Second, even if we accept the common misconception that slavery abruptly ended in the North with its emancipation efforts (it did not, as we saw in the last chapter), the North actually led the way in developing a plethora of segregation laws, paving the way for the South to follow as soon as Reconstruction began. This means that while the North may have gotten rid of slavery, it still suffered from the racism that the southerners used to justify the institution. When reminded of this, northern leaders would be hard pressed to give a good answer.
