Tom Blake, descendant of a former slaveowner wrote:

"One of the subtleties that works toward trying to excuse American slavery is the use of the term "slave owner" , reminding us it was legal at the time to "own" slaves. As you so correctly point out,"slave holder" is a more accurate name for this forced relationship."

The legal designation of "owner" does NOT confer any moral or natural right to own another person. Simply because legislators of the time conferred legal ownership to justify slavery does not confer any moral authority or natural right of ownership. It is indeed a forced relationship, sanctioned by the prevailing laws.

However, this attempt to somehow look backwards into the past and attempt to right the wrongs of your forefathers is ill-intentioned.

Moreover, by utilizing this revisionist mechanism does not change the FACT that slaves were owned.

The TRUTH of the matter is that slaves were "owned", not "held"
as Tom Black asserts. To "hold" someone implies that there is some
possibility of that person being released from the hold at some reasonable point in the future and, obviously, that was not the case or intent at the time.

Slave owner is an historically acurate description of the practice,
slave holder is a misrepresentation of the facts, a revisionist version of history of the era, and historically inaccurate.

And that is not to say that "slave owner" is a morally acceptable
concept. On the contrary, it is morally reprehensible and contrary to natural law and the natural rights of all humans.