Race and Revolution Book Critique Term Paper

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We would not accept such an assertion about any other historical notion. Who would say that the revolution was inevitable, without the fight of the patriots and the leadership of the Founding Fathers? Yes, the question of slavery was a contentious issue -- but it was just as contentious a hundred years later, a hundred more years of bondage for blacks, and a hundred more years of making the unacceptable institution acceptable and entrenched in the American fabric.

The book is organized particularly effectively in that it allows the author to advance his clearly articulated thesis, structure the different historical experiences of African-Americans before, during, and after the actual warfare of the Revolution and then include an appendix of primary source documents. The book has a chronological structure in this sense, which makes it easy for non-experts in the Revolutionary War period to follow, but still advances a compelling argument with a clear thesis that makes the book interesting reading, not merely a textbook.

Nash also introduces many ideas regarding this period of history that may be surprising to a layperson, and perhaps even to a historical expert. For example, he illustrates slavery made the new republic weaker and less safe, because it divided the populace and because slaves were less productive as workers. Slaves were also less loyal to the territory they lived upon than full, free citizens, and thus made the nation more ripe and open to foreign invasion. Of course, all of these arguments have parallels between the arguments of the Founding Fathers in favor of entitling the colonies to representation in Parliament, and then to independence.

Furthermore, dividing a nation between slave and freed states made the nation weaker, not stronger, as is illustrated by the constant chafing of slave, Southern states against the North's attempt to exert federal control upon the territories. Allowing slavery in parts of the union essentially kept the dream of confederation, rather than union alive, in the hearts of many southerners, and southern state legislatures.

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Besides the human cost of extending the debate over slavery for nearly a hundred more years, many practical problems were also created that could have been solved, had this not been accomplished during the founding of the new nation.

The reader begins to wonder, prompted by Nash's insights and impressively assembled documents, if it might actually have been possible to conduct a resettlement campaign in a new state for the freed black population. Or perhaps it might have been possible for the new federal government to extend compensation for freed slaves, given that the cost would have been less prohibitive in the 18th century. Yet, despite all of these possibilities, still the idea is perpetuated that slavery was necessary in the interim for the new nation.

Nash's most valuable insight, besides exposing the tragedy and cowardice as well as the triumph that was the American Revolution, is to question commonly shared historical assumptions and myths. Americans like to think that their nation is unique, yet America has been equally beset with racial and ethnic divisions as the nations of Europe, and struggled just as mightily and imperfectly to overcome these divisions. America also experiences a fundamental disconnect between its espoused ideology and the way that it has behaved historically as other nations.

Nash's thesis is clearly stated regarding the revolution, but his treatment of American history has implications beyond that of race -- Americans can never accept their own uniqueness, or believe that America was the first nation to 'discover' human freedom. After all, African-Americans, some in the service of the British, were fighting for their freedom and their inalienable rights to be human long before the constitution was even created. Nash's book is scholarly, and contains impressive support from its primary documents, but the actual essays, without extensive digression or tangential footnoting, read like cries of justice and critiques of the American experiment of democracy as well as supported historical analysis.

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