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![Still, most freed Blacks resisted the pressure to self-deport. Instead, many started organizing toward the creation of the kind of Nation the colonizationists opposed—one that guaranteed liberty and justice for all. In the decades leading up to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, Black Americans organized and gathered at more than 600 local and national conventions across the country. There, delegates erected the political and intellectual scaffolding for the Fourteenth Amendment and, later, for the Black Civil Rights Movement more generally.
Critically for present purposes, these visionaries already understood themselves to be American citizens. “The refrains ‘we are Americans’ and ‘we are citizens’ echoed in conferences throughout the North.” Moreover, “[b]irthright figured importantly” as “delegates frequently characterized their status as that of native-born citizens.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ks3gpa6ftoyaq7hmf6c4qx4c/bafkreieuwdbxpjo22e7fg26a65dobwofwaytq6ilqp4cy7bcicw5fsk63a)
![The delegates argued that, as such, they had the requisite allegiance, so, at a minimum, the Federal Government owed them the duty of protection.
The famed orator Frederick Douglass was one of these delegates. Capturing the spirit of the moment, Douglass proclaimed that Chief Justice Taney—the author of the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857)—“[could] do many things, but he [could not] … change the essential nature of things.” In the absence of the artificial evils of slavery and racial subordination, Douglass explained, “the glorious birthright of our common humanity, will become the inheritance of all the inhabitants of this highly favored country.”
Do note this: The citizenship thesis of the Colored Conventions was thus not that some new status should be created and conferred on freed Blacks.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ks3gpa6ftoyaq7hmf6c4qx4c/bafkreidxenf7ggfe5sghdwpe5v7pwn3kfh4mqkxiccusnrknq7zfr7qhtm)
![It was instead that freed Blacks already had a rightful claim to citizenship because they had been born on American soil. After all, the Nation, from its founding, had “boldly proclaim[ed] that all men are born free and equal, and that consequently life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are inherent in every individual, vested inalienably by natural birthright.” No ideal was more inherently American. Now, “rest[ing their] cause on the republican standard of the revolutionary Fathers,” freed Blacks were “knock[ing] at the doors of the constitution and demand[ing] an entrance.” And “[i]f … asked what evidence [they] bring to sustain [their] qualifications for citizenship, [they would] offer them certificates of … BIRTH and NATIVITY.” Would the Nation live up to its promise?
Such universalist appeals were a conscious choice. Yes, Black Americans had suffered a singular wrong. And yes, they had “fought and bled” for the Union, paying a steep price for their freedom. But the delegates did not rest on these laurels. Rather, they drew upon the moral and political force of the universal principles that were already core to the Nation’s identity.
That bears repeating: Freed Blacks did not advocate for a unique set of rules that catered only to their situation. Nor did they seek to advance their own position relative to, or at the expense and exclusion of, other marginalized groups.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ks3gpa6ftoyaq7hmf6c4qx4c/bafkreig7o5wpfpkbjt7zcvghbco4zafj6m64etq7blz7r542gh7b3gn3oa)
![Instead, those whose gatherings helped galvanize the push for full equality understood that “[a] diverse origin does not disprove a common nature, nor does it disprove a united destiny.” The firmest foundation for freedom would require an anticaste reset—“both for his sake and for ours”—and would benefit all.
During his U. S. Senate candidacy, Abraham Lincoln developed a similar vision. In the lead-up to the now-famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln explained that the promise of liberty and equality in the Declaration of Independence “was held sacred by all, and thought to include all.” Lincoln expressly and intentionally linked the fate of Black Americans and immigrant groups (“among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all” of the Founders), and noted that the Nation’s future hinged on a universal definition of citizenship that excluded neither. He explained that the Declaration’s promise that “all men are created equal” was the “electric cord … that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together,” regardless of race or descent.
The case was made. First, there was war. And then, the delegates’ (and Lincoln’s) universalist view of citizenship made its mark on the Constitution.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ks3gpa6ftoyaq7hmf6c4qx4c/bafkreigucpltb6mmwuwxswipazl56ki3v4dmsr7fx4lkmf5jncrsuvwp4a)
