A study of the attitudes of the founding "fathers" toward slavery. The text examines the views of Thomas Jefferson reflected in his life and writings and those of other founders as expressed in sources such as the Constitution, the Constituional Convention and the Northwest Ordinance.

Paul Finkelman is currently Visiting Professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law and the incoming Charlton W. Tebeau Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Miami at Coral Gables.

Preface 1. Making a Covenant with Death: Slavery and the Constitutional Convention 2. Slavery and the Northwest Ordinance: A Study in Ambiguity 3. Evading the Ordinance: The Persistence of Bondage in Indiana and Illinois 4. Implementing the Proslavery Constitution: The Adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 5. Thomas Jefferson and Slavery "Treason Against the Hopes of the World" 6. Thomas Jefferson and Slavery II: Historians and Myth