TIL: 1/4th of all US presidents were slaveowners

The American Revolution threw into crisis the principle of the ‘uselessness of slavery among ourselves’, which seemed established within the liberal movement. Now, far from being confined to the colonies, slavery acquired a new visibility and centrality in a country with a culture, religion and language of European origin, which conversed with European countries as an equal and in fact claimed a kind of primacy in embodying the cause of liberty. Declared legally void in England in 1772, the institution of slavery received its juridical and even constitutional consecration, albeit with recourse to the euphemisms and circumlocutions we are familiar with, in the state born out of the revolt of colonists determined not to be treated like ‘ni****s’. There thus emerged a country characterized by ‘a fixed and direct tie between slave ownership and political power’, as strikingly revealed both by the Constitution and the number of slave owners who acceded to its highest institutional office.

D. Losurdo - Liberalism: A Counter-History

4 comments

Sometimes you need to remind yourself how young the US is. There are buildings in my city that are hundreds of years older than the US. Think of how close we are to slave owning rulers.
The American Revolution threw into crisis the principle of the ‘uselessness of slavery among ourselves’, which seemed established within the liberal movement. Now, far from being confined to the colonies, slavery acquired a new visibility and centrality in a country with a culture, religion and language of European origin, which conversed with European countries as an equal and in fact claimed a kind of primacy in embodying the cause of liberty. Declared legally void in England in 1772, the institution of slavery received its juridical and even constitutional consecration, albeit with recourse to the euphemisms and circumlocutions we are familiar with, in the state born out of the revolt of colonists determined not to be treated like ‘ni****s’. There thus emerged a country characterized by ‘a fixed and direct tie between slave ownership and political power’, as strikingly revealed both by the Constitution and the number of slave owners who acceded to its highest institutional office.
D. Losurdo - Liberalism: A Counter-History
- Truly one of the best books of the past few decades. His Stalin, Liberalism, and western marxism should be required reading.
When would you say that women gained rights enough to not be enslaved to whom they marry?