The general suspicion of strong government that shaped the contours of the new republic became entangled with the slaveholders’ demands to limit the federal government’s ability to intrude in their affairs. Henceforth, slaveholders and white supremacists of all stripes would appeal to this libertarian founding spirit, which paradoxically both protected American liberalism against a too-powerful government but also, perversely, offered protections for the antiliberal institution of slavery.
