TY  - JOUR
TI  - Re-publicizing the Nation: Slavery and the American Revolution
AB  - July 4, 1776 marks the national beginnings of the United States and is celebrated asthe date of its independence from the imperial dominion of the United Kingdom.This turning point in the history of the nation is accepted as the genesis of theAmerican freedom that champions the unassailable rights of life, liberty, and thepursuit of happiness. Amidst the general enthusiasm for freedom, however, theexistence of slavery stood out as the ultimate paradox which the new nation hadto contend with. Contrary to the accepted historiographical explanations for theincongruous presence of slavery in this land of freedom, the article claims that theprinciples that defined the US citizenry also drew a racial boundary between whiteand black communities where whiteness, inflected by nationhood, was held to becoterminous with being American, while other (colored) identities were hyphenatedincessantly. The first part of the article addresses the teleological and apologeticexplanations for the slavery problem and argues against them by giving a detailedanalysis of the inconsistent attitudes of the abolitionist politicians and communitiestowards African-American populations. The second part of the article studies theblack responses to American freedom and Frederick Douglass’s famous speech thatexcoriates the hypocrisies coiled in the founding principles of the nation.
AU  - ÇELİKKOL, Aşkın
DO  - 10.26650/LITERA2019-0011
PY  - 2019
JO  - Litera: Dil, Edebiyat ve Kültür Araştırmaları Dergisi (Online)
VL  - 29
IS  - 1
SN  - 1304-0057
SP  - 41
EP  - 58
DB  - TRDizin
UR  - http://search/yayin/detay/358307
ER  -