Slavery in the United States

Slavery was legal in all 13 of the states due to the holdover from british law. Just because someone was anti slavery didn't mean that they weren't also racs. Most people at the time would have been happy to defend slavery if it was in their economic interest to do so. We need to be careful in creating simplistic good guy versus bad guy caricatures of people in this era. Sin is something that affects everybody, no matter who you are, which is why we all god's mercy.