Freedom’s Dominion

Key Question Being Explored in This Insight:

How has the American understanding of "freedom" served as a facade for racial oppression and resistance to federal authority throughout history? Explore the intricate dynamics in Jefferson Cowie’s “Freedom’s Dominion,” a compelling examination of white resistance shaping national policy and personal liberties.

View the page of: Jefferson Cowie

Institution: Vanderbilt University

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How has the American understanding of “freedom” served as a facade for racial oppression and resistance to federal authority throughout history?

Image courtesy of interviewee. November 26, 2024

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The speaker reflects on their understanding of freedom and its conflicting interpretations in American political discourse. They originally believed freedom to be a universally positive concept but then recognized it can also represent control over others, particularly within the context of state versus federal powers. The speaker recounts their research, which led them to an obscure county in Alabama, revealing historical figures like segregationist George Wallace, who rallied around the idea of freedom from federal control to dominate local political power and suppress the rights of non-white citizens.

The discussion also emphasizes the ongoing tension between local, state, and federal governance in America, which has roots in historical events like the Intruders War and the protection of Native American lands. Wallace's famous speech highlighted a prioritization of freedom from federal oversight over the discourse on segregation, shaping his political career and igniting a struggle for local autonomy, particularly in maintaining control over voting rights.

Furthermore, the speaker reflects on the implications of freedom in modern politics, suggesting that while freedom traditionally ties to local governance, a more progressive approach may involve federal enforcement of rights, such as voting. The speaker advocates shifting the focus from freedom as an absolute value to democracy, which necessitates sacrifice, compromise, and participation in civic life, suggesting that effective governance requires respecting laws and democratic institutions rather than merely prioritizing personal freedom.

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Here are five key points extracted from the video:

1. **Conflicting Ideas of Freedom**: The author reflects on how their understanding of freedom differs vastly from others'. They highlight a tension in American political discourse where the notion of freedom, often celebrated, can simultaneously serve those who aim to dominate others, particularly in the convideo of local and federal power dynamics.

2. **Historical Convideo of Freedom**: The exploration of freedom is not limited to contemporary debates but is traced through Western history. The author emphasizes that what is often linked to civil rights issues has its roots earlier in American history, particularly in the struggles over Native American land rights and local versus federal power.

3. **Role of George Wallace**: The video discusses George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama, as a significant figure who framed his political career around the idea of freedom from federal power. His famous speech, while infamous for its association with segregation, underscores a prominent theme of local autonomy in the face of federal authority.

4. **Federalism vs. Local Control**: The author critiques the concept of federalism, preferring the term "compound" to describe the ongoing conflict between local, state, and federal powers. This tension is illustrated as local populations sought to maintain control over non-white communities by resisting federal intervention.

5. **Freedom and Democracy**: In concluding thoughts, the author distinguishes between freedom and democracy, arguing that true democracy requires sacrifice and compromise. They advocate for a shift in focus from the concept of freedom to a more robust engagement with democratic principles, including federal enforcement of voting rights and the reevaluation of outdated political mechanisms like the Electoral College.

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Here are some key quotes extracted from the video you , highlighting important themes regarding freedom, federalism, and the nature of political discourse in the convideo of American history:

1. **Personal Reflection on Freedom**:
- “I began to really kind of think about the conflicting nature of freedom, especially in American political discourse.”

2. **Freedom and Control**:
- “I began to realize that the freedom, what I regarded as freedom, was really kind of a... freedom to control others, a freedom to dominate others.”

3. **Historical Convideo**:
- “I didn’t wanna do just a national story... and so I began to sort of poke around how could I, how could I operationalize this in a gritty specific way?”

4. **Local vs. Federal Power**:
- “It is the defining dimension, the defining friction... an ongoing conflict between local state level and federal levels of power in this enormous republic.”

5. **States' Rights Issue**:
- “How local people use their freedom from federal power to control the land and the labor of non-white people on the local level.”

