Twelve U.S. Presidents owned slaves, eight while in office.
This is tough to reconcile. How do liberty, freedom and equality coexist with enslavement? Perhaps it is not to be reconciled. To be sure, it is not to be excused. John Jay Chapman said, “There was never a moment in our history when slavery was not a sleeping serpent. It lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention …” Another axiom that was often tossed about was that (paraphrasing) slavery was like holding a wolf by the ears, you didn’t like it but you didn’t dare let it go. I call bullshit. What would have happened if someone would have shot the “coiled” snake or released the wolf?
