Race and RevolutionThe most profound crisis of conscience for white Americans at the end of the eighteenth century became their most tragic failure. Race and Revolution is a trenchant study of the revolutionary generation's early efforts to right the apparent contradiction of slavery and of their ultimate compromises that not only left the institution intact but provided it with the protection of a vastly strengthened government after 1788. Reversing the conventional view that blames slavery on the South's social and economic structures, Nash stresses the role of the northern states in the failure to abolish slavery. It was northern racism and hypocrisy as much as southern intransigence that buttressed "the peculiar institution." Nash also shows how economic and cultural factors intertwined to result not in an apparently judicious decision of the new American nation but rather its most significant lost opportunity. Race and Revolution describes the free black community's response to this failure of the revolution's promise, its vigorous and articulate pleas for justice, and the community's successes in building its own African-American institutions within the hostile environment of early nineteenth-century America. Included with the text of Race and Revolution are nineteen rare and crucial documents--letters, pamphlets, sermons, and speeches--which provide evidence for Nash's controversial and persuasive claims. From the words of Anthony Benezet and Luther Martin to those of Absalom Jones and Caesar Sarter, readers may judge the historical record for themselves. "In reality," argues Nash, "the American Revolution represents the largest slave uprising in our history." Race and Revolution is the compelling story of that failed quest for the promise of freedom. |
From inside the book
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Page viii
... essay , Nash demonstrates how , with independence and their effort to form a more perfect union , Americans tragically lost the zeal to free the thousands of African - Americans tyrannized by the institutions of slavery . Much of the ...
... essay , Nash demonstrates how , with independence and their effort to form a more perfect union , Americans tragically lost the zeal to free the thousands of African - Americans tyrannized by the institutions of slavery . Much of the ...
Page ix
Gary B. Nash. PREFACE THE ESSAYS IN THIS BOOK grew out of The Merrill Jensen Lectures in Constitutional Studies , given at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in September 1988. I felt honored at the invitation to give the inaugural ...
Gary B. Nash. PREFACE THE ESSAYS IN THIS BOOK grew out of The Merrill Jensen Lectures in Constitutional Studies , given at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in September 1988. I felt honored at the invitation to give the inaugural ...
Page x
... essay for his mentor , one of Jensen's students , E. James Ferguson , speaks of Jensen's " sympathy for the common man [ combined ] with a realistic sense of human motives and a hardheaded recognition of how loaves and fishes are ...
... essay for his mentor , one of Jensen's students , E. James Ferguson , speaks of Jensen's " sympathy for the common man [ combined ] with a realistic sense of human motives and a hardheaded recognition of how loaves and fishes are ...
Page xi
... essays he gave near the end of his career - is a concern with the question of slavery and race during the revolutionary era . The American Revolution involved multiple agendas , and some of the most important and fascinating of them ...
... essays he gave near the end of his career - is a concern with the question of slavery and race during the revolutionary era . The American Revolution involved multiple agendas , and some of the most important and fascinating of them ...
Page 6
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Contents
The Revolutionary Generation Embraces Abolitionism | 3 |
The Failure of Abolitionism | 25 |
Black Americans in a White Republic | 57 |
Documents for Chapter 1 | 91 |
Documents for Chapter 2 | 133 |
Documents for Chapter 3 | 167 |
READING FURTHER | 199 |
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Common terms and phrases
abolishing slavery abolition of slavery abolitionism abolitionist Absalom Jones African African-Americans American Revolution Anthony Benezet antislavery Bailyn Benjamin Rush bill black Americans black churches blessings bondage born Boston brethren British Chapel Hill Christians colonies colour consider Constitutional Convention cruel debate declared emancipation enslave equal essay evil federal fellow free blacks freedom freemen George Tucker Georgia gradual abolition Hammon hath historians History honor human Ibid ican important independent inhabitants James Forten Jupiter Hammon justice labor land laws Leon Litwack liberty live Lynd Madison mankind manumission masters Merrill Jensen Methodist mind Nash nation natural rights Negro never North northern oppression ourselves pamphlet Pennsylvania Abolition Society person petition Philadelphia political Prince Hall principles privileges problem of slavery protection Quakers race republican revolutionary Richard Allen Richard Beeman sentiment slave trade slaveholders South Carolina southern Thomas Jefferson thousands United Virginia wrote York