6. **George Wallace's Speech**:
- “He only mentions segregation one at a time. But he mentions freedom 24 times, freedom or liberty. And so the real theme of that speech is not segregation per se, it's freedom from federal power.”

7. **Political Narrative**:
- “The quote unquote hero of my story is the federal government... what happens occasionally is you have these local systems of control... and every once in a while, inconsistently, the federal government comes in and says, no, don't do that.”

8. **Local Freedom**:
- “This problem where federal government comes in and tries to get white people to behave politically... becomes a flashpoint.”

9. **Shift in Understanding of Freedom**:
- “Freedom is on the local level now. A more progressive version of freedom is on a local level, and it'll be against federal power.”

10. **Freedom vs. Democracy**:
- “I would like to kind of set aside freedom a little bit and think more about democracy... because democracy requires something slightly different. And that is, it requires sacrifice.”

11. **Vision for Future Political Structure**:
- “I would like to see the federal enforcement of the right to vote... and as well as getting rid of other antiquated ideas like the electoral college.”

These quotes encapsulate the central ideas explored in the video, reflecting on the nature of freedom, the historical convideo of states' rights, and the conflict between local autonomy and federal authority in American politics, as well as a proposed shift towards a more democratic framework that emphasizes collective responsibility and compromise.

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Minion originally came from the realizing that my idea

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of freedom wasn't everybody else's idea of freedom.

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That what I took for granted as a kind of almost

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existential version of what it meant to be a free person

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and a free citizen conflicted with

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what other people were talking about.

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So I began to really kind of

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think about the conflicting nature of the conflicted nature

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of freedom, especially in American political discourse.

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And I realized quite quickly that

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what I had celebrated as one of the great virtues

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of American civic life,

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was actually used by the enemies of what I regarded

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as American civic life.

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And I began to realize that, that the, that the freedom,

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what I regarded as freedom, was really kind of a, a,

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a freedom to control others, a freedom to dominate others

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that, that I saw working within American politics

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and just sort of social look.

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So I began to think about that a little bit, read up on it,

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and read on the history of freedom,

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all the way throughout Western history.

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And, and then the question became, how could I,

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how could I write about that?

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And I didn't wanna do just a national story that is kind

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of like, here's what Lincoln said about freedom,

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and here's what Jefferson said about freedom.

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And I, and so I, I began to sort of poke around

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how could I, how could I operationalize this in a

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gritty specific way?

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And that's when I, I accidentally stumbled across

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this obscure county in southeast Alabama in the deep south.

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I joke, I did a scientific survey to find the,

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the most emblematic county.

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But no, I, I was driving through it

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and I felt it, it was a spider sense.

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It was kind of like, there's a story here.

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Um, and then that was later revealed to be absolutely true

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because George Wallace was from the county.

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And George Wallace had been central to

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so many other elements of my work.

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Uh, who's the segregationist governor from Alabama who

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recalibrated American politics in the sixties and seventies.

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I was very fortunate that

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Alabama has some fantastic state archives in Montgomery,

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and I spent most of my time, working within, in the,

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in the state archives in Montgomery.

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It was actually one of the first state archives,

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in the United States,

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because the earlier ones were private

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historical collections.

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And so they were one of the first ones to actually commit

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to a public archive, which is kind of interesting.

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It is the defining dimension, the defining friction

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of American politics, right?

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Like we think of, you know, the United States or the state,

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but really what we're seeing is an ongoing conflict between,

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local state level

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and federal levels of power in this ra enormous republic.

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So how we,

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How we get to, this system,

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in which we call federalism.

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Um, but I prefer the Madisonian word compound

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republic, which is, it's, it's hardwired

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to have these tensions in it.

