Commentary There’s a prevailing orthodoxy and its opponents are branded “insurrectionists.” Nonconformists are banned from social media outlets. They’re threatened and they lose their livelihoods. Street mobs attack them and destroy their property. Government officials not only refuse to protect their rights, but also sometimes even conspire with the oppressors. The foregoing paragraph could describe modern “woke” cancel culture. Or it could describe its direct American ancestor: cancel culture imposed by slaveholders on the pre-Civil War South. Despite what you may have heard, slavery was not universal in 19th century America. In 1850, less than 10 percent of American families held slaves (pdf). However, in the relatively sparsely populated Southern states, the percentage of slaveholding families was higher, and they exercised disproportionate influence in political life. That influence came to be called the “Slave Power.” Unlike most slaveholding societies, a large part of the American population opposed slavery—such as, for …