Sentence:  New Englanders <WSD>were</WSD> a bit sensitive on the subject of their complicity in Negro slavery at the time of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence , as Jefferson explained in his `` Autobiography '' : `` The clause reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia , who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves , and who on the contrary still wished to continue it . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)