In the first half of the 19th century four million blacks worked as slaves, imprisoned on plantations in the American South.

They were prevented from learning how to read, their families were forcibly broken up, and if they tried to escape, they were severely and brutally punished.

The owners of these plantations were, almost without exception, Democrats.

Before the Civil War, slave-owning Democrats used black bodies to massively increase the number of votes they got in Congress and the Electoral College. Because of the Three-Fifths Compromise, a single Democrat in Georgia who owned 5 slaves got 4 times the representation as a single white abolitionist in Pennsylvania—who didn’t own any. 

So for the Democrats, it has always been about using black bodies for political power. How they are used may vary, but the plantation model remains a constant—even today.

Despite the fact that blacks are no longer enslaved, many black children barely learn to read in poorly performing schools, our families are often shattered by misguided welfare policies, and if we try to escape, we still face punishment.

Of course, the plantations of the 21st century are, not physical, they are virtual.

The owners of these plantations are once again, almost without exception, Democrats.

Think about it—what today are certain areas of Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia—all run for decades by Democrats—but virtual plantations? Many who live in these areas are largely, if not totally, dependent on their masters, the politicians, for their food, housing, and health care.  

It’s hardly a fair exchange. The politicians become wealthy. The residents become vote slaves—sustained (just barely) by government transfer payments. 

And just like the plantations of yesteryear, which demanded a consistent breakdown of the black family to reinforce its system of buying and selling slaves, Democrats today incentivize similar family corrosion through their policies, fostering dependence—not on mom and dad—but on the government. To give just one example, virtually every inner-city school provides free breakfast and lunch. Sounds generous, but, what it really does is remove the traditional responsibility from parents by handing it over to the state.

Yet many do break free from this oppressive system. Like the fugitive slave, Frederick Douglass once did, they run toward a better life.   

But leaving the plantation still entails great risk. Of course today it’s not the whip or the lash, it’s libel and slander. The purpose is to bring black conservatives within an inch of their professional and sometimes personal lives—a warning that rebellion will not be tolerated.

Don’t believe it? Just ask Dr. Ben Carson, Hoover Institution economist Thomas Sowell, or Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to cite three prominent examples.

Carson, one of the most celebrated brain surgeons of the modern era, has been called “stupid” by the legacy media because he has conservative political views.

Thomas Sowell, who went to Harvard and taught at Cornell, Amherst, and UCLA, and may be the nation’s most brilliant economist, has largely been ignored while many lesser lights have been celebrated.  

Clarence Thomas, one of the luminous legal minds of our time, was the victim of a massive smear campaign during his nomination to the Supreme Court. Because of his conservative views, his reputation was dragged through the media mud.

This is how he described the experience.

“It is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured…rather than hung from a tree.”

Today’s plantation owners will do anything to hold onto what they see as their property.

Little wonder.

In 2012, Barack Obama received 93 percent of the black vote. In 2016, Hillary Clinton received 88%. That dip was a critical factor in Clinton’s loss.

The Democrats know that they can’t lose the black vote and win a national election.

So, they make up lies. They say America was founded for the purpose of perpetuating slavery. They say white people hate us; they say the entire system is racist and that our only hope is them—the same old Democrats. 

The plantation owners know what will happen if blacks demand that their children receive a good education; if they shake off their dependence on government handouts; if they refuse to see themselves as victims and instead embrace all the opportunities America offers.

The plantation system would collapse, once and for all. 

In the 19th century, we had to depend on others to be liberated.

This time we have to do it ourselves. 

Will we?

I’m Candace Owens, author of Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation, for Prager University.