Overview

On September 17, 1787, at the State House in Philadelphia, thirty-nine men from twelve states, after months of often bitter debate, signed America's Constitution. Yet very few of the delegates, at the start, had had any intention of creating a nation that would last. Most were driven more by pragmatic, regional interests than by idealistic vision. Many were meeting for the first time, others after years of contention, and the inevitable clash of personalities would be as intense as the advocacy of ideas or ideals. No issue was of greater concern to the delegates than that of slavery. Lawrence Goldstone chronicles the forging of the Constitution through the prism of the crucial compromises made by men consumed with the needs of the slave economy. As the daily debates and backroom conferences in inns and taverns stretched through July and August of that hot summer--and as the philosophical leadership of James Madison waned--Goldstone clearly reveals how tenuous the document was, and how an agreement between unlikely collaborators--John Rutledge of South Carolina, and Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut--got the delegates past their most difficult point. Dark Bargain recounts an event as dramatic and compelling as any in our nation's history . . .

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Lawrence Goldstone is the author of Separate No More: The Long Road to Brown vs. Board of Education, a Junior Library Guild selection, which Kirkus called engaging and accessible in a starred review; Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights, which School Library Journal declared in a starred review: A must-buy for all high school collections; and Unpunished Murder: Massacre at Colfax and the Quest for Justice, which Booklist's starred review called gripping . . . and a well-informed perspective on American history. He is also the author of more than a dozen books for adults, including four on Constitutional law. He lives in Sagaponack, New York, with his wife, medieval and Renaissance historian Nancy Goldstone. Jonathan Yen is a commercial voice-over artist and Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator. He was inspired by the Golden Age of Radio, and while the gold was gone by the time he got there, he has carried that inspiration through to commercial work, voice acting, and stage productions. From vintage Howard Fast science fiction to naturalist Paul Rosolie's true adventures in the Amazon, he loves to tell a good story.

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