The Republic Grows

Eventually, it becomes a democracy

This is the second month of our new series focusing on US history. Let’s continue on with Jill Lepore’s book, “These Truths.” And the deep truth about colonial America is that the same society that celebrated political dissent among free whites was at the same time, suppressing any hint of rebellion among enslaved Africans.

In 1740, in the aftermath of the Stono Rebellion, which was a large slave rebellion in South Carolina, the SC legislature passed an Act they called, “For Better Ordering and Governing Negroes.” It was a new set of rules that restricted movement and also made it a crime to teach a slave to write. Just two years later, New York City experienced a wave of fear over a supposed slave conspiracy to burn the city. Historians still debate whether the plot was real or imagined, but the response was unmistakable. 150 Black Americans were thrown into prison.

We all know that the founders were flawed human beings with many noble ideas and also views that are deeply troubling for many (if not all) of us today. I found this passage compelling because of the symbolism of the Don’t Tread on Me snake that I see on cars and flags everywhere today. It was about the 1754 woodcut that Franklin had. It shows a snake cut into 8 pieces and says join or die. Franklin founded a philosophical society because he wanted ideas to circulate. Franklin also described Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians, Swedes, and Germans as swarthy, tawny or black. But for him, it was the English that were white. He said he was partial to the complexion of my country which he said was natural for mankind.

The American Revolution did not begin in 1775 and did not end when the war was over. The success of the Revolution also resulted in sowing the seeds of a revolution in morals. There were two revolutions at the end of the 1700s, independence from Britain and the struggle to end slavery. One won and the other lost. During the Revolutionary War, one in five slaves left their homes, fleeing American slavery. To Americans, the war was a civil war between those that favored independence and those that did not.

Washington actually drafted a statement announcing he would free his slaves before assuming the presidency. Some think it was Hamilton that actually wrote it. But in the end, he could not do what would have set a precedent and changed the future. Some believed that he personally had grown to feel the moral burden of slavery. The British counted as their allies, American slaves and nearly all Native Americans.

The real end of the war came in 1782, in the West Indies, when the British defeated a French and Spanish invasion of Jamaica. Britain kept the Caribbean but gave up America. Many evacuated with the British and went to Canada, the West Indies or India. They helped build the British empire. 15,000-20,000 ex-slaves left too. The Revolution was at its most radical in the challenge it presented to slavery. The terms of the peace cut the number of slaves in the British empire in half which meant the antislavery movement in England gained a more attentive audience and the proslavery lobby was weakened. In the end, the American challenge contributed to a political and moral critique of slavery that was felt more deeply in the British empire than in the United States.

Lepore says that Thomas Jefferson had hierarchical views. But at the same time, his views on religious freedom said that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions or our opinions of physics or geometry. But in 1787, all but two states required religious tests for office while the Constitution forbade that requirement. Most Americans agreed with Madison that religion can only thrive if it has no part of government and a free government can only thrive if has no part of religion.

The US was born as a Republic and grew into a democracy. As it did, it split into two. The US was founded during the most secular era of American history, before or since. It was recast as a Christian nation during the second Great Awakening. The First Great Awakening began in the 1730s and lasted to about 1740. The second Great Awakening was one of massive religious revival and spanned from the 1820s-30s. Before that time, church membership was 1/10 and after that, it was 8/10. Millennialism, zealotry and spiritual equality all emerged. To evangelical democrats, democracy, Christianity and technology were levers of the same machine. In the decade to follow, there were telegraphs and railroads.