Explain Some Contradictions Within The American Revolution
Question 1: Explain some contradictions within the American Revolution, which were explain in the class and the text. The Social Contract by John Locke stated that every individual should have the right to life, liberty and property. But, the elite Americans did not agree with the “property” part. During the revolutionary war, the Americans were fighting for their freedom from the British, but domestic freedom within was a different war itself.
For a few hundred years, many enslaved people had been oppressed in a brutal socio-economic system. With the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, they thought their freedom would be granted. But, that was not the case. One of the major contradictions of the Revolutionary War was that even though the Americans talked about freedom (freedom from higher power—the British), they did not grant freedom to the slaves. The revolutionists said phrases like “the natural liberty of man is to be free.” But, the slaves were left to be without any chance of freedom. The African slaves and the poor were left without any liberation from the rich.
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John Locke said that every person had the right to “life, liberty, and property.” But the Americans disagreed. The “property” was removed from the social contract and replaced with pursuit of happiness. The rich did not want everyone to have property. Having property was believed to be an elite privilege. Providing the poor with property would mean that they were elite class too. Thus, the contradiction of the social contract arose. The phrase, “pursuit of happiness” is vague and does not provide any details to what it means. By contradicting Locke’s social contract, the elite class stated that not everyone could get freedom. Even though the main idea behind the Revolutionary War was
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