Capital of slavery

Essential lessons from the book ‘The Capital of Slavery’

Dr. Gerald Horne recently published The Capital of Slavery: Washington, D.C., 1800-1865. The book’s title represents how Washington, D.C., was the capital of a country whose political-economic system was based on the enslavement of Africans. Slavery wasn’t the sideshow; it was the main event, and it was foundational to the capitalist system of the United States of America.

In calling Washington, D.C. “The Capital of Slavery,” Horne is, in part, referring to how 10 Presidents, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, etc., before the Civil War, were wealthy slave owners, and two more after the Civil War owned slaves at some point. Twenty-six of the first 30 Supreme Court Justices were slave owners, or at least 30 Supreme Court Justices in total were slave owners, and at least 1,800 members of Congress were slaveholders at some point.