Spreaker: Volney Gay, PhD. We explore American slave owners who embodied the existential contradiction of American values (individual liberty) with human bondage. We focus on their struggles to defend themselves against that contradiction. We locate those struggles within the biographies of famous persons, such as President Washington, and unknown persons who claimed to be both adamantly for liberty AND yet were adamantly pro slavery. Psychoanalysis offers unique insights into those struggles and the national crime they engendered. Credits: 3.75