允许奴隶制的持续和扩大作为为国家支付的代价。这一决定意味着悲剧也内置在美国的建立中，我们唯一可以问的问题是这是希腊悲剧，意思是不可避免的和不可避免的，还是莎士比亚的悲剧，这意味着它可能会以相反的方式消失，而失败是种族偏见的函数。
(permitting the continuance and expansion of slavery as the price to pay for nationhood. This decision meant that tragedy was also built into the American founding, and the only question we can ask is whether it was a Greek tragedy, meaning inevitable and unavoidable, or a Shakespearean tragedy, meaning that it could have gone the other way, and the failure was a function of the racial prejudices the founders harbored in their heads and hearts.10)