In practice, American politics has always feared but in theory sanctioned slave revolts. Slave revolts are denounced, at least by implication, in the Declaration of Independence itself. The charges against the King culminate in this: “He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.” The “domestic Insurrections” refer to the British recruitment of slaves into an army that would put down the colonials’ rebellion and guarantee their own emancipation. The implication of the Declaration’s text is that liberated slaves would fight like “merciless Indian Savages” who practiced a brutal equality of the warfare of “undistinguished Destruction.”
On the other hand, of course, the Declaration’s governing principle of equality of natural rights covers the slaves and Indians no less than white Virginians in […]
Excerpt Sourced From: amgreatness.com
