Slavery, Freedom, and Expansion in the Early American West

John Craig Hammond is Assistant Professor of History at Penn State Univrsity, New Kensington.

Scholarship on American slavery and politics has traditionally turned either to the revolutionary and constitutional era, or to the antebellum and Civil War period. But what happened in between? An awful lot, says John Craig Hammond in this fine monograph." - Francois Furstenberg, J.W. McConnell Family Foundation Chair in American Studies, University of Montreal "This argument is a valuable addition to the historiography of early national state formation in the United States... [a] careful delineation of the emergent boundary between slavery and freedom in the western United States." - Adam Rothman, Georgetown University "Why did the young American republic, committed as it was to freedom and equality, fail to outlaw slavery in its western territories? John Craig Hammond addresses this perennial question in his well-written, carefully argued book." - James Simeon Journal of American History "Hammond's well-written monograph should certainly be read by anyone interested in slavery in the territories." - Nicole Etcheson, Alexander M. Bracken Professor of History, Ball State University "Hammond has proven himself to be an important figure in an emerging new wave of scholarship on the critical early years of slavery and its expansion in the United States... Hammond's discussion is sure to add to the ongoing debate about how to understand the legacy of slavery in the United States." - Glenn Reynolds, Mount Saint Mary College