Union League

“ The league was organized as an aid to the effective carrying out of the humane objects and purposes of those in the North who believed that the ballot in the hands of the negro would be preferable to bullets in the muskets of a standing army, which would have been necessary for an indefinite period in many sections of the South." 18 The Union League was a secret society, to which few but negroes and the white leaders had access. The club always met at night and the chief exercises consisted in the political education of the freedmen. ”

“ The League is campaigning against the reactionaries, incompetents, and crooks who occupy strategic positions in many of our organizations. It is striving to replace them with militants, with men and women unionists who look upon the labor movement not as a means for making an easy living, but as an instrument for the achievement of working class emancipation. In other words, the League is working in every direction necessary to put life and spirit and power into the trade union movement. ”

“ UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA, THE, sometimes called the Loyal League, an organization for political purposes of Northern whites, later of Southern blacks, which originated in Ohio in 1862 when the Confederate military successes and political disaffection in the Northern states made the outlook for the North seem doubtful. ”

“ They were acquainted with the character of the Union League; aware of its horrible objects and aims; the almost daily crimes of lustful fiends, assassins and incendiaries were regarded as the fruits of its teachings; its responsibility for the existence of courts of law void of decency and recognized authority, and for officials incapable of [Pg 88] enforcing law and order, for injury to public credit by prodigal pledges, and waste of public money, was fixed by its foolish and persistent allegiance to false leaders. This league was the institution marked for destruction. ”

“ The attack on Fort Sumter gave a powerful impetus to the development of the national sentiment in favour of union and unity, and the death of Ellsworth and the defeat of the first Federal army at Bull Run added such an intensity and coherence to the feeling that the Union League became a power in the State, equipped regiments, raised funds, and in every way contributed to the carrying on of the war with spirit, affording by its action and success a powerful illustration of the vigour with which voluntary associations can be worked in America. ”

“ In south Alabama it was disgraceful for a person to have any connection with the Union League; and if a man was a member, he kept it secret. To this day no one will admit that he belonged to that organization. So far as the native members were concerned, they cared little about the original purposes of the order, but hoped to make it the nucleus of a political organization; and the northern civilian membership, the Bureau agents, preachers, and teachers, and other adventurers, soon began to see other possibilities in the organization. ”

“ He was told to the accompaniment of clanking chains and groans that the objects of the order were to preserve liberty, to perpetuate the Union, to maintain the laws and the Constitution, to secure the ascendancy of American institutions, to protect, defend, and strengthen all loyal men and members of the Union League in all rights of person and property, to demand the elevation of labor, to aid in the education of laboring men, and to teach the duties of American citizenship. ”

“ The Union League of America was organized in Cleveland, Ohio, during the war by friends of Thaddeus Stevens, the Radical leader of Congress. Its prime object was the confiscation of the property of the South. The chief obstacle to this program was Abraham Lincoln. Hence the first work of the League was to form a conspiracy against Lincoln and prevent his renomination for a second term. ”

“ Louis the League has never been represented in the central body by its own delegates, but by members representing primarily their own organizations, such as Bindery Women and Boot and Shoe Workers. In Boston, New York and Chicago each League is represented by its own delegates. In Kansas City, Missouri, again, not only are the delegates of the League seated in the central body, but every union of men in it pays a per capita tax into the funds of the Kansas City Women's Trade Union League. ”

“ The National League receives a certain amount of financial support from the American Federation of Labor, and from a number of the international unions, several of the latter being affiliated with the League. State federations, city central bodies, and local unions in different parts of the country give similar coöperation and money support. ”

“ The League maintains that it is not necessary to go off and start a new union just because one gets a new idea or has a tough struggle with the reactionaries. Experience proves that it is far easier to remodel the existing old organizations. It repudiates the spurious science which alleges that labor unions are not subject to the influence of a changed environment ”

“ Both Union and non-Union men formed secret societies. The democrats organized a secret society known as the Knights of the Golden Circle, one of its objects being to prevent a draft. George Helm was the leading democrat at this time in this section, and was called the "Lion of Linn." The Union men formed the Union League, the chief object of which was to watch the democrats. ”

“ From experience gained during these gigantic industrial wars, the National League has laid down definite conditions under which its locals may coöperate with unions in time of strike. These take part only in strikes in which women are involved, and then only after having been formally invited to assist, and on the understanding that two League representatives may attend all executive meetings of the strikers' union. ”

“ Where sovereign communities are parties, there is no essential difference between a compact, a confederation, and a league. They all equally rest on the plighted faith of the sovereign party. A league, or confederacy, is but a subsisting or continuing treaty.
The gentleman's resolutions, then, affirm, in effect, that these twenty- four United States are held together only by a subsisting treaty, resting for its fulfilment and continuance on no inherent power of its own, but on the plighted faith of each State; or, in other words, that our Union is but a league ”

“ Is it not plain that if your League is to last there must be no nation strong enough to have any chance against the general will of Humanity? Or, to put the matter in another way; there must be no predominant partner or even group of partners in your League. Is there any case of a successful federation with a predominant partner? In the United States you have the great States of New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, but no one of them counts for more than a small fraction of the whole Union. ”

