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Seeking the High Ground - by Matthew Mason (Paperback)

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Highlights

How American slavery engendered a new political vocabulary used on both sides of the Atlantic How is it, Samuel Johnson famously asked on the eve of the Revolution, that Americans could so vociferously demand freedom for themselves while so conspicuously continuing to deny it to those they held in slavery?
About the Author: Matthew Mason is Professor of History at Brigham Young University and the author of Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic.
342 Pages
History, United States

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Book Synopsis

How American slavery engendered a new political vocabulary used on both sides of the Atlantic

How is it, Samuel Johnson famously asked on the eve of the Revolution, that Americans could so vociferously demand freedom for themselves while so conspicuously continuing to deny it to those they held in slavery? With Seeking the High Ground, Matthew Mason helps answer that piercing question. As he shows, the language of slavery and freedom had long suffused Anglo-American political debates in the eighteenth century, with the Revolution emerging as one particularly hyperdramatic act during which combatants on both sides of the war of words connected the idea of slavery to the headline issues of the day. Mason details how Patriots and Loyalists alike deployed the rhetoric of slavery in their debates about all the crucial questions of the day, including republicanism, taxation and representation, and--by claiming the moral high ground--the nature of the Revolutionary War itself. These debates left complex rhetorical and political legacies for those seeking to abolish and defend slavery in both the new US and the remaining British Empire.

About the Author

Matthew Mason is Professor of History at Brigham Young University and the author of Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic.

Specifications

Dimensions (Overall): 9.0 Inches (H) x 6.0 Inches (W) x .76 Inches (D)

Weight: 1.01 Pounds

Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up

Number of Pages: 342

Genre: History

Sub-Genre: United States

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Format: Paperback

Author: Matthew Mason

Language: English

Street Date: October 21, 2025

TCIN: 1004457028

UPC: 9780813953427

Item Number (DPCI): 247-36-0673

Origin: Made in the USA or Imported

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