Embedded in an idea like this is a criticism of the teleology that saturates so much of our thinking about this era—i.e., that what happened in the past was simply inevitable, what the French historian François Furet called the second illusion of truth. In his book The Forgotten Fifth, the historian Gary Nash notes that pro-slavery sentiment had not yet taken firm hold of the young country, making bold scenarios like these far less outlandish seeming than they might appear from the perspective of today.
