NO PROPERTY IN MAN

Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding

By Sean Wilentz

350 pp. Harvard University Press. $26.95.

Across from the New York Stock Exchange sits Federal Hall National Memorial, the beautiful Greek Revival columned structure that in 1842 replaced Federal Hall, the birthplace of American government. That building is where George Washington took the oath of office as the first president. It housed the Supreme Court and the first Congress. The address is 26 Wall Street. Two blocks east at 75 Wall Street stands a 42-story modern structure of marble, glass and steel. This condominium sits at the old water’s edge of the East River, atop the slave market where for half a century (1711-62) enslaved Africans were bought and sold like cattle and corn. They were traded as commodities in the enormous trans-Atlantic slave markets that linked four continents together for nearly four centuries. These parcels of flesh and bone were “not like merchandise,” James Madison argued at the Federal Convention in 1787. But they were counted as assets, or property, that helped build and finance the infrastructure and the wealth of the richest nation in the world.

It is impossible to comprehend American history without understanding slavery’s role in every aspect of its early development. Eleven slaves built a wall to protect a fledgling Dutch colony in 1626. Within a century, those 11 grew to represent one in five residents of what is now Manhattan, the nation’s first capital city and today’s global financial capital. Ten of America’s first 12 presidents were slaveholders, as were two of the nation’s earliest chief justices.

Slavery is at the heart of the nation’s origin story. The core of our democratic institutions — from the presidency to the Congress to the courts — was shaped immeasurably by it. And yet it is one of the least understood and distorted subjects in American history. The hip-hop superstar Kanye West’s bizarre remark this spring that slavery was “a choice” is just one of many examples. A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that a “bare majority” of social studies teachers said they are qualified to teach it. Educators also complained about unclear state content standards and inadequate curricular resources. The net result: High school students are virtually illiterate on the subject, and this has had severe consequences for our national life.