He begins with the great conundrum faced by the Founders. Slavery was already entrenched and yet they had declared "All men are created equal." For the time being, it was enough to assume that meant each colonist was equal to the King. But in the back of their minds, they knew this could equally be applied to the slave. The immovable wall they faced was the how. The North began emancipation immediately in one form or another, but the South saw slavery as too entrenched. Fearing a decimated economy, and naturally suspicious of the other states, the South stood absolutely opposed to any movement away from slavery as a legal and recognized institution.
Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Abolition Society brought the issue to the first Congress to debate. Clearly the Founding generation knew this was a contradiction and many felt the sooner it was dealt with, the better. But the better angels making the case for freedom were silenced by a recalcitrant South. Not only was emancipation off the table, the first Congress decided to table the issue... indefinitely. They saw it as too inherently destabilizing. We need to remember how fragile The United States actually was. In truth, the colonies only united to defeat the British. That accomplished, they reverted to thirteen independent states, with little to no regard for a central national government. Like their European forebears, they squabbled and threatened each other. It was easy to envision one or more enlisting the help of European allies to declare war on another state. A complete lack of a functioning national government meant the union was helpless to defend itself. A nation not united would easily fall victim to any enterprising power with the patience to wait (see: War of 1812). Demonstrating the most human of all characteristics, they put the matter off for another day, hoping that the future would provide a way out they could not fathom.
Recalling various missed opportunities, Ellis describes what he terms, "Unpainted Pictures." He begins with the number of African Americans who served in the fight for Independence. This provides a never-realized glimpse of what America could have become, a bi-racial nation embracing equality of all. The geography of the battle, however, worked against this vision. Most of the battle occurred in the North where few slaves lived, and therefore their service and possible emancipation were less threatening. The British had offered freedom to any slaves in the South that joined their ranks. Thousands fled. (Sadly, most of these died of diseases from which they had no immunity.) This meant the South spent their time fighting fleeing slaves rather than welcoming them into the fight against the British. Ellis seems to feel this was the biggest missed opportunity of them all. "The Cause," that is the fight for freedom and equality, was permeating the colonies. During the war, with all its exigencies, they had a chance to rectify a situation handed them by History. But despite the favorable winds, they simply could not overcome the status quo. Although fighting under the banner of The United States, each state felt the fight was for their own individual independence. Therefore any kind of national policy concerning slavery was impossible to pursue, despite the obvious benefits to The Cause.
The second area of contradiction was the treatment of the Native Americans. The Treaty of Paris, signed after the British defeat, gave large swathes of land to the newly formed United States. This effectively handed them areas previously claimed by the natives. America largely chose to treat the Indians, therefore, as a "conquered" people, although they had not, in fact, been conquered, and had not signed the treaty between the U.S. and Britain. While the newly formed American government debated how best to approach obvious conflicts over land, the new Americans took matters into their own hands. They poured into the newly won Western lands faster than the national government could create and enforce policies. One treaty that could have given the Native Americans most of Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama was undermined by Georgia's state government. Not wanting to lose half of their territory, they encouraged white settlers to flood over the borders. Although the government of the United States had promised to enforce that border, the idea of going to war with its own citizen proved too preposterous to even contemplate. Besides, America had no army capable of protecting a border of the size promised anyways. Indian policy quickly became a loosing battle when faced with the insatiable desire for land from the white settlers.
Ellis closes with a touching "Unpainted Picture" from Mount Vernon and Monticello. Both Washington and Jefferson saw the contradictions they inherited. Washington chose to free his slaves upon his death, and Martha, fearing an insurrection from her family slaves freed hers as well at that time. Interestingly, Washington divided Mount Vernon among his five inheritors, thus seeming to ensure the negation of Mount Vernon as place locked in time, forever identifying Washington as a slave-owning southern planter. He appears to have wanted a legacy centered around his contributions to the American project to define him. Shortly before the Civil War, however, a group of southern women bought up the property and restored the legacy Washington, himself, seemed to want to bury.
Jefferson, deeply in debt, had no such luxury available to him. In fact, he did not actually own his slaves, his creditors did. They were sold along with all his possessions when he died. While he saw the contradiction between his immortal words and his life, his inability to resolve that contradiction seems, unlike Washington, to have entrenched his Southern Plantation Owner identity. Even Monticello became a picture of that contradiction: dark-skinned slaves were hidden from the view of visitors; light-skinned slaves, many related to the Jefferson family, populated the mansion. Jefferson became convinced that a bi- or multi-racial society was impossible (despite the fact that he lived it day after day in his own home). Back of the napkin calculations for removing the African Americans to Africa or even much farther West revealed the hopelessness of that remedy. If the most enlightened mind of the early 19th century could not discover a way out of the contradiction, many believed it must, therefore, be a truly impossible situation.
Ellis does a beautiful job telling the story of the great contradictions at the heart of the American Experiment from the inside. We are left time and again wishing History could have proceeded in a different manner, yet time and again coming up against the hard wall of reality. While a few missed opportunities existed, the obstacles to living up to our ideals so early in The Experiment prove insurmountable. If the most educated and enlightened minds, those most familiar with the contingencies of their times, could not see a way through, we fool ourselves if we believe we could have done better. Ellis is both condemnatory and sympathetic. We, two and half centuries later, as least have the consolation of knowing that The Cause continued to inspire Americans to fight for the realization of our Founding principles. We continue to fight for them today.
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