ORGINAL SIN

More Than 1,700 U.S. Congressmen Have Enslaved People

The Washington Post has created a database of enslavers who have shaped the nation’s legislative history.

A Washington Post investigation of censuses and other historical records found that more than 1,700 congressmen who served between the 18th and 20th centuries enslaved Black people during their lives. The Post created a database that shows these congressmen represented nearly 40 states across the nation and were part of both major parties—with 606 Democrats and 481 Republicans. The Post also found that well into the 1900s, former enslavers continued to serve in Congress, including the first woman to ever serve in the Senate, Rebecca Latimer Felton, a suffragist and white supremacist who was appointed to fill a vacancy in 1922 at the age of 87. Some congressmen used their political power to further their own slave-related interests, as in the case of Sen. Elias Kent Kane, who enslaved five individuals in Illinois, and in the early 1800s worked to formally legalize the institution in the state. “They were protective of the institution, that’s for sure,” historian Loren Schweninger said. “There was brutality and there was all kinds of exploitation of slaves—but still there were laws.”