“Mark Antony”
Independent Chronicle (Boston), January 10, 1788
The original sin in America’s Constitution was how it addressed—or failed to address—the issue of slavery. There was always going to be a question of how the country would transition away from slavery as the rest of the Western world was beginning to do by restricting importation and proceeding to impose limitations on trade. An article authored by “Mark Antony” responding to one authored by “Brutus” laid out, in 1788, a vision for how the country could deal with slavery—but unaware of how long it would take for slavery to be abolished and how much would be lost in finally achieving abolition.
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