My podcasting partner Stacy McCain has a post up that touches on the fact that many Americans, including many black Americans, are descendants of slave holders. I am one.

From 1680 to 1863, seven generation of my ancestors were planters in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Tennessee who used slave labor. Slavery was part of the economic system that existed in those places and times, and they were people of the those places and times.

I am a man of my place and time. I’m not a slave holder. Indeed, I oppose slavery.