Who Is Robert Wedderburn's Argument For Freedom?

The first section assigned to the reading is composed of the autobiographical portion, where Robert Wedderburn retells the story of his childhood and life as a freedman with an enslaved family. Some of the brutalities include his father making his mother “the object of his brutal lust then insulted, abused, and abandoned” (45). This is the basic reason he detests his father. He describes his father as a Christian man from Scotland who was a slaveowner, and then he follows this with the tale of how his mother escaped his father while she was pregnant with him. A key part of this section is the letters published by a newspaper, Bell’s Life, in which Robert Wedderburn uses his experiences and those of his mother to argue for the end of slavery, …show more content…
You can see the bias very clearly coming through the writings and aggressive response to the letter. Another interesting part was Wedderburn’s argument for his religious freedom because it is something seen as so basic in modern day America, but he was being persecuted for it. He brings up really interesting ideas in his argument, including the ability to control thought and being persecuted for thoughts. However, I took issue with that argument as well because no one can know your thoughts, either, unless you vocalize them, so while I understand the thought behind this argument, I think that it begins to fall more under speech and the freedoms of expression rather than arguing that the government cannot control citizen’s thoughts.
A connection between lectures and the reading comes from Professor Limnatis’ lecture, where he mentioned the changing religious climate and Deism, and the trial of Robert Wedderburn ties into this idea because it is based in part on questionings of religion and ideologies that came along with the description of Deism. Wedderburn’s congregation questioned the bible and it’s validity but still believed in a Creator and higher power, much like deists are compelled to