Book Report on "Analytical Evaluation of Gary Nash's Race and Revolution"

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Nash Race Revolution

Nash Race and Revolution

"The American Revolution involved multiple agendas," Gary Nash explains in the preface to Race and Revolution, "and some of the most important and fascinating of them were fashioned by black and white revolutionaries who saw race as the great "American dilemma" (ix). This launches a detailed assessment of Black experience in the early United States that had largely been overlooked or ignored, he asserts throughout, but which is fundamental to an accurate understanding of the earliest period in our nation's history. Nash describes the conflict between a new republic born for, out of and upon the principles of freedom from oppression and the natural right to liberty for all men as equals, and then excluding one fifth of the new nation's population. This was a choice white revolutionaries made that could have been and was almost different, with effects that would shape events and conditions until the modern era.

The pictures fronting each chapter illuminate the contradictions that run through all three. The chapters provide a sequential arrangment, and then consistent threads run through the series of complimentary lectures that build into the major "theme" (xi) which Nash calls the "American Dilemma." The most important major themes are the vulnerability of the new union, the growth and decline of abolitionist fervor, the question of integration or segregation after any possible emancipation, and what Thomas Jefferson himself called the "avarice and oppression" (p. 31) arising from an economic interest in forced labor that prevented the Constitutional Convention from repealing slave labor the way they did the slave trade. The inherent contradiction in enacting idealistic republicanism and slavery at the same time most sums up 'what this book is about,' with the major themes as support the author uses to explore the many aspects of this conflict upon which the United States was founded.

Specifically, themes are that the Americans in the northern states are equally culpable in the perpetuation of slavery even though they are usually presented as resisting that institution. This is often explained by an alleged fragility of the new national union, but that explanation is a myth (p. 26). Abolitionist sentiment in the new nation ran high at first but turned into reaction after the early decades, leaving manumission (slavery) intact far longer than was necessary or strategic. This ensured a foundation built on overt hypocrisy that the most influential shapers of policy and public opinion recognized as in direct contradiction with the principles they claimed justified their revolution, but which they then failed to remedy while they had the chance

Nash demonstrates the inherent economic interest in slavery that permeated the new nation, both above and below the Patomac. While the southern states are usually attributed with the underlying interest in perpetuating slavery, Nash demonstrates how northerners participated in and depended on the economic benefits from owning workers, both in their output and their resale (pp. 18; 33). He cites Jefferson wryly commenting on this conflict between white northerners' idealism while they themselves owned slaves (p. 31), which Nash describes as the "central difficulty besetting the revolutionary generation -- how to put into practice those beliefs that could be implemented only at personal cost" (p. 31). This fissure ran from individuals all the way up through new state legislatures to the Constitutional Convention, and was ultimately ignored after being recognized in the public record as Nash convincingly demonstrates throughout the first two chapters.

The "Social Question," whether free blacks should integrate into white society or be deported either to the American west, or back to Africa, is a minor theme that relates to the contexts shaping abolitionism and republican constitution. This is an ever-present aspect yet constitutes a minor theme in that it depends on the prior and more urgent decision if slavery was compatible with the republican ideals justifying rebellion from England in the first place. What to do with free blacks after the repeal of slavery is a secondary decision that is rhetorical without emancipation. Therefore it is a component of the larger problem and an obstacle to its solution at the same time. Nash asserts the answer was not a foregone conclusion but became an opportunity for slavery's advocates to frame their abolitionist opponents, particularly Quakers, as "fanatics" (p. 41). This helped feul anti-abolitionist reaction in the North earlier than and as strongly as in the South in numerous instances Nash relates (p. 49). The result is official revisionism where the slavery problem and African-American experience were written out of academic history books and public discourse until only recently (p. 57).

All these conflicting factors mixed together in the context of an energetic new republic built on a flawed application of the ideal of the inherent equality of all. That conflict was controversial and discussed widely until the dominant culture deliberately excluded remedy from public discourse, Nash asserts. This bears further consideration than has usually been recognized, because this "studied inattention to the North's role" (p. 30) became official reality for the better part of the following century. An ironic demonstration takes shape in a minor theme where both the revolutionary whites and the enslaved blacks saw themselves as the lost tribe of Israel, escaping Egypt and leading the world through sacrifice as God's chosen people (pp. 58; 78).

Nash's method and conclusions are concrete and specific. He presents historical events in sequence rather than jumping around, and instead of deriving generalizations from hypothetical examples or broad statistics, he attributes cause and effect to specific individuals by name at verifiable times and places. Historical materials are cited in exhaustive detail, which is necessary because Nash puts forth a controversial thesis with a goal to overturn conventional interpretations. This is difficult because much of the African perspective was never written down, yet Nash finds evidence in the dominant cultural record where it previously went overlooked. This clarity, presented beside the original sources, allows us to consider the author's interpretation against our own, which is where this book excels.

Presenting the historical materials behind the lectures allows us to cross-check the author's interpretations for ourselves. This is an argument-winning maneuvre, because if the author has enough confidence to present the primary sources so the reader can derive their own interpretation, this demonstrates effort to increase rather than restrict inquiry and analysis. This transparency supports the author's ethos, or goodwill, accuracy and transparency. If he is wrong, history will discredit him. This has not been the case.

Nash takes some risk with a few assertions a critical reader should question, but then supports these and preempts refutation in the immediately following paragraphs. On page 18 for example, Nash asserts that "there was in every manumitter, we might suppose, strong sentiment that slavery was immoral and unnatural." This type of free interpretation is dangerous where such story goes unattributed, but Nash then explores and refutes alternative interpretations with primary evidence he attributes to actors on the scene. This format of assertion, counter-argument and refutation with real, rather than hypothetical evidence, becomes the pattern throughout.

He achieves reasonable doubt against the premise that the colonies had to preserve the institution of slavery because of a fragile confederation where Georgia and South Carolina could have broke the union by filibustering abolitionist legislation (p. 27). This they accomplished but the myth that the new federal government had to accept either slavery or civil war, is thus proved inaccurate (p. 28). Direct citation of revolutionary leaders from Washington, Jefferson and Madison, to white leaders in education and popular opinion (p. 49), and prominent free Black community members repeatedly petitioning the new congress for abolition support Nash's thesis that the new nation recognized slavery was a problem, but they left that contradiction intact at the best opportunity for a wide variety of reasons, primarily economic rather than political as is traditionally alleged (p. 27). Nash counters that slavery probably disrupted, more than it unified the new union (p. 26). The result is a view of history that is the direct result of the combination of the economic interests of individual slave owners, up through industrial and legislative actions that perpetuated the institution of slavery in spite of geographic conditions usually attributed with their causality (p. 27).

The three chapters were lectures Nash delivered at the University of Wisconsin in 1988, and reflect his organization along the growth and decline of abolitionist sentiment immediately after the American Revolution. The result is a divided America where one-fifth of the population remained colonized despite the rhetoric of independence and liberty. Bibliographical references are embedded in end notes, but then major primary documents Nash relies on are attached in sections clearly tied to the attributions they support. The result is a combination of synthesis and evidence the reader can access conveniently to dispute or support the author's interpretation. Nash presents an extensive list of additional sources for investigation, and the index facilitates searching the primary evidence and Nash's presentation. We are left with clear and overwhelming evidence that the contradiction… READ MORE

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