276 Political Activity and Resistance to Oppression: From the American Revolution to the Civil War
explanatory model defi ned by the resistance/accommoda-
tion binary. Although on one level, enslaved and free blacks
transmitted the offi cial languages of freedom, liberty, and
independence, they were also creators of new ones, such as
with the analogical reading of the biblical story of Exodus
and the reassertion of a God as the liberator of oppressed
peoples, a claim that invoked the original, revolutionary
thrust of Christianity at the moment it arose in its challenge
to the empire of Rome. Blacks in the newly constituted
United States also challenged empire, one that, according
to Th omas Jeff erson in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase,
constituted an “empire of liberty.” Th e relation of blacks (as
slaves and free people) to the ruling order was thus both
complementary and antagonistic, as they adapted, on the
one hand, and transformed, on the other hand, the domi-
nant political languages that structured the society.
Although established well before the Revolutionary era,
and despite its gradual abolition in the Northern states, the
institution of slavery expanded and intensifi ed aft er 1776.
Indeed, the présence Africaine in fact made certain aspects
of the Revolution itself possible. In a paradox that Edmund
Morgan has defi ned as prototypically American, the inde-
pendence of the new nation was literally bought with slave
labor. When the revolting colonies sought aid from France
in their struggle for independence, “their single most valu-
able product with which to purchase assistance was tobacco,
produced mainly by slave labor.” Such a relation necessar-
ily implies that one has to move beyond the explanatory
resistance and accommodation model to account for the
actions of enslaved and free blacks, because the existence of
Anglo-American settler, anticolonial freedom required the
perpetuation of slavery and racial hierarchy.
Th is relationship continued with the actual formation
of the nation in the wake of the creation and ratifi cation of
the U.S. Constitution. As many historians have noted, the
words “slave” and “slavery” do not appear in the document.
Yet, of the three major compromises needed in 1787 for the
passage of the political and intellectual charter of the na-
tion, one was directly related to the issue of slavery, and the
other two (establishment of a bicameral legislature and the
election of the president) were not completely unrelated
to questions of distribution of power in which the institu-
tion of slavery continued to be implicated. Th e three-fi ft hs
compromise, which apportioned taxation and representa-
tion in the House of Representatives (and the U.S. Electoral
College) on the basis of a ratio of three black slaves to fi verepresentatives of the people, will be more consonant to the
public good, than if pronounced by the people themselves
convened for the purpose.”
In other words, the colonists revolted not so much
within the terms of liberal individualism, but rather as dis-
enchanted English subjects who were compelled (regret-
fully, they always seemed to argue) to contest a situation of
increasing corruption (executive measures such as stand-
ing armies, national debts, and excise schemes forced on
a weakened Parliament) that threatened their unique in-
heritance of liberty. Th is liberty was represented as being
the exclusive possession of the English and most clearly re-
fl ected in the constitution (based not on one specifi c, formal
written document, but more on unwritten constitutional
conventions as well as some written texts). Th e uniqueness
of their notion of liberty remained that the English consti-
tution had succeeded in achieving a freedom that was not
even realized with the attempts, however commendable,
during the classical ages of Greece and Rome. According to
John Adams, the English constitution was the fi nest under
heaven, and according to Samuel Adams, it was founded in
nature. One could therefore say that its “immaculate con-
ception” rendered its perfection both celestial and terres-
trial. Yet during the age of revolution, it was claimed that
such unparalleled freedom was now under siege.
Representing themselves as the true heirs to this in-
tellectual and political tradition, the revolting colonists
claimed this freedom could no longer be achieved in the
Old World. In so doing, the revolutionaries furthered the
self-conception of British North America as the exceptional
“city on the hill.” Th e only way that the colonists could
preserve this historically unique liberty was by separat-
ing themselves from the mother country, which had fallen
from grace. If not, they too would remain in bondage, that
is, in political slavery.
Enslaved and free blacks would have been well aware
of the implications of invoking such political terms as “lib-
erty,” “equality,” and the “rights of man” in a society that
had institutionalized the unfreedom of a population group.
Blacks were therefore compelled to exploit this opportu-
nity by adapting this language to their own interests and
purposes. As a consequence, their behavior exerted a pro-
found infl uence on the formation of the political structure
and cultural imagination (not that the two are distinct) of
the newly formed nation and thus constituted something
more fundamental than what can be accounted for by the