Slavery and the founders : race and liberty in the age of Jefferson / Paul Finkelman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Finkelman, Paul, 1949-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery--Law and legislation--United States--History.

Slavery.

Slavery--Law and legislation.

United States.

History.

Slavery--United States--History.

Physical Description:

xii, 296 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

Armonk, N.Y. : M.E. Sharpe, [2001]

Summary:

In this significant revision of his acclaimed work, Paul Finkelman places the problem of slavery in the context of early American politics and the making of the Constitution. He argues that slavery was a bone of contention from the first days of the Constitutional Convention to the last, and demonstrates persuasively that the debate on slavery in national politics and the problem of fugitive slaves predated the antebellum period. A new chapter argues that it was the Federalists who took the high road on the issue of slavery by supporting emancipation, while supporters of Jefferson formed the first pro-slavery political party.

Contents:

1. Making a Covenant with Death: Slavery and the Constitutional Convention 3

2. Slavery and the Northwest Ordinance, 1787: A Study in Ambiguity 37

3. Evading the Ordinance: The Persistence of Bondage in Indiana and Illinois 58

4. Implementing the Proslavery Constitution: The Adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 81

5. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Federalism 105

6. "Treason Against the Hopes of the World": Thomas Jefferson and Slavery 129

7. Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and Antislavery: Historians and Myths 163.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-265) and index.

ISBN:

0765604388

0765604396

OCLC:

45304598