Research into Clay County history reveals white people sold black people on the county courthouse steps in the 1800s, a common occurrence in Southern states. Vivid historical descriptions of slavery talk about requiring people to wear identification tags, about scars from chains and whips, rapes, murders and as many humiliations as soulless people could concoct. Such acts occurred in the city where I once lived – a place called Liberty, ironically. I wrote a column June 9, 1999, expressing my feelings about what I had learned: “When is the right time for a formal apology?” I suggested the Clay County Commission should apologize for the county’s role in aiding and abetting slavery. I based the idea on an example provided by former Gov. Christopher Bond. Bond had nothing to do with the “extermination order” issued by another governor, Lilburn Boggs, more than a century earlier. But Bond decided to right a wrong. Boggs had issued the order after a clash between Mormons and Missouri…