27 of the 55 delegates to the 1787 US Constitutional Convention were slaveowners

[YoungDemCA]

Just about half. These are their names:

Richard Bassett (DE)
Jacob Broom (DE)
John Dickinson (DE)
George Read (DE)
William Houstoun (GA)
William Few (GA)
William Samuel Johnson (CT)
Daniel Carroll (MD)
Luther Martin (MD)
John Francis Mercer (MD)
Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer (MD)
William Livingston (NJ)
William Blount (NC)
William Richardson Davie (NC)
Alexander Martin (NC)
Richard Dobbs Spaight (NC)
Pierce Butler (SC)
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (SC)
Charles Pinckney (SC)
John Rutledge (SC)
John Blair (VA)
James Madison (VA)
George Mason (VA)
Edmund Randolph (VA)
George Washington (VA)
George Wythe (VA)
Robert Morris (PA) (though he didn't actually own any slaves, he owned a slave ship and was heavily invested in the slave trade, so for all intents and purposes...

In addition, 12 of the 43 men who have served as President of the United States owned slaves, eight of whom owned slaves while serving as POTUS:

George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William Henry Harrison
John Tyler
James K. Polk
Zachary Taylor
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant (mostly through his wife)

Additionally, James Buchanan was somewhat of a borderline case since his brother-in-law owned two slaves whom Buchanan bought and then hired as indentured servants.

Of those 12, only two (Washington and Jefferson) were delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention. So that's 10 other Presidents who owned slaves.

Just remember: the current President of the United States could very well have been owned by any one of the men listed above, had he lived within one and half to two or so centuries ago. And his successor as the Democratic presidential nominee, and likely (fingers crossed) successor as President of the United States, would also have been considered the property of her husband on the account of the fact that she is a she.

I don't think a lot of people - even a lot of Democrats/liberals/progressives/left-wingers - realize the significance of all of this. Really puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Sobering.

[jamese777]

1. John Punch & Barack Obama

President Obama may very well be related to the first African to be enslaved in what was to become the United States. Interestingly the connection is on his mother's side of the family tree.
http://c.mfcreative.com/offer/us/obama_bunch/PDF/punch_tree_final.pdf

"John Punch (fl. 1630s, living 1640) was an enslaved African who lived in the Colony of Virginia during the seventeenth century. In July 1640, the Virginia Governor's Council sentenced him to serve for the remainder of his life as punishment for running away to Maryland. In contrast, two European men who ran away with him were sentenced to longer indentures but not the permanent loss of their freedom. For this reason, historians consider John Punch the "first official slave in the English colonies,"and his case as the "first legal sanctioning of lifelong slavery in the Chesapeake." Historians also consider this to be one of the first legal distinctions between Europeans and Africans made in the colony, and a key milestone in the development of the institution of slavery in the United States."--Wikipedia

[YoungDemCA]

2. Kick

[Quayblue]

3. K&R

[WhiteTara]

4. I am happy to see that neither my

Great (to the 7th generation) uncle or grandfather did not own slaves. In addition, my uncle denounced the horrific practice and fought against the 3/5 rule.