Slavery and the Democratic Conscience - (Early American Studies) by Padraig Riley (Hardcover)

About the Book

Slavery and the Democratic Conscience explains how democratic subjects confronted and came to terms with slaveholder power in the early American Republic. Slavery was not an exception to the rise of American democracy, Padraig Riley argues, but was instead central to the formation of democratic institutions and ideals.

Book Synopsis

Democracy and slavery collided in the early American republic, nowhere more so than in the Democratic-Republican party, the political coalition that elected Thomas Jefferson president in 1800 and governed the United States into the 1820s. Joining southern slaveholders and northern advocates of democracy, the coalition facilitated a dramatic expansion of American slavery and generated ideological conflict over slaveholder power in national politics. Slavery was not an exception to the rise of American democracy, Padraig Riley argues, but was instead central to the formation of democratic institutions and ideals.

Slavery and the Democratic Conscience explains how northern men both confronted and accommodated slavery as they joined the Democratic-Republican cause. Although many northern Jeffersonians opposed slavery, they helped build a complex political movement that defended the rights of white men to self-government, American citizenship, and equality and protected the master's right to enslave. Dissenters challenged this consensus, but they faced significant obstacles. Slaveholders resisted interference with slavery, while committed Jeffersonians built an aggressive American nationalism, consolidating an ideological accord between white freedom and slaveholder power.

By the onset of the Missouri Crisis in 1819, democracy itself had become an obstacle to antislavery politics, insofar as it bound together northern aspirations for freedom and the institutional power of slavery. That fundamental compromise had a deep influence on democratic political culture in the United States for decades to come.

Review Quotes

"[A]s Riley's book expertly shows, slaveholders' power came not merely as a result of a hellish constitutional compromise. Rather it owed from a longstanding cross-sectional alliance of Democratic Republicans that privileged white democracy over antislavery . . . Though building on studies by Matt Mason, David Waldstreicher, Craig Hammond, and others who have traced slavery's contested role in the early Republic, Riley explains the muscular development of the Jeffersonian coalition perhaps better than anyone else."-- "Reviews in American History"

"Drawing on an impressive archive that includes newspapers of the period, political pamphlets, and congressional records, Riley uncovers a previously untold story within the master narrative of early US politics. rough its nuanced account of the origins of Jeffersonian Republicanism, Slavery and the Democratic Conscience reveals what might be e aced if we focus solely on that movement's namesake: the deep but deeply fraught links between white notions of liberty and the material realities of slavery in the early United States."-- "Early American Literature"

"How is it, Padraig Riley asks, that the most radical democratic elements of U.S. political life joined with slaveholders to create the first American party system? Joining a wave of recent scholarship focused on the 'forgotten' period between the Revolutionary and antebellum eras, Riley looks beyond the usual suspects to uncover an unlikely and fascinating cast of characters, shedding new light on early American politics. An important contribution to the literature on the politics of slavery in the early American republic."-- "François Furstenberg, Johns Hopkins University"

"This book on the politics of slavery in the early American republic ought to surpass and replace previous works on this subject. Broadly synthetic and, at the same time, well researched and well written, it teems with original insights and careful analysis."-- "The Historian"

About the Author

Padraig Riley teaches history and humanities at Reed College.