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And, and so the story of the book is really

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how local and state ideas of freedom

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congealed around a freedom from federal power,

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from the coercive, power of the state, of,

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of the federal state, and

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how local people use their freedom from federal power

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to control the land and the labor

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and the voting power of, of,

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of non-white people on the local level,

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and how, how they fought, for states' rights as a mode

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of controlling those, those variables.

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It's political, it's it's gorilla warfare.

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It's, it's all sorts of things.

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And what, what's interesting about what I found is

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that we think about states rights

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as a civil rights question,

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a 20th century civil rights question,

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or maybe going back to, of course,

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the Civil War in the 1860s.

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But, I actually found it working out in a local,

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war called the Intruders War,

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in which local whites fought

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to prevent the federal government from,

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from stopping them from stealing Native American lands.

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And this, you know, this had local political issues,

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state federal issues, Andrew Jackson's writing letters,

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and, and you know, the places on the bri of Civil War

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around Native American issues.

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And it's the kind of same issues that we associate

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with civil rights, but it's, it's 30,

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40 years earlier than we, we, we tend to think about that.

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So it's really absolutely endemic that kind

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of friction between local

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and federal, in, in American history.

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And in some ways, the mo the mo, one of the key motivators

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that we don't think about enough, George Wallace is,

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famous for a speech he gave in his inaugural address

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when he was elected governor in January of 1963,

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in which he said a phrase

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that is in every American history textbook,

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segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.

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And that, that line, which was written

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by actually a Klansman, a white citizen council member,

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sort of is the most famous phrase of his life by far.

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But if we look at that speech,

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he only mentions segregation one at a time.

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But he mentions freedom 24

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times, freedom or liberty.

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And so the real theme of

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that speech is not segregation per se,

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it's freedom from federal power.

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And that is how Wallace actually launched his

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political career, was fighting the feds,

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protecting local Alabamians from federal incursion,

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and allowing them to practice this freedom to control,

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the political power of black people on the ground.

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And, and, and that clash really built his whole

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entire political life.

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And it was a foundation for his running

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for president in 64, 68, 72, and a little less 76,

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and reshaping American politics in the way he did the

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partisan politics in the way he did the,

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the quote unquote hero of my story

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is the federal government.

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You can't imagine a worse hero to have in your

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book than the federal government,

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because it's a terrible, I call it sort of weak need

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and clay footed in the introduction to the book.

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But what happens occasionally is you have these local

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systems of control,

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whether it's stealing Native American lands,

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enslaving people, regulate,

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controlling their political power

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after emancipation,

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controlling civil rights, all those things, right?

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And every once in a while, inconsistently,

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the federal government comes in and says, no, don't do that.

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Don't do that. And

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that becomes a very explosive issue,

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even though the federal government mostly does things

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to help the white majority population in the south.

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Um, and even there is a black majority county actually.

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Um, but,

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but so this, this, problem

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where federal government comes in

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and tries to get white people

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to behave politically in a specific way

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becomes a flashpoint.

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And it ignites a, a certain, political passion

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over maintaining local freedom, local capacity

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to control, and what I call the freedom to dominate,

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or occasionally a phrase I like, less white freedom.

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Everything changed on a week ago on Tuesday.

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We, we were talking a week

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after the election of Donald J. Trump.

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Um, and so up until Tuesday, I would've said that

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what I thought we needed was a much more aggressive,

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federal enforcement of say, voting rights or other things.

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Um, the idea that I, one, a trick I do

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with my students is I say,

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how do you know you have the right to vote?

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And they have no idea where the right to vote is guaranteed.

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And the state, state law is guarantees the right to vote.

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Every once in a while, the federal government comes

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into me, metal with it.

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But what we, what we see now

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is a dream that George Wallace had a dream

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that John C. Calhoun had in the 19th century, which was,

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the south would not necessarily be free of

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federal government, but the South could take it over,

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but the south could own it.

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So now my arguments kind of flipped a little bit.

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'cause freedom is on the local level now.

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Uh, I would argue, you know,

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a more progressive version of freedom is on a local level,

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and it'll be against federal power.

