Live from a white spot in a purple nation on a blue planet...

The answer might surprise you:  The government did. 

I remember dealing with this stunning news mere months ago:

More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year and the federal government $5 billion more, according to a report released yesterday.

With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving far-more-populous China a distant second, according to a study by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.

It dawned on me today that I'd seen that 2.3 million number somewhere else, but I couldn't place it.  Sadly, I remembered today:

Total number of slaves in the Lower South : 2,312,352 (47% of total population).
Total number of slaves in the Upper South: 1,208758 (29% of total population).
Total number of slaves in the Border States: 432,586 (13% of total population).
(Source)

But, wait, it gets better...

Despite this, our democracy still falls far short of its promise to be a government that truly represents the will of its citizens. Across the country there are 5.3 million Americans who are denied the right to vote because of a felony conviction in their past. Nearly 4 million of these people are not in prison; they live, work, pay taxes, and raise families in our communities, but remain disenfranchised for years, often for decades, and sometimes for life.

The time has come to ask ourselves if our nation is really as free as it likes to think it is.  My libertarianism is coming through, to be sure.  All the same, I would love to know how many of these folks were non-violent offenses and deserved to become unpersons.