Contesting Slavery

The story of slavery in the US has tended to focus on the crucial decades 1831-1861, which witnessed the rise of the abolitionist movement, various acts of rebellion, and the Civil War. Here historians look at the practice of slavery, thinking about it, and resistance to it in the early republic. They cover slavery and ideology, action and inaction; the state and slavery; and slavery, sectionalism, and partisan politics. Specific topics include early free-labor thought and the contest over slavery in the early republic, founding a slaveholders' union 1770-1797, slavery and the problem of democracy in Jeffersonian America, and conflict versus racial consensus in the history of anti-slavery politics. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

John Craig Hammond is Assistant Professor of History at Penn State University, New Kensington, and the author ofSlavery, Freedom, and Expansion in the Early American West (Virginia). Matthew Mason is Associate Professor of History at Brigham Young University and the author ofSlavery and Politics in the Early American Republic.