“ In thus leaving open a door, however, through which all working-women may enter the League, the founders were mindful of the fact, and have it embodied in the constitution, that the main strength must lie in the increasing number of wage-earning girls and women who are socially developed up to the point of being themselves organized into trade unions. The League has so far grown, and can in the future grow normally, only so far as it is the highest organized expression of the ideals, the wishes and the needs of the wage-earning girl. ”

“ These men succeeded in controlling the negroes and in preventing the discussion of politics in the meetings. The League was made simply a club where the negroes met to receive advice, which was to the effect that they should attend strictly to their own affairs and vote without reference to any secret organization. Finally, they were advised to withdraw from the order. [1570]
Facsimile of Page from Union League Constitution. ”

“ To win even from failure success, to win for success permanence, was the next aim of the League, and nowhere has this constructive policy of theirs brought about more significant results than in the aid which they were able to give to the workers in the sewing trades. In New York it was the League which made possible the large organizations which exist today among the cloak-makers, the waist-makers and other white-goods-workers. ”

“ Soon there were added to these the deserters, a few old line Whigs who intensely disliked the Democrats, and others who decided to cast their lot with the victors. The disaffected politicians of the up-country, who wanted to be cared for in the reconstruction, saw in the organization a means of dislodging from power the political leaders of the low country. It has been estimated that thirty per cent of the white men of 180 the hill and mountain counties of the South joined the Union League in 1865-66. ”

“ The Council of the League seeks a union with you. The League has already enlisted in the common cause the great majority of their fellow-countrymen, in almost every town, village, and hamlet of Great Britain.
"The provinces of England, Wales, and Scotland, have responded to our call they have united with the League for the abolition of the Corn Laws, and for the concurrent abolition of all monopolies. The immediate efforts of the whole community are needed to rescue the people, our institutions, and our country from impending calamities. ”

“ The rank and file of the local organizations, in city after city, have given the same hearty and unqualified approval to the League's pioneering work, in bringing the unorganized women and girls into the unions, and in carrying on a constant educative work among those already organized. ”

“ That gave the opening which permitted the top leadership of the Communist Party in the United States to grant the request of most of the organizers in the Trade Union Unity League to dissolve their organizations and permit them to join the new rising organizations which were developing as industrial unions, and also to join the appropriate American Federation of Labor unions. ”

“ Where the independent unions are strong numerically and actually function as mass organizations the League shall do its utmost to upbuild and maintain them. But such unions shall not war against the old organizations nor pull individual or local unions away from them. ”

“ The right to work is a natural right of every citizen. The State shall endeavor to provide, to the extent possible, a job for the largest number of those willing to work, while ensuring production, the freedom to choose one's work and equality of opportunity without discrimination of any kind on grounds of race, colour, sex, religion, language, political opinion, membership in a union, national origin, social origin, disability or any other situation. ”

“ Every individual has the right to freely form trade unions or to join trade unions and to freely pursue trade union activity for the protection of his interests.
2. No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights and freedoms except such as are prescribed by the laws in force and that are necessary for the maintenance of national security, public safety or order or for the protection of public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others.
3. Every State party to the present Charter guarantees the right to strike within the limits laid down by the laws in force. ”

“ But the issue with which the League has scored its greatest success is that of industrial unionism through amalgamation. This movement to combine all the craft unions into a series of industrial organizations it as present sweeping the country like a prairie fire. The workers realize that the death knell of craft unionism has sounded and that the way to a higher form of organization lies through amalgamation. ”

“ Any little bundle of human beings, however small, illiterate, and unimportant, provided only that it was a law unto itself and waved a flag about and insisted upon a cantankerous independence, was regarded as a possible unit by the pedants who devised the League. Any body of people, however numerous, intelligent, and significant in human affairs, provided it had grouped itself into any other larger political aggregation, ceased, on the other hand, to be anything but a merged participator in the League’s affairs. ”

“ In the preparation of the working class for its inevitable role of controlling production and society generally, the League does all in its power to strengthen the various types of labor activity and organization. Above all it stresses the necessity for the most compact organization possible on the industrial field. It condemns the present primitive system of craft unionism and demands a complete reorganization of the labor movement upon an industrial basis. ”

“ Amalgamation has now become, because of the League's efforts, the principal issue before the labor movement. Great numbers of organizations have endorsed its program, including 14 State Federations of Labor, 7 International Unions, scores of central labor councils, and thousands of local unions. The establishment of industrial unionism in America is a project for the very near future. As a first step, the League is advocating the consolidation of the crafts in the various industries into single unions, each of which shall cover an industry. But the evolution will not stop there. ”

“ The League itself holds general conferences yearly. The organization is financed by voluntary contributions of individuals and local unions, by the sale of literature, and through the Sustaining Fund.
Every worker who has his own best interests at heart and who understands the problem of the labor struggle should join hands with the League. It is a forgone conclusion that there is no hope for the American working class organized as it now is. We are at the absolute mercy of the bosses. Owning the jobs and controlling the Government they can sit back and dictate the terms of work. ”

“ The system of departmentalized industrial unionism, as above outlined, is not a new and untried theory by any means. Our European brothers, who are far ahead of us in the matter of tactics and organization, have had such industrial unions for many years. For a long time they have been amalgamating their original craft unions into departmentalized bodies, with most satisfactory results. The English railroad workers show us a very fine example in their National Union of Railwaymen. This amalgamated union embraces all classes of railroad workers. ”