The Post researched more than 5,500 members of Congress — every single member born before 1840 — and found more than 1,700 people who served in Congress and owned human beings at some point in their lives. In the early decades of America’s history as an independent country, more than half of all congressmen voting on the laws forming the country’s framework were enslavers. More than 1,800 congressmen once enslaved Black people.
From the founding of the United States until long after the Civil War, hundreds of the elected leaders writing the nation’s laws were current or former slaveowners.
More than 1,800 people who served in the U.S. Congress in the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries owned human beings at some point in their lives, according to a Washington Post investigation of censuses and other historical records.
The country is still grappling with the legacy of their embrace of slavery. The link between race and political power in early America echoes in complicated ways, from the racial inequities that persist to this day to the polarizing fights over voting rights and the way history is taught in schools.
— source washingtonpost.com | Julie Zauzmer Weil, Adrian Blanco, Leo Dominguez | Jan. 10, 2022