In the fifth symposium of the “We Hold These Truths: America at 250” initiative held at AEI on February 10, 2025, legal scholars and political scientists discussed how the American Revolution both perpetuated slavery and created the conditions for its abolition. Georgetown Law’s Randy E. Barnett opened the first panel by exploring slavery’s impact on the American colonies and the Constitution. Yale Law School’s Justin Driver analyzed Frederick Douglass’s critique of American hypocrisy in the antebellum period, his argument for an anti-slavery Constitution, and his continuing influence on American jurists. The University of Richmond’s Kurt T. Lash discussed how two principles of the Declaration of Independence—individual freedom and structural federalism—helped drive the nation toward abolition. In the second panel, AEI’s Diana Schaub reflected on Douglass’s model of mature patriotism, while Washington and Lee University’s Lucas E. Morel compared the opposing political philosophies of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.
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