We Hold These Truths...

Slavery had been a divisive issue in America since the beginning. The Declaration of Independence, written in 1776, famously begins: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Although “liberty”—the notion that “all men” are free to live in society without undue restrictions—is listed as one of these rights, any mention of slavery is noticeably absent.

The Preamble of the Constitution also includes liberty as a founding principle:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Despite the importance of freedom and liberty in the creation of American democracy, the “blessings of liberty” that the Constitution aimed to secure were not available to women or African Americans. (And even if you were a white man, you needed to own property to vote.) In 1857, the Dred Scott decision by the U.S. Supreme Court further declared that no black person, enslaved or free, could ever be an American citizen and thus could be denied even the most basic rights.