These are very interesting comments, Kevin--thanks--on a very 
thought-provoking thread.  It's good to see such a lively discussion of 
an important subject.

A forthcoming book should shed valuable light on some of the issues 
we've been talking about.  Eva Sheppard Wolf's Race and Liberty in the 
New Nation: Emancipation in Virginia from the Revolution to Nat 
Turner's Rebellion (LSU Press), a reworking of her doctoral 
dissertation at Harvard that will be out later this year, takes what is 
probably the most thorough look yet at the documentary record of 
emancipation in Virginia.  Here's the publisher's description:

"By examining how ordinary Virginia citizens grappled with the vexing 
problem of slavery in a society dedicated to universal liberty, Eva 
Sheppard Wolf broadens our understanding of such important concepts as 
freedom, slavery, emancipation, and race in the early years of the 
American republic. She frames her study around the moment between 
slavery and liberty—emancipation—shedding new light on the complicated 
relations between whites and blacks in a slave society.

Wolf argues that during the post-Revolutionary period, white Virginians 
understood both liberty and slavery to be racial concepts more than 
political ideas. Through an in-depth analysis of archival records, 
particularly those dealing with manumission between 1782 and 1806, she 
reveals how these entrenched beliefs shaped both thought and behavior. 
In spite of qualms about slavery, white Virginians repeatedly 
demonstrated their unwillingness to abolish the institution.

The manumission law of 1782 eased restrictions on individual 
emancipation and made possible the liberation of thousands, but Wolf 
discovers that far fewer slaves were freed in Virginia than previously 
thought. Those who were emancipated posed a disturbing social, 
political, and even moral problem in the minds of whites. Where would 
ex-slaves fit in a society that could not conceive of black liberty? As 
Wolf points out, even those few white Virginians who proffered 
emancipation plans always suggested sending freed slaves to some other 
place. Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831 led to a public debate over 
ending slavery, after which discussions of emancipation in the Old 
Dominion largely disappeared as the eastern slaveholding elite 
tightened its grip on political power in the state.

This well-informed and carefully crafted book outlines important and 
heretofore unexamined changes in whites' views of blacks and liberty in 
the new nation. By linking the Revolutionary and antebellum eras, it 
shows how white attitudes hardened during the half-century that 
followed the declaration that 'all men are created equal.'"

Those who attended the Virginia Forum in Winchester this past march 
will recall Dr. Wolf's participation as a panelist.

--Jurretta Heckscher

On Oct 31, 2006, at 7:11 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Some reflections in reply to Anita Henderson--
>
> The recent scholarship by Levy, Wiencek, and Ely documents in
> particular detail a number of large emancipations in Virginia.
> Part of the value of the stories that they tell is that they
> reminds us that history need not have developed the way that
> it did.  Some elite Virginians were capable not only of
> perceiving that slavery was evil, but were also capable of
> acting on that perception.
>
> This is an argument made powerfully by John P. Kaminski in his
> superb document collection A NECESSARY EVIL?  SLAVERY AND THE
> DEBATE OVER THE CONSTITUTION (Madison House, 1995).  Kaminski
> writes "Something dramatic had happened to the character of
> the American people in the intervening decade between the
> signing of the Declaration of Indendence and the promulgation
> of the Constitution.  The principles for which Americans were
> willing to die--freedom, equality, and unalienable rights--had
> given way to the Constitution's call for justice, tranquility,
> defense, general welfare, and liberty.  Americans qualified
> their earlier expression of universal equality by applying it
> only to certain groups of people.  They also wrote a
> constitution that strongly protected personal property.  In
> the eighteenth century that meant condoning, sanctioning, and
> even rewarding the institution of slavery." (pp. ix-x)
>
> Later in the book, Kaminski offers the following thesis:
>
> "The American Revolutionary era was a time when slavery might
> have been abolished peacefully without dismembering the Union.
>  The rhetoric and reality of fighting for liberty sparked in
> the American consciousness a devotion to freedom and a
> concomitant sense of guilt in the continued enslavement of a
> race of people.  Tragically, by 1787 this unique chance to rid
> America of slavery vanished." (p. 243)
>
> Kaminski's book is a model for how to make an argument through
> the presentation of primary sources.  It is valuable for the
> breadth of its coverage, both geographically and in the use of
> source materials.
>
> The natural rights ideals of the American Revolution
> themselves have a profound religious dimension--see, for
> example, the recent study of the Declaration of Independence
> by Allen Jayne.  Absent the experience of the Revolution,
> however, its hard to imagine abolition making much headway in
> Virginia--it was the combination of religion and natural
> rights, politicized and made real in the revolution, which
> made abolition potentially viable at that moment.
>
> By the time Carter emancipated his slaves, the historical
> moment of which Kaminski writes was already in the past.  I
> agree with those who have written here suggesting that Carter
> was exceptional.  But that said, I think there is something
> useful to be found in contemplating his life--Carter's
> religious impulse was intimately tied to the revolution, it
> seems to me.
>
> Case studies will always lack the broad dimensions that a work
> like Kaminski's possesses.  They lack the broad context--a
> weakness to be found in all three of these studies.  But
> without them, we are not ultimately able to sustain the
> synthetic judgments of scholars like Kaminski.  I take the
> three works we've been talking about here to confirm
> Kaminski's thesis, at least in part.  The moment was past, by
> the time that Randolph, Carter, and Washington acted.
>
> The first part of Kaminski's thesis--that there was a window
> of opportunity open in the 1780s to end slavery, and to end it
> peacefully, strikes me as fruitful, and deserving of a great
> deal more study.  We need more case studies.
>
> But don't we always need more case studies?
>
> All best,
> Kevin
>

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