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Really bring this to a sort of crescendo at the end

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of the book, that we have this

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core political value.

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It is one of the core key words in American politics,

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freedom along with other words, democracy, patriotism,

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faith, other central words to American, civic life.

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And for me, freedom is so central.

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And you saw it in the, in, in Kamala Harris's campaign.

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It was the central word that she tried to use,

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and it has that kind of unifying energy.

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And I think that was probably the right thing to do.

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But I think what we need to do is scrape below that.

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And I would like to kind of set aside freedom a little bit

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and think more about democracy.

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'cause democracy requires something slightly different.

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And that is, it requires sacrifice.

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It requires, it's not getting in your pickup truck

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and driving away from the public sphere.

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It's actually about entering the public sphere,

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making compromises, having institutions

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that curb your own freedom,

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because we need to respect these laws.

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Um, and for me, the ultimate takeaway is I would like

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to see the federal enforcement of the right to vote in

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through an independent agent.

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Um, be, and as well as getting rid

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of other antiquated ideas like the electoral college

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and things like that.

Redefining Freedom: A Personal Exploration of Political Discourse

00:00:00 - Minion originally came from the realizing that my idea of freedom wasn't everybody else's idea of freedom. That what I took for granted as a kind of almost existential version of what it meant to be a free person and a free citizen conflicted with what other people were talking about. So I began to really kind of think about the conflicting nature of the conflicted nature of freedom, especially in American political discourse.

00:00:36 - what I had celebrated as one of the great virtues of American civic life, was actually used by the enemies of what I regarded as American civic life. And I began to realize that, that the, that the freedom, what I regarded as freedom, was really kind of a, a, a freedom to control others, a freedom to dominate others that, that I saw working within American politics

00:01:06 - So I began to think about that a little bit, read up on it, and read on the history of freedom, all the way throughout Western history. And, and then the question became, how could I, how could I write about that? And I didn't wanna do just a national story that is kind of like, here's what Lincoln said about freedom, and here's what Jefferson said about freedom. And I, and so I, I began to sort of poke around how could I, how could I operationalize this in a gritty specific way?

Discovering Freedom: A Journey through Alabama's Political Landscape

00:01:39 - this obscure county in southeast Alabama in the deep south. I joke, I did a scientific survey to find the, the most emblematic county. But no, I, I was driving through it and I felt it, it was a spider sense. It was kind of like, there's a story here. and then that was later revealed to be absolutely true because George Wallace was from the county. And George Wallace had been central to so many other elements of my work. who's the segregationist governor from Alabama who

00:02:11 - I was very fortunate that Alabama has some fantastic state archives in Montgomery, and I spent most of my time, working within, in the, in the state archives in Montgomery. It was actually one of the first state archives, in the United States, because the earlier ones were private historical collections. And so they were one of the first ones to actually commit to a public archive, which is kind of interesting. It is the defining dimension, the defining friction

00:02:40 - Like we think of, you know, the United States or the state, but really what we're seeing is an ongoing conflict between, local state level and federal levels of power in this ra enormous republic. So how we, How we get to, this system, in which we call federalism. but I prefer the Madisonian word compound

Local Freedom and Federal Tensions: The Politics of Control

00:03:14 - to have these tensions in it. And, and so the story of the book is really how local and state ideas of freedom congealed around a freedom from federal power, from the coercive, power of the state, of, of the federal state, and how local people use their freedom from federal power to control the land and the labor

00:03:47 - of non-white people on the local level, and how, how they fought, for states' rights as a mode of controlling those, those variables. It's political, it's it's gorilla warfare. It's, it's all sorts of things. And what, what's interesting about what I found is that we think about states rights as a civil rights question, a 20th century civil rights question, or maybe going back to, of course, the Civil War in the 1860s. But, I actually found it working out in a local,

00:04:23 - in which local whites fought to prevent the federal government from, from stopping them from stealing Native American lands. And this, you know, this had local political issues, state federal issues, Andrew Jackson's writing letters, and, and you know, the places on the bri of Civil War around Native American issues. And it's the kind of same issues that we associate with civil rights, but it's, it's 30, 40 years earlier than we, we, we tend to think about that.

