I've consistently read its about 5% of modern-day white americans. The vast majority of white southerners in 1860 did NOT own any slaves, they simply couldn't afford them (a fact that the neo-confederate on this crowd uses to argue that slavery was not a major factor in the civil war, despite the fact that the southern GOVERNMENTS and political elite in the south were overwhelmingly pro-slavery and said so at the time).
Furthermore, of the people who did own slaves, most of them owned no more than 2-4 at best, as house servants. Slave owners with vast plantations and hundreds of slaves were probably about 10-20% of slave owners.
It was an elite class similar to today's billionaires. There are more billionaires in the US than anywhere else in the world. But that doesn't mean the average american is directly related to a billionaire.
But the situation is different with black americans -- most of them DO have at least one ancestor who was a slave. That's because the slavery business was a couple of elites buying and selling hundreds of people.
>> Some of my ancestors had slaves, but I most ashamed of my Great-Great-Grandfather who was a Democratic state rep in the 1860s. <<
Hmmm. Are you sure the RAT State Rep. ancestor wasn't the same person as the "slave owning ancestors"? It would make sense. ;-)
Actually, yes, he was one, but I had few others that owned at most a couple of slaves. My Great-Grandfather was in a Confederate Cavalry unit but didn't own any slaves, he was too dirt poor.
My father's family came to the US after the Civil War, and my mother's mother's grandparents were early 19th-century immmigrants to the North, so none of them owned any slaves.
On my mother's father's side I have a great-great-grandfather who served in a Union unit in Missouri, who had a great-grandfather who owned a few slaves at the time of his death almost 40 years before the Civil War. That man, my fifth great-grandfather, is one of 128 ancestors I have in that generation. His daughter from whom I am descended did not inherit any of her father's slaves. For that I am supposed to feel personally guilty because slavery existed in the US? Actually, I am proud of that ancestor because he fought for American independence in the Revolutionary War. One of his descendants (not a direct ancestor of mine) died in the Union army in 1864 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
History is complex. It's only the agitators and community organizers who want to use it to pit people against each other--for their own gain.
Being a democrat state legislator in the 1860’s and owning slaves are about on a par for me. ;d
Being a democrat office holder TODAY is about 5 or 6 times as bad.