We all can agree slavery comprised an unconscionable and repugnant chapter of U.S. history. It was a crime against humanity and betrayed the premise of our country as the land of liberty.
Slavery’s abolition — nearly a century after our nation’s birth — put America back on track in pursuit of equal rights and abundant opportunity. Of course, generations more had to pass before Black Americans were free of the shackles of segregation laws and practices.
Those points of agreement aside, debate persists over slavery’s legacy. Notably, the degree to which slavery, though legal only in the pre-Civil War South, also might have played a role in the economic success of industrial free states in the North. Or, of today’s post-industrial America…