Once more America faces a reckoning

This country faces a reckoning. The question is whether we will come together or fall apart, move forward, or descend toward a moral abyss. In this time of deep discord, of partisan divide, racial tension, and extreme inequality, the outcome is far from certain.

- Jesse Jackson

As fraught as this time is, however, it is not unique. We have faced such moments before.

When this nation was founded on the proposition that all were created equal, the Founders could not duck the question of slavery. States with large numbers of slaves wanted the slaves to be counted for purposes of representation and taxation, even though they were considered property without any rights. To form the union, the Founders compromised in the Constitution, with slaves counted as three-fifths of a person - three-fifths human - increasing the number of representatives from the slave states while remaining in bondage. Thomas Jefferson owned 600 slaves but publicly denounced slavery as a "moral depravity" and believed that slavery represented the greatest threat to the new nation. "I tremble for my country," he wrote, "when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever."