Freedom From Any Direction

  The main focus in class this week was freedom. The essential question for this topic was Who 'gave' freedom to enslaved Americans? Did freedom come from above or below? To what extent were Abraham Lincoln's actions influenced by the actions of enslaved Americans? Freedom from above in this case would mean that the freedom of the slaves would come from those on top of the social pyramid. These people would include officers, government officials and even President Lincoln himself. Freedom from below would include slaves that obtained freedom from their actions alone. In class, we looked at two pictures that could depict freedom from above or below. The pictures are shown below. 

                                             

The picture to the left showing President Lincoln would be considered freedom from above while the picture to the right would be considered freedom from below. We also looked at some documents from Lincoln himself.  In a open letter,  Lincoln says "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."  In this case, freedom would be coming from above, from the most powerful American at the time.  Although Lincoln did not blatantly say that he 100% wanted to free the slaves, he hinted at his opinion. In an 1862 letter from General Ambrose E. Burnside to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, freedom seems to come from below.  Ambrose is telling Stanton about how his city is "being overrun with fugitives from surrounding towns and plantations", who are putting pressure on pro-slave advocates.  The "below" group is seen here taking control of their problems, and provoking a change for themselves. 

In society today we see many instances where freedom comes from below. We see many of these people who are seen as below to get reinforcement from those that are considered above. One example of this is Bruce Jenner and his recent coming out as transgender; he is an Olympic athlete, and a star on various Kardashian reality tv shows. Other transgender people have been fighting and protesting for equality, but now that a more popular and powerful voice has stepped out and represented the community equality is more possible. The story has had incredible coverage all over the place, and Bruce Jenner has become a voice for all transgender people, just like Lincoln became a voice for the enslaved people.