Freedom and Local Control: The Legacy of George Wallace

00:04:57 - of friction between local and federal, in, in American history. And in some ways, the mo the mo, one of the key motivators that we don't think about enough, George Wallace is, famous for a speech he gave in his inaugural address when he was elected governor in January of 1963, in which he said a phrase that is in every American history textbook, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.

00:05:27 - by actually a Klansman, a white citizen council member, sort of is the most famous phrase of his life by far. But if we look at that speech, he only mentions segregation one at a time. But he mentions freedom 24 times, freedom or liberty. And so the real theme of that speech is not segregation per se, it's freedom from federal power. And that is how Wallace actually launched his

00:06:00 - protecting local Alabamians from federal incursion, and allowing them to practice this freedom to control, the political power of black people on the ground. And, and, and that clash really built his whole entire political life. And it was a foundation for his running for president in 64, 68, 72, and a little less 76, and reshaping American politics in the way he did the

Federal Power and Local Control: A Complex Relationship

00:06:32 - the quote unquote hero of my story is the federal government. You can't imagine a worse hero to have in your book than the federal government, because it's a terrible, I call it sort of weak need and clay footed in the introduction to the book. But what happens occasionally is you have these local systems of control, whether it's stealing Native American lands, enslaving people, regulate,

00:07:04 - after emancipation, controlling civil rights, all those things, right? And every once in a while, inconsistently, the federal government comes in and says, no, don't do that. Don't do that. And that becomes a very explosive issue, even though the federal government mostly does things to help the white majority population in the south. and even there is a black majority county actually.

00:07:35 - but so this, this, problem where federal government comes in and tries to get white people to behave politically in a specific way becomes a flashpoint. And it ignites a, a certain, political passion over maintaining local freedom, local capacity to control, and what I call the freedom to dominate, or occasionally a phrase I like, less white freedom. Everything changed on a week ago on Tuesday.

Shifting Paradigms of Freedom and Federal Power

00:08:06 - after the election of Donald J. Trump. and so up until Tuesday, I would've said that what I thought we needed was a much more aggressive, federal enforcement of say, voting rights or other things. the idea that I, one, a trick I do with my students is I say, how do you know you have the right to vote? And they have no idea where the right to vote is guaranteed. And the state, state law is guarantees the right to vote.

00:08:41 - into me, metal with it. But what we, what we see now is a dream that George Wallace had a dream that John C. Calhoun had in the 19th century, which was, the south would not necessarily be free of federal government, but the South could take it over, but the south could own it. So now my arguments kind of flipped a little bit. 'cause freedom is on the local level now.

00:09:12 - a more progressive version of freedom is on a local level, and it'll be against federal power. Really bring this to a sort of crescendo at the end of the book, that we have this core political value. It is one of the core key words in American politics, freedom along with other words, democracy, patriotism, faith, other central words to American, civic life. And for me, freedom is so central.

Rethinking Freedom: The Call for Democratic Sacrifice

00:09:44 - It was the central word that she tried to use, and it has that kind of unifying energy. And I think that was probably the right thing to do. But I think what we need to do is scrape below that. And I would like to kind of set aside freedom a little bit and think more about democracy. 'cause democracy requires something slightly different. And that is, it requires sacrifice. It requires, it's not getting in your pickup truck

00:10:17 - It's actually about entering the public sphere, making compromises, having institutions that curb your own freedom, because we need to respect these laws. and for me, the ultimate takeaway is I would like to see the federal enforcement of the right to vote in through an independent agent. be, and as well as getting rid of other antiquated ideas like the electoral college

00:10:44 -

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