SYMBOLS OF FREEDOM

Historical study of how the nation’s iconography inspired patriotism and rebellion.

Clavin, a professor of history, argues persuasively that the nation’s iconic national symbols and images fueled and shaped slave and anti-slavery resistance before the Civil War. “For enslaved people and their allies,” he writes, the American flag, Fourth of July celebrations, and language of the founding documents “justified and inspired revolutionary violence in the pursuit of two interconnected objectives—the death of slavery and the birth of a new and truly egalitarian nation.” Both slave uprisings and abolitionist movements were motivated not only by the cruelty and inhumanity inherent in enslaving men, women, and children, but by the existence of slavery as “the ultimate symbolic betrayal of American freedom.” Images of the slave trade being carried out in front of the Capitol, with the flag proudly waving, appeared in anti-slavery publications. Fourth of July celebrations, likewise, seemed blatantly hypocritical: In some Southern states, slave auctions were held on that date, while elsewhere in the South, pro-slavery Whites tried to strip the holiday of its political meaning, “making the holiday a carnival of food, drink, and entertainment, rather than a celebration of revolutionary people, events, and ideas.” Clavin reports that many instances of escapes and uprisings occurred on the holiday grounded most famously in American values. On July 5, 1852, the escaped slave and acclaimed orator Frederick Douglass delivered a rousing two-hour speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” in which he underscored American exceptionalism as aspirational, offering a plan “for the republic’s redemption,” if it lived up to its claim of liberty and equality for all. Yet others—such as David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet—justified their call for violent slave resistance by citing the revolutionary Declaration of Independence, which affirmed “both the right and duty of Americans to overthrow their oppressors” and to ensure justice for all.

A deeply researched, generously illustrated perspective on antebellum America.