My dissertation examines moments of intersectional North-South cooperation on the Atlantic slave trade, domestic slave trading, and the African colonization movement (which sought to send black Americans “back” to Africa).  Scholars generally treat these issues as distinct topics; however, an integrated approach to them as a series of moments of political convergence helps us better understand not only these three topics but also larger issues such as the geographic expansion of slavery and the role of racism and antislavery sentiment in politics. 

By the late-eighteenth century, philosophical trends encouraged Americans to believe that morality and enlightened self-interest coincided in the natural order of the world.  At several times between the American Revolution and 1840, the harmonized demands of humanity and expediency appeared to favor government action to abolish the Atlantic slave trade, regulate interstate slave trading, and support the African colonization movement.  Yet ultimately the intersectional support for these measures collapsed, and slavery and slave trading increased dramatically during these decades.  My dissertation explains how a broad agreement on the immorality and “impolicy” of slave trading following the American Revolution evolved into widespread anti-abolitionist sentiment by the 1840s.