Dark bargain
Subtitle: slavery, profits, and the struggle for the Constitution
By: Lawrence Goldstone.
Publisher: Walker & Company; Distributed by Holtzbrinck
Published: 2005
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 230
ISBN-13: 9780802714602
Subjects: United States. Constitutional Convention -- History; Constitutional history -- United States; Slavery -- Law and legislation -- United States -- History; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1789
Description: Reveals the compromises made by men both driven and repelled by slavery and the needs of the slave economy that were made by the men creating the American Constitution.

On September 17, 1787, at the State House in Philadelphia, thirty-nine men from twelve states signed America's Constitution after months of often bitter debate. They created a magnificent, enduring document, even though most of the delegates were driven more by pragmatic, regional interests than by idealistic vision. Many were meeting for the first time, others after years of contention, and the inevitable clash of personalities would be as intense as the advocacy of ideas or ideals. No issue was of greater concern to the delegates than that of slavery: it resounded through debates on the definition of treason, the disposition of the rich lands west of the Alleghenies, the admission of new states, representation and taxation, the need for a national census, and the very makeup of the legislative and executive branches of the new government. As Lawrence Goldstone provocatively makes clear in Dark Bargain, "to a significant and disquieting degree, America's most sacred document was molded and shaped by the most notorious institution in its history." - Jacket flap.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Prologue : Fulcrum; title: Part one : Reluctant nation.; title: Devil in the mist; title: Reluctant nation : the Articles of Confederation; title: Rabble in black and white : insurrection; title: Taming the West : the Ohio Company of Virginia; title: Part two : Four architects.; title: Sorcerer's apprentice : Virginia and the Upper South; title: Gold in the swamps : South Carolina, rice, and the Lower South; title: The value of a dollar : Connecticut; title: Part three : Supreme law of the land.; title: Philadelphia : the convention begins; title: June : the Colloquium; title: Slavery by the numbers : the mathematics of legislative control; title: Sixty percent of a human being; title: Balancing act : two great compromises; title: Not a king, but what?; title: Details; title: Dark bargains : the slave trade and other commerce; title: Closing the deal : September; title: Supreme law of the land