The Debate Regarding the Freedmans Bureau Essay -- African American B

The Debate Regarding the freedmans Bureau Historians and political theorists have delineate the concept of compare into two categories the competitive individualist nonion of equality of process and the egalitarian ideal of equality of results. The former is concerned with providing a level playing field for all, while the latter focuses on a just distribution resulting from the process. Richard Ellis, in his book American policy-making Cultures, challenges the Hartzian dissertation that historically Americans favored equality of process over equality of results, making them competitive individualists. Ellis argues that what is exceptional about America is not that it lacked a results-oriented ken of equality but that those who favored equalizing results believed that equal process was a commensurate condition for realizing equal results (Ellis 1993 44). In other words, the egalitarian spirit was not absent from American history, but Americans believed that justice would best b e served through with(predicate) competition. Ellis is correct in making this fine distinction, yet it is master(prenominal) to tone of voice that historical evidence suggests that some factions clearly emphasized equality of results unheeding of equality of process. In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois recounting of the political debate regarding the Freedmans Bureau, clearly highlights this ideological difference.Du Bois poignantly captures the necessity for a ratified equalizing measure in his description of the tragedy of slavery and the ragged, conflicted nature of the caustic consciousness that resulted. He writes, the facing of so vast a impairment could not but bring the inevitable self-questioning, self-disparagement, and lowering of ideals which ever fall out repressio... ...ows, that given dire circumstances, Americans indeed turn to measures to ensure equality of results earlier than relying on equality of processes. Of course, suffrage left much to be c oveted for African American equality. Jim Crow laws and other forms of racism continued to elicit American society for many decades to follow. Nonetheless, the legacy of the Bureau remains an important part of American political history. It may require extreme instances of military man misery, tragedy, and utter inequality (such as the institution of slavery) to highlight a force for equality of results regardless of the processes. This egalitarian ideology clearly is evident in post-Civil War American legislation. Works CitedDu Bois, W.E.B. 1997. The Souls of Black Folk. Boston Bedford Books.Ellis, Richard. 1993. American Political Cultures, New York Oxford University Press.