Slavery and by extension slave owners are a hot button topic today with Northerners quickly pointing the finger at anyone who was born and lived in the South, even if they or their ancestors never owned a single slave. What they seem completely oblivious of is that Northerners owned slaves too.
"Many Friends (Quakers) in Pennsylvania and New Jersey had grown rich on Atlantic commerce, and many bought human property. Benjamin Lay said that slave keeping was the greatest sin in the world and asked. How can a people who profess the golden rule keep slaves? " -The Cave Dwelling Vegan Who Took on Quaker Slavery and Won, Smithsonian, September 2017
Good question, you might have thought the Church elders would take Lay's side in his dispute with the slave owners, but to the contrary the religious Community expelled Benjamin Lay. Lay died in 1759, buried as a stranger to the faith he loved
