The meanings of freedom serve as an overarching theme throughout The Story of American Freedom. Foner describes how Americans have understood the concept of freedom. In his Introduction, he explains that his concern is “less with abstract definitions than with the debates and struggles through which freedom acquires concrete meanings, and how understandings of freedom are shaped by, and in turn help to shape, social movements and political and economic events” (xvii). As the meaning of American freedom has changed many times over the course of its history, the debate over it “has tended to focus on certain dimensions of the idea” (xvii). Foner describes three primary dimensions of freedom as political freedom, which is the right to participate in public affairs; personal freedom, which is the ability to make individual choices; and economic freedom, which concerns personal economic matters. The theme runs throughout the book, typically in relation to how certain groups perceive the idea of freedom during certain periods in American history.

The best example of this is the issue of slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War. Foner argues, “To the North, freedom meant for ‘each man’ to enjoy ‘the product of his labor’; to southern whites it conveyed mastership—the power to do ‘as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor’” (97).