In the essay “Slavery and Freedom”, Edmund Morgan’s argument is based on the fact that the leaders of the American Revolution encouraged the people to develop a nation of liberty and freedom. At the same time, this encouragement is happening, a development of harsh labor, exhausting punishment, and suspension of all human rights was assigned to the slaves. How are you supposed to build a strong nation when you have one extreme to the other? Morgan argues that racism is definitely a factor of slaves. White males were looked at as elite and black were looked as slaves. The economic aspect of this paradox was that without the slaves who worked to produce the goods, there would be no products. The paradox is if they abolished slavery there would be no production; or continue slave labor even though freedom is being promoted.
There is some irony at this time. Virginia produced the largest amount of tobacco and also had forty percent of the slaves in the United States. The ironic aspect is, the most outspoken men about freedom and equality, George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson, all come from Virginia. Jefferson tried to get a plan to better the nation.
He wanted “Americans” not to be in debt. Jefferson said, if a man can own enough land to make enough money to support his family, it could be a republican nation. Virginians had to resort to buying the cheapest labor in order to find their way out of debt. It just so happens that the cheapest labor came from Africa.
It was cheaper to buy slave labor than to have free labor. These events began the American Paradox which were intensified during the American Revolution.