underlined the synonymous words “permanently—forever” to call attention to how difficult it would be for the current conditions to perpetually continue.

Context on the Republican Party

Robertson left a copy of his book, Scrap Book on Law and Politics, after a visit to Springfield. Robertson had fought against federal governmental intervention over slavery in Arkansas in 1819, and detailed ideas of gradual emancipation in the book. Additionally, he discussed his role in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. To explain why he disagreed with the moderate view that Southern slavery would gradually end as it had in the North, Lincoln referenced the failures of Henry Clay’s compromises. While the divisions of free and slave states admitted to the Union postponed war, they did not offer a final solution. No state had emancipated their enslaved people since New Jersey in 1804; failed efforts by Virginia in 1831 and Kentucky in 1849 demonstrated that slavery would not naturally extinguish. By equating Robertson’s views with Clay’s actions, Lincoln undermined Robertson’s confidence that the issue would resolve itself. The ongoing disagreement over slavery between Robertson and Lincoln signaled the rifts between those with anti-slavery viewpoints. 

However, the Republican Party had recently been formed, uniting Whigs, Know Nothings, and Free Soilers. Matthew Pinsker writes that the party launched itself onto a national stage by keeping “a single-minded focus on the slavery issue while accommodating as broad a coalition of men as possible” [5]. Although Lincoln had not called himself an abolitionist, his politics were often seen by Democrats as what historian James Oakes calls “a flagrant appeal to radicalism” [6]. This reputation would have stood in his mind as he appealed to the moderate Robertson to stand behind Republican principles.

Subtext on Using the Declaration

Lincoln used the language of the revolution and the Declaration of Independence to remind Robertson that he was not far removed from being “enslaved” himself and that as a Whig he should stand up against oppression. Lincoln felt angry that Americans had sterilized the war, turning the Fourth of July into a holiday instead of a reflection on liberty. For Lincoln, patriotism meant fighting for equality for both White and Black people. But Lincoln did not try to sway Robertson, a slaveholder, with appeals to the humanity of enslaved people.

Lincoln had seen the experiences of enslaved people; in a letter written in 1844 to an old Kentucky friend Mary Speed, Lincoln detailed the experience of seeing twelve enslaved people chained together, writing “In this condition they were being separated forever from the scenes of their childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, and many of them, from their wives and children”[7]. In another August 1855 letter, a still distressed Lincoln wrote to friend Joshua Speed, his closest friend and Mary’s brother, that the sight was a “continued torment” for him [8]. Lincoln knew that appeals over slavery’s violence would not affect a slaveholder like Robertson. Instead, he chose to appeal to America’s founding ideals, even if ignoring the sight of the slave coffle betrayed some of his strongest emotions. This exclusion of discussion of conditions of slavery conveyed Lincoln’s willingness to speak to a targeted audience. At this point in his career, Lincoln tested different variations of anti-slavery rhetoric, figuring out how to address people across the spectrum in a deeply divided nation. 

Although Lincoln had told Robertson that the question of slavery was “too mighty for him,” he eventually chose to answer it on June 16, 1858, during his address to the Illinois Republican State Convention after the party nominated him for the Senate. There, he stated that “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free”[9]. This famous statement echoed the rhetoric in this letter. Now on a national stage, Lincoln still understood slavery to be a divisive issue that could tear the country apart and appealed to his Republican audience to stand firmly against it.

[1] Abraham Lincoln to George Robertson, August 15, 1855, in Papers of Abraham Lincoln Digital Library, [WEB]. 

[2] Abraham Lincoln to George Robertson, August 15, 1855. 

[3] Abraham Lincoln to George Robertson, August 15, 1855. 

[4] Abraham Lincoln to George Robertson, August 15, 1855. 

[5] Matthew Pinsker, “Man of Consequence,” History Teacher 16 (2009): 16-33. [WEB].

[6] James Oakes, The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), xiv. [WEB].

[7] Abraham Lincoln to Mary Speed, September 27, 1841, in Lincoln’s Private Letters on the Sectional Crisis (1841, 1850), [WEB]. 

[8] Abraham Lincoln to Joshua Speed, August 24, 1855, in Lincoln’s Private Letters on the Sectional Crisis (1841, 1850), [WEB]. 

[9] Abraham Lincoln, “House Divided Speech” (speech, Illinois Republican State Convention, Springfield, IL, June 16, 1858). [WEB].

Lincoln to Robertson Video