SLAVERY IN AN ERA OF NATIONAL CONSENSUS, 1776-1789 Robert F. Durden patriot leaders of the American Revolution came face to face with an embarrassing dilemma in 1776: in the Declaration of Independence they embraced what was then the radical idea that God had created all men -- & they meant all human beings — with a natural right to life, liberty, and property, although Thomas Jefferson chose to substitute “the pursuit of happiness” for that last natural right. No longer struggling for liberty within the British Empire, the American chose to discard monarchy, establish a republic, and base their whole daring experiment on the advanced natural rights philosophy that John Locke and other leading figures of the Enlightenment had formulated. Yet, in every one of the 13 new states there were African American slaves who were not free. In other words, the fact of slavery flew in the face of the natural rights doctrine. I should point out that in the 18th century — the 1700’s — most people were not yet thinking in terms of race — that would come in the following century. So natural rights were regarded as universal and belonging to all human beings. Slavery, as most of you already know, was quite unevenly distributed among the 13 states. Because of climate, soil, and other things, the New England states had very few slaves. The mid-Atlantic states of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey had more than New England but even there slavery was not deeply rooted and was not a large or vital part of the economy.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 00:16:10 +0000
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