More than 1,700 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation. The Washington Post has compiled the first database of slaveholding members of Congress by examining thousands of pages of census records and historical documents.
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For the first seven decades of its existence, Congress returned again and again to one acrimonious topic: slavery. Many of the lawmakers arguing in Washington were participants in the brutal institution at home. On March 7, 1850. Sen. Daniel Webster delivered a famous speech about slavery, yet - 45 of the 106 congressmen listening owned human beings. Those slaveholders included Jefferson Davis, Andrew Johnson and Sam Houston.
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For the first 18 years of American lawmaking, from 1789 to 1807, more than half the men elected to Congress each session were slaveholders. How the share of lawmakers who enslaved Black people changed over Congress's first 130 years
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/histo...=pocket-newtab