Research Catalog

Title

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

Author

Finkelman, Paul, 1949-

Publication

Armonk, N.Y. : M.E. Sharpe, ©2001.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 296 pages; 24 cm

Summary

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 he demonstrates persuasively that the debate on slavery in national politics and the problem of fugitive slaves predated the antebellum period. Finkelman looks unblinkingly at the ways that the founders failed to resolve the fundamental contradiction between the notion that "all men are created equal" and their own personal and political involvement in slavery. Finkelman argues that the Federalists, long regarded as aristocrats, were actually a strong force for emancipation.

Subjects

• Slavery
• Slavery > Law and legislation
• Geschichte 1750-1800
• History
• USA
• United States
• Sklaverei
• Recht
• Slavery > Law and legislation > United States > History
• Slavery > United States > History

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-265) and index.

Contents

Making a covenant with death : slavery and the Constitutional Convention -- Slavery and the Northwest Ordinance : a study in ambiguity -- Evading the Ordinance : the persistence of bondage in Indiana and Illinois -- Implementing the proslavery Constitution : the adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 -- The problem of slavery in the age of Federalism -- "Treason against the hopes of the world": Thomas Jefferson and slavery -- Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and antislavery : Historians and myths.

ISBN

• 0765604388
• 9780765604385
• 0765604396
• 9780765604392

LCCN

00053162

OCLC

• ocm45304598
• 45304598
• SCSB-1225664

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library