John Craig Hammond Replies to Furstenberg's Review

I would like to begin by thanking François Furstenberg for his
thoughtful and critical review of _Slavery, Freedom, and Expansion in
the Early American West_, along with the H-SHEAR book review editors,
Stacey Robertson and Caleb McDaniel, for organizing these interactive
book reviews.

As Furstenberg notes, _Slavery, Freedom, and Expansion_ joins a spate
of monographs on slavery and politics in the early republic, including
works by Adam Rothman, Rob Forbes, and Matt Mason. I would add to this
list Furstenberg’s own excellent work, along with monographs by
Richard Newman, Eva Sheppherd Wolf, David Gellman, and Ed Rugemer, and
forthcoming works by Brian Schoen and Rachel Hope Cleves.[1]  In my
response to Furstenberg’s review, I would like to draw attention to
the ways that these works have changed the historiography of slavery
and politics in Revolutionary America and the early American republic.

Ten years ago, the historiography of slavery and politics in early
America was dominated by what Jeffrey Pasley, David Waldstreicher and
Andrew Robertson have called the “neo-Federalist interpretation” of
the early American Republic. When applied to the politics of slavery,
the neo-Federalist interpretation focused on the actions, inactions,
and misdeeds of Congress and a small group of founding fathers. By the
late 1990s and early 2000s, much of the scholarship on the politics of
slavery in the early republic consisted of debates over the anti-
slavery merits and pro-slavery demerits of an ill-defined group of
“founding fathers.” While Republicans were castigated for their racism
and hypocrisy, Federalists were celebrated for the ways that their
softened racism compensated for their unabashed elitism. Leading
lights such as Timothy Pickering and Gouvernor Morris wailed against
the continuation of slavery, Washington freed his slaves at his death,
and John Adams aided rebels on Saint Domingue. But they were no match
for self-interested, racist hypocrites led by Thomas Jefferson, who
increasingly shouldered the responsibility of perpetuating and
expanding slavery and racism in the United States. To again borrow
from Pasley, Waldstreicher, and Robertson, by the early 2000s, the
politics of slavery in the early republic had been reduced to
“comparative founder-worship and demonology.”[2]

How has this historiography (which I have admittedly oversimplified)
changed in the past ten years? As I understand it, the historiography
of the politics of slavery has followed much the same trajectory as
the historiography of politics in the early republic by looking
“beyond the founders.” What is emerging is a complicated world where
northerners and southerners, easterners and westerners, men and women,
Republicans and Federalists, blacks and whites, the free and enslaved,
the politically marginalized and the politically potent all engaged in
a contentious, prolonged debate over slavery. At issue was the place,
meaning, extent, and shape of slavery in the new American nation. The
recent literature on slavery and politics also looks “beyond the
federal government,” examining the frequent local, state, and regional
conflicts over slavery, conflicts that could not be resolved by the
dictates of the federal government alone. Furthermore, it is now clear
that the old chronological divisions of the politics of slavery have
to be rethought. Political conflicts over slavery did not simply
disappear with ratification of the Constitution, only to be revived
forty years later when abolitionists and pro-slavery extremists forced
them back into the political mainstream. From the debates over the
ratification of the Constitution straight through to Indian Removal,
there never was a time when slavery was not a political issue in the
early republic. At minimum, then, the newest work on slavery and
politics both expands the cast of actors involved in the politics of
slavery and demonstrates that slavery was a lasting political issue
even if free whites rarely considered it the most important political
issue.

While the newer works on the politics of slavery in the early republic
have challenged the Neo-Federalist interpretation on just about every
point, much work remains to be done. The Neo-Federalist historiography
provided a coherent interpretation and narrative of the politics of
slavery from the Revolution through the Missouri Controversy and onto
the disputes over Texas annexation. The same cannot yet be said about
the newer works beyond the broad generalizations listed above. Much
like the “new, new political history” of the early republic, the newer
works on the politics of slavery are still searching for a coherent
narrative and synthesis. Furthermore, the newer works are particularly
weak on the period between 1763 and the ratification of the
Constitution, though forthcoming works by Rob Parkinson and George Van
Cleve should help address this problem. Finally, the new works on
slavery and politics in the early republic still labor under the glare
of antebellum politics and the Civil War rather than treating the
early republic as a period significant in its own right.

I look forward to seeing other members of H-SHEAR add to my list of
the strengths and criticisms of both the newer and older works on the
politics of slavery. More importantly, I look forward to seeing the
continued outpouring of scholarship on slavery and politics from the
Revolution through the Civil War.

John Craig Hammond
Penn State University

[Editor's Note: The review to which this message replies can be read at:
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=22836]

Notes

[1]. Richard Newman, _The Transformation of American Abolitionism:
Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic_ (Chapel Hill, University of
North Carolina Press, 2002) and _Freedom's Prophet: Bishop Richard
Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers_ (New York: New
York University Press, 2008); Eva Sheppard Wolf, _Race and Liberty in
the New Nation: Emancipation in Virginia from the Revolution to Nat
Turner's Rebellion_ (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
2006); David N. Gellman, _Emancipating New York_ (Baton Rouge,
Louisiana State University Press, 2006); Edward B. Rugemer, _The
Problem of Emancipation : The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil
War_ (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 2008); Rachel
Hope Cleves, _The Reign of Terror in America: Visions of Violence from
Anti-Jacobinism to Antislavery_ (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2009), forthcoming; Brian Schoen, _The Fragile Fabric of Union:
Cotton, Federal Politics, and the Global Origins of the United States
Civil War_ (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). This
list will expand in coming years as recent Ph.D’s such as Rob
Parkinson, George Van Cleves, and Padraig Riley turn their
dissertations into monographs.

[2]. Jeffrey L. Pasley, David Waldstreicher, and Andrew Robertson,
eds., _Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of
the Early American Republic_ (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2004), quote at 2.  For the “Neo-Federalist”
interpretation of slavery, see the excellent works of Paul Finkelman,
Don Fehrenbacher, and William Freehling: Paul Finkelman, _Slavery and
the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson_ (Armonk, NY:
M.E. Sharpe, 2001) 2nd ed.; Don Fehrenbacher, _The Dred Scott Case:
Its Significance in American Law and Politics_ (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1978) and _The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of
The United States Government’s Relations to Slavery_ (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001); William Freehling, “The Founding Fathers and
Conditional Antislavery,” in _The Reintegration of American History:
Slavery and the Civil War_ (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)
and _Road to Disunion_, Volume I: _Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854_
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). Other works I would
characterize as “Neo-Federalist” because of their focus on elite
“founders” and the federal government include Gary B. Nash, _Race and
Revolution_ (Madison WI: Madison House, 1990) and, more recently,
Douglass R. Egerton, “The Empire for Liberty Reconsidered,” in James
Horn, Jan Ellen Lewis, and Peter S. Onuf eds., _The Revolution of
1800: Democracy, Race, and the New Republic_ (Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press, 2002). For the ways that the Neo-
Federalist interpretation has made its way into popular historical
literature, see  Roger G. Kennedy, _Mr. Jefferson’s Lost Cause: Land,
Farmers, and the Louisiana Purchase_ (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003) and Garry Wills, _“Negro President”: Jefferson and the
Slave Power_ (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003).

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