Morgan, Sterling Professor of American History at Yale University, begins at the beginning, in colonial Virginia, where the most eloquent advocates of freedom and independence drafted the documents of liberty, overlooking their own slaves. In “American Slavery, American Freedom,” Edmund S. The authors use contemporary voices, sources and documents. Two solid works of modern scholarship grapple with the question without once resorting to computer readouts, microfiche, overnight Nielsens or similar sorcerer's apprentices.
THE PROBLEM OF SLAVERY IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION 1770‐1823. AMERICAN FREEDOM: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. Why was not slavery openly mentioned? Where were the actual words bondage, slavery or Negro? Douglas saw the omission as a justification for his views on the “democratic” extension of slavery, but Lincoln had a generous interpretation: “It was hoped when it should be read by intelligent and patriotic men, after the institution of slavery had passed from among us, there should be nothing on the face of the great charter of liberty suggesting that such a thing as Negro slavery had ever existed among us.”ĪMERICAN SLAVERY. Douglas and Lincoln, debating, went deep into the wellsprings of liberty to fathom the meaning in the language of the Constitution. The question was still coming up a few years before the Civil War. “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?” Samuel Johnson said, looking across the Atlantic contemptuously. It was a paradox 200 years ago and it remained so well into the next century.
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