Norton Media Library Chapter 6 Give Me Liberty

Norton Media Library Chapter 6 Give Me Liberty! An American History Second Edition Volume 1 by Eric Foner

I. Democratizing freedom A. Challenges to hereditary privilege 1. Rejection of hereditary aristocracy 2. Radicalism of “all men are created equal” B. Expansion of political democracy 1. Popular engagement in public debate a. Unintended disruption of social order b. Rise of artisans, small farmers, laborers, etc. 2. Rolling back of property qualifications (especially in PA) a. Less democratization in the South 3. New state constitutions (all republican) a. PA = 1 -house legislature b. MA = balanced bicameral legislature 4. Radical & conservative patriots

II. Toward religious toleration A. Broadening of religious toleration 1. Weakening of anti-Catholicism B. The founders and religion 1. Religion = public morality 2. Skeptical of religious doctrine 3. Separating church and state a. Deists and evangelists unite to separate church and state b. Only NY offered complete religious toleration 4. Jefferson and religious liberty a. Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom b. Rejected creationism c. Jefferson’s Bible – Jesus was not divine d. James Madison – U. S. was a religious / political asylum C. Revolution and the churches 1. Challenges to church authority 2. Leaders encouraged virtue – sacrifice self-interest for public good

III. Defining economic freedom A. Sharpening of the line between free and slave labor 1. Decline of intermediate forms of un-free labor a. Indentured servitude & apprenticeship (vanished by 1800) 2. Causes of decline a. Rise of wage workers B. Points of consensus 1. Excessive dependency and inequality subversive to republic 2. America well-poised to foster liberty & equality C. Points of debate 1. Equality of condition vs. equality of opportunity a. Jefferson abolishes entail and primogeniture 2. Regulation of prices vs. free trade a. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations – “invisible hand of free market”

IV. The limits of liberty A. Colonial loyalists 1. Social profiles a. Comprised @ 1/3 of population b. Similar to patriots (or rebels) c. 20, 000 fought with the British 2. Motivations a. Numerous in NY, PA, SC, and GA b. Economic 3. Experiences a. Suppression and assaults b. Seizure of property 1) Oaths of allegiance c. Banishment or voluntary departure – @ 100, 000 d. Gradual fading of stigma

IV. The limits of liberty B. Indians 1. Accelerated dispossession 2. Wartime dilemmas and disruptions a. Futile efforts at neutrality b. Divided allegiances c. Losses and hardships 3. Access to Indian land was one of the fruits of victory 4. Treaty of Paris marked culmination of power shift

V. Slavery and the Revolution A. Use of “slavery” in rhetoric of revolution 1. In 1776, slaves comprised 1/5 of American population 2. As a metaphor for political status of colonists a. Arbitrary governmental power b. Disfranchised 3. As direct critique of slavery a. James Otis b. MP Edmund Burke 4. Alleged hypocrisy of slaveholders crying “slavery” a. Dr. Samuel Johnson B. Obstacles to abolition 1. Importance of slave system in the colonies 2. Perception of slavery as basis for white freedom 3. Conception of property rights as essential to liberty

V. Slavery and the Revolution (cont’d) C. Impetus for abolition 1. Growing debate over slavery in America a. Benjamin Rush and “general liberty” b. Thomas Jefferson 2. Black initiatives against slavery a. Invocations of freedom as universal right 1) Lemuel Haynes & Phillis Wheatley D. British emancipators 1. Invitations to slaves to escape to British lines a. Lord Dunmore’s proclamation b. Henry Clinton’s proclamation 2. Magnitude of slave response a. 100, 000 escaped to British lines 3. Long-term outcomes for slaves who escaped to British a. 15, 000 accompanied the British out of America

V. Slavery and the Revolution (cont’d) E. The first emancipation 1. Curbs on slave importation a. Nearly every state prohibited or discouraged importation 2. Upper South manumissions a. Robert Carter III (VA) b. Richard Randolph (VA) c. John and Henry Laurens (SC) 3. Abolition in northern states a. Between 1777 and 1804, all states north of Maryland b. Slow process F. Emergence of free black communities 1. “Formed a standing challenge to the logic of slavery”

VI. Women and the Revolution A. Participation in revolutionary cause 1. Deborah Sampson, Ladies’ Association, and home B. Limits on access to American freedom 1. Maintenance of legal subordination of women 2. Male supremacy as element of revolutionary thought 3. View of women as wives and mothers, unfit for citizenship C. Improvements in status of women 1. Ideology of “republican motherhood” 2. Perception of women as trainers of citizens, meriting education 3. Notion of “companionate marriage”

VII. Repercussions of American independence struggle throughout Atlantic world A. Worldwide demand by locals for greater autonomy B. French Revolution C. Latin America

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