Question

How is it possible that "freedom" in the American Revolution developed side by side with slavery? Needs to be at least 1000 words if possible

Answer 1

• 'Freedom' meant 'freedom from the British'. It also meant 'freedom for wealthy white men'. It did not for a second mean 'freedom for everyone'.
• The freedom that was sought in the American Revolution had two foundations, political and religious. Race was not an issue in the scheme of the conflict.
• Politically, the American colonies sought freedom due to unilateral taxes and absentee-landlord type of government imposed by the British king. One main theme in the Revolution was "taxation without representation." In other words, the British Crown, King George III, was taxing the colonies and not allowing them any voice in government.
• Religiously, many of the colonialists were refugees from the religious repression exercised by the British king, who was also head of the Church of England. The CoE split from the Roman Catholic church during the reign of Henry VIII and Henry had himself declared as Supreme Head (in effect, a British Pope).
• Because the Protestants and Anabaptists would not accept Henry's self-appointed position as their spiritual dictator, he persecuted them and had many, many imprisoned and executed.
• The ideology based on understanding that “all men were born free and equal”, as posited by the natural rights philosophy, and slavery, which became the ultimate expression of inequality. This situation is often called the paradox of the American history.
• First of all, it was the egalitarian thinking of the Founding Fathers of the Revolution, for example, Thomas Jefferson, who himself was a large slaveholder. While the ideology of the revolution was all about men created equal, this focus on individual liberty was ambivalent.
• Despite the fact that the eighteenth century thinkers realized that the African American people were homo sapiens, they could not disregard the fact that the African Americans had been their property for a century or even more.
• In this context, the ideology of property took the prominent position and it turned out so that “there was hardly a man in all the colonies who would not have seen a serious problem in calling for an end to property in slaves without consent or compensation.
• Overall, it was the lack of clear distinction between the so-called human and property rights that prevented the formation of a considerable roadblock across the way to slavery abolition.
• Besides, the very thinking of the Founding Fathers, the leisured gentry who served for the good of the society, bore an imprint of civic humanism. Hence, the Federalists passionately believed in ranks hierarchy, as well as in an uneven and greatly unequal social order.