The L-Word

firebrand Samuel Adams published his “Rights of the Colonists,” a liberal statement for its day, that declared certain natural rights were inherent in the human existence. In the classic definitions of liberal and conservative, the American Revolution was a liberal revolt against oppressive, conservative bastions of power and privilege, the British Royal Government and the established church.

In the American South the conservative plantation aristocracy defended their right to own slaves and quoted Biblical passages in support. But the new antislavery Republican Party preserved the Union, freed the slaves and passed constitutional amendments granting the newlyfreed people citizenship and the right to vote. Were these liberal accomplishments, or what?

Just after World War I the long struggle for Women’s voting rights was finally realized with the passage of the 19th Constitutional Amendment. Conservatives had fought against this movement for more than a century.

In 1954 the unanimous 9-0 Brown v Board Supreme Court decision overturned the South’s Jim Crow laws and ended legal racial segregation. This momentous event marked an unexpected liberal turn for a court that had heretofore consistently upheld laws supporting racial discrimination. That court, incidentally, included Justice Hugo Black, a former Alabama Klansman.

In a second blow against institutionalized racism a congressional majority of liberal Republicans (back when there was such a thing) and Democrats passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act that invalidated ingenious southern statutes that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote. This also ended the Democratic “Solid South” as a conservative voting bloc.

So one can easily see that the overall historical trend has been one of expanding human rights to an everbroadening constituency. Amid occasional retrogressive interludes, the march of social progress continues.

Historically speaking, one can only judge a person, group or idea as being liberal or conservative in the context of its own times. For instance, free-market capitalism, a basic conservative economic doctrine today, was originally considered a radically liberal idea by eighteenth century economists. With this in mind, in the context of His own times was Jesus of Nazareth a liberal or a conservative?

George B. Reed Jr., who lives in Rossville, can be reached by email at reed1600@bellsouth.net.