For most of us, American history consists of well-attested narratives. Northerners were against slavery while Southerners were for it. General emancipation of slaves after the Revolution was impractical. The founding fathers were deist in their religious orientation. To these three national myths, the case of Virginian aristocrat Robert Carter stands in stark opposition. In the late eighteenth century, he freed around 500 of his own slaves, to the ire of his neighbors and without compensation, because of religious inspiration. His story provides us with courage to live up to our principles even when they contradict our practices.
Like many aristocrats of his time, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Carter was educated in Enlightenment principles and kept good records of his actions. However, unlike these two other leaders, Carter was not a political leader publicly using high rhetoric to espouse an egalitarian age while swallowing the uncomfortable pill of private slavery. Instead, Carter freed his slaves in the largest emancipation before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. He did so explicitly because he found American rhetoric about universal freedom was not supported by popular practice.
These convictions were buttressed by Carter’s devoutly religious practices. Though an aristocrat invested in the current order, he converted to the Baptist faith around the time of the Revolutionary War. In Baptist churches, he was placed on equal footing with social outcasts and developed an egalitarian social view. He did not leverage equality as an ideal to gain political power, though, unlike others. Instead, as Levy carefully documents with copious references to Carter’s papers, his views slowly morphed over time.
Because of a reversion to conservative living after the Revolution, the Baptists and popular American views fell out of favor in Carter’s mind. He later converted to the Swedenborgian faith, which further called principles of equality to mind. He put practice first and rhetoric second – an example for chattering political classes of today. Yet Carter is not remembered in American history. Perhaps this omission is because of America’s unresolved tensions pertaining to race continuing through the Civil War, the Klan, Jim Crow, and to this day.
Levy’s biography seeks to remember Robert Carter and inspire readers to put practice ahead of rhetoric, not the other way around. Those attentive to American history should remember Carter’s more muted stand. Most Americans do not have great platforms to share their eloquent views with the masses; most of us resemble Robert Carter more than Thomas Jefferson or George Washington. Shouldn’t this man’s place in history push us to lead our own “quiet revolutions?”
The First Emancipator: Slavery, Religion, and the Quiet Revolution of Robert Carter
By Andrew Levy
Copyright (c) 2005
Random House
ISBN13 9780375761041
Page Count: 310
Genre: Biography, American history
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