Expanding the Slaveocracy | Portside

Expanding the Slaveocracy | Portside: "American slaveholders before the Civil War oversaw an incredibly brutal economic system that generated enormous wealth for a tiny elite while denying enslaved Africans the most basic rights. But they also presided over American foreign policy, overseeing US territorial and economic expansion. As historian Matt Karp explains in This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy, they didn’t just want an independent slaveholding South — they wanted to spread their empire of slavery to the entire United States and beyond."