This title discusses about the partisan and political uses of slavery. Giving close consideration to previously neglected debates, Matthew Mason challenges the common contention that slavery held little political significance in America until the Missouri Crisis of 1819. Mason demonstrates that slavery and politics were enmeshed in the creation of the nation, and that in fact there was never a time between the Revolution and the Civil War in which slavery went uncontested.Offering a full picture of the politics of slavery in the crucial years of the early republic, Mason demonstrates that partisans and patriots, slave and free - and not just abolitionists and advocates of slavery - should be considered important players in the politics of slavery in the United States.