A Self-Evident Lie: Southern Slavery and the Threat to American Freedom

6. Southerners and the Principle of Universal Liberty

100 a self-evident lie • 6 • Southerners and the Principle of Universal Liberty because the rationales for human servitude were not inherently racial, the acceptance of black slavery rendered the liberty of all Americans contingent on circumstance. Having come to this understanding, some northerners insisted that the only guarantee of individual liberty was universal liberty. only by accepting the universal equality of natural rights could Americans of all races rest secure in the belief that their own liberty would always be respected, regardless of circumstance. Thus the declaration of independence assumed a sacred position as the ultimate palladium of human rights. According to William H. seward, the American revolution had been a struggle for the principle of universal liberty, which he deemed the supreme law of man. “That supreme law is necessarily based on the equality of nations, of races, and of men. it is a simple, self-evident basis. one nation, race, or individual may not oppress or injure another, because the safety and welfare of each is essential to the common safety and welfare of all. if all are not equal and free, then who is entitled to be free, and what evidence of his superiority can he bring from nature or revelation?”1 When southerners rejected or qualified the declaration, they eroded the American people’s devotion to liberty as a central principle, and in so doing, placed the nation on a path to despotism. by denying that “all men” were endowed with inalienable rights, they destroyed the self-evidence of those rights. The declaration’s meaning became a prominent theme for northerners and southerners alike. in numerous speeches and editorials , antislavery northerners stressed the importance of the declaration, 100 Southerners and the Principle 0f Universal Liberty 101 decrying southern denials of universal liberty, particularly in respect to chief Justice taney’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford. As northerners contemplated the future of freedom in a slaveholding country, they sometimes echoed Thomas Jefferson’s fears. in his Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson expressed particular concern that the people’s liberty could not be sustained if they removed “its only secure basis.” in his view, this basis was “a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God.” And he candidly admitted that he trembled for the fate of his country when he recalled that God is just. because blacks and whites were equally members of the human race, the vagaries of circumstance could someday ensnare whites in the black man’s bondage. “considering numbers, nature and natural means only,” Jefferson explained, “a revolution of the wheel of fortune, [and] an exchange of situation is among possible events.” in fact, he believed such an event could easily occur through “supernatural interference.”2 more than seventy years later, charles sumner informed his southern colleagues in the senate that “it was the inspiration of liberty Universal that conductedusthroughtheredseaoftherevolution.”Thisprinciplealsogave the declaration of independence “its mighty tone, resounding through the ages.” shortly thereafter he stood before a new york audience and endorsed Jefferson’s argument that the liberty of whites depended on the liberty of blacks: “As a man, he stands before you an unquestionable member of the Human Family, and entitled to all the rights of man. you can claim nothing for yourself, as a man, which you must not accord to him. Life, liberty and thepursuitofhappiness—whichyouproudlydeclaretobeyourown,inalienable , God-given rights, and to the support of which your fathers pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, are his by the same immortal title that they are yours.” According to sumner, universal liberty meant that all men were justly entitled to their natural rights simply by virtue of their common humanity. Without that assumption, individual liberty would never be selfevident , and, consequently, would never be fully secure.3 This argument points to the critical discrepancy inherent in the American revolution. How could a slaveholding nation effectively champion human rights? From the very beginning, the founding generation struggled to reconcile its ideals with its actions. some found it convenient to blame the british for the introduction and preservation of slavery. it is well known that Jefferson had wanted to include a condemnation of the slave trade in 102 a self-evident lie the declaration of independence as part of his litany of charges against George iii: He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights...