| The dissertation explores the complex political position of free blacks in ante-bellum America. Historically, ante-bellum free blacks presented a perplexing problem for political institutions and juridical structures. Once manumitted, blacks were no longer considered "slaves"; they were nominally given the title "free person" to designate this liberated subject position. Although nominally considered "free," ante-bellum free blacks, however, were not considered "citizens" by the federal government because they lacked coverage under the "immunities and privilege" clause in the Constitution. To add another layer of political complexity to this positionality, "complete freedom" required the consent of both master and state government. Many free blacks were manumitted, but the state government refused to acknowledge this freedom. Thus, these blacks were neither free nor captive, but occupied a position that was unnamable and unimaginable (a suspension of political ontology). Furthermore, free blacks, because they were native born, were not considered "denizens" either since the term "denizen" described a foreign born individual receiving protection from the government. The ante-bellum free black was neither a slave nor a truly "liberated" subject, neither a citizen nor an alien, but marked a perplexing hole in the political symbolic of the nineteenth century. In this project, I argue that this perplexing political positionality, a political no-man's land, constitutes what I would call the "absent center of political ontology." This space marks the innominate, unimaginable, and ineffable position of the "non-subject"—a position so dreaded that people began to describe it as political "nothingness." My theoretical objective is to use the post-foundationalist thought of deconstruction and psychoanalysis to understand the complexity of African American historiography. |
