American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795, by Edward J. Larson

Expand

'American Inheritance' by Edward J. Larson

If the founders believed that “all men are created equal,” how to account for the preservation of slavery under the new republic? Edward J. Larson examines this troubled history in American Inheritance and finds that the contradictions embraced by the founders are self-evident and troubling. While incessantly demanding their liberty—especially from taxes—the patriots of the American Revolution consistently denied it to others.

The Pulitzer-winning author begins by investigating what “American” meant in the formative years of the 18th century. Some commentators were already pushing the “white melting pot” theory of Americans as an amalgam of Northern European bloodlines. Others were even more restrictive, limiting the definition to people of British ancestry. The “liberties” they extolled were the unwritten constitutional rights of “freeborn Englishmen.” Even for enlightened writers who recognized their humanity, Africans and Native Americans were never thought of as Americans. 

Racism was pervasive to one degree or another. Even the sagacious Benjamin Franklin, in younger years, warned against the “swarm” of immigrants without British ancestry (he disliked the Germans moving into Pennsylvania) and wanted Blacks to get out (he was fonder of Native Americans). Fortunately, the scope of his famed wisdom grew with age.

As for Thomas Jefferson, the comfortably placed radical of the Revolution, he declared Blacks as “inferior.” Given the occasional murmurings of his conscience over slavery, he seemed to favor their eventual repatriation to Africa or expulsion to elsewhere.

On the bright side, Larson notes that as early as 1775, free Blacks in Charleston, SC, protested their condition, laying the first seed of a movement for change.