The political value system underpinning the American Declaration of Independence anchors in a dialectical tension of emancipation and oppression. While the egalitarian radicalism of the American Revolution that declared all men to be born free and equal did unleash emancipatory energies, the  founding credo of the United States also created new forms of discrimination that were justified by the values of the American Revolution. Central to this tension between emancipation and oppression was the question of who qualified as a human being and how humanity was defined. Professor Depkat's talk will explicate the dialectics emerging from the value system of the American Revolution by looking into the history of Black people and women in the United States.