Using genealogist-verified historical data and financial data from annual congressional disclosures, we examined members of the 117th Congress, which was in session from January 2021 to January 2023.
Of its 535 members, 100 were descendants of slaveholders, including Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.
Legislators whose ancestors were large slaveholders – defined in our study as owning 16 or more slaves– have a current median net worth five times larger than their peers whose ancestors were not slaveholders: $5.6 million vs. $1.1 million. These results remained largely the same after accounting for age, race and education.
Wealth, these studies find, often stays within rich families across multiple generations. Mechanisms for holding onto wealth include low estate taxes and access to elite social networks and schools. Easy entry into powerful jobs and political influence also play a part.
But members of Congress do not just inherit wealth and advantages.
They shape the lives of all Americans. They decide how to allocate federal funds, set tax rates and create regulations.
This power is significant. And for those whose families benefited from slavery, it can perpetuate economic policies that maintain wealth inequality.
Beyond inherited wealth, the legacy of slavery endures in policies enacted by those in power – by legislators who may be less likely to prioritize reforms that challenge the status quo.
I’m curious the ratio of those who have had former family members that have been politicians to those that are actually political outsiders. This article points out that the status quo is less of what society as a whole wants, but rather more what a select group of families has felt has worked for them to stay in that upper echelon.
If the South has been forced to give everything up after the war, I don’t know if it would have been any better as far as if rich Northerners actually would have just bled off the best spoils of war and still left the South impoverished, but leaving the aristocracy get away with playing things like it never happened does not seem to have been the best choice either.
It would be interesting to see where things would be if all that wealth and land was divided up between all southerners of all races evenly, and those who lead the Confederacy had been punished. I feel many of today’s problems stem from the North turning the other cheek to the defeated South.
If the South has been forced to give everything up after the war, I don’t know if it would have been any better as far as if rich Northerners actually would have just bled off the best spoils of war and still left the South impoverished
Except that was not what the progressive Republicans of the Union were trying to do. Not to say there wouldn’t have been profiteering, but I don’t think it would have been government policy.
The unrepentant leaders of the Confederacy should have all been executed as the traitors they were, or at least stripped of their wealth. If the slave owners who started the war had been punished the way they should have been, their wealth and land would have been used to raise up poor southerners: both free white southerners and former slaves.
However, while Andrew Johnson did not side with the secessionists, he was an ally of the South and was unwilling to truly try to undo the evil slavery had caused.
I believe if Lincoln had not been assassinate, the South would have ended up with a much more equitable society. As it is, we still live with the curse of the devil’s bargain that the founding fathers made.
While it wouldn’t have been policy, with the spoils system still remaining, plus what all rich people get away with at any point in history, I feel there still would have been some choice bits taken for the North, but if it was given to all now free Southerners, I would hope civil rights and racial equality would be decades ahead of where we are now.
The only counterpoint is that while Germany was punished pretty hard after 2 wars, they are still more far right than I think many would hope in even less time than we are now from the US Civil War…
I’m curious the ratio of those who have had former family members that have been politicians to those that are actually political outsiders. This article points out that the status quo is less of what society as a whole wants, but rather more what a select group of families has felt has worked for them to stay in that upper echelon.
If the South has been forced to give everything up after the war, I don’t know if it would have been any better as far as if rich Northerners actually would have just bled off the best spoils of war and still left the South impoverished, but leaving the aristocracy get away with playing things like it never happened does not seem to have been the best choice either.
It would be interesting to see where things would be if all that wealth and land was divided up between all southerners of all races evenly, and those who lead the Confederacy had been punished. I feel many of today’s problems stem from the North turning the other cheek to the defeated South.
Except that was not what the progressive Republicans of the Union were trying to do. Not to say there wouldn’t have been profiteering, but I don’t think it would have been government policy.
The unrepentant leaders of the Confederacy should have all been executed as the traitors they were, or at least stripped of their wealth. If the slave owners who started the war had been punished the way they should have been, their wealth and land would have been used to raise up poor southerners: both free white southerners and former slaves.
However, while Andrew Johnson did not side with the secessionists, he was an ally of the South and was unwilling to truly try to undo the evil slavery had caused.
I believe if Lincoln had not been assassinate, the South would have ended up with a much more equitable society. As it is, we still live with the curse of the devil’s bargain that the founding fathers made.
Agree with you wholeheartedly!
While it wouldn’t have been policy, with the spoils system still remaining, plus what all rich people get away with at any point in history, I feel there still would have been some choice bits taken for the North, but if it was given to all now free Southerners, I would hope civil rights and racial equality would be decades ahead of where we are now.
The only counterpoint is that while Germany was punished pretty hard after 2 wars, they are still more far right than I think many would hope in even less time than we are now from the US Civil War…