You've got to be kidding me...

[ssbn642blue]

Gettysburg, Pa. – "You wonder why we didn't do it 100 years ago," said Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, after the Senate voted June 18 to endorse a national apology for slavery. "It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice." And considering the scale and brutality of slavery in American history, Senator Harkin could not be more right.
Abraham Lincoln described slavery as "the one retrograde institution in America," and told a delegation of black leaders in 1862 that "your race are suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people."
But one reason why we have waited so long has to do with what many advocates of the apology regard as the necessary next step – reparations to African-Americans by the federal government. Significantly, that's a step the Senate's apology resolution refused to take.
"Nothing in this resolution," said Concurrent Resolution 26, "authorizes or supports any claim against the United States; or serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States."
That refusal will inject new acrimony into a slow-burning debate over reparations that has been going on for 40 years. "There are going to be African-Americans who think that [the apology] is not reparations, and it's not action," admitted Tennessee Rep. Stephen Cohen (D), who has been a longtime backer of the apology.
And indeed there are. Randall Robinson, whose book, "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks" (2000), demanded "massive restitutions" to American blacks for slavery, insists that an apology is meaningless without reparations payments to African-Americans. "Much is owed, and it is very quantifiable," Mr. Robinson said after the Senate vote. "It is owed as one would owe for any labor that one has not paid for, and until steps are taken in that direction we haven't accomplished anything."
Illinois Sen. Roland Burris (D) added: "I want to go on record making sure that that disclaimer in no way would eliminate future actions that may be brought before this body that may deal with reparations."
And on the surface, the case for reparations to African-Americans has all the legal simplicity of an ordinary tort. A wrong was committed; therefore, compensation is due to those who were wronged. But just below that surface is a nest of disturbing complications that undercut the ease with which Robinson, Mr. Burris, and other reparations activists have put their case.
1. Who was legally responsible for slavery? Not the federal government. Slavery was always a matter of individual state enactments, which is what made Lincoln's initial attempts to free the slaves so difficult.
When it was written in 1787, the Constitution only obliquely recognized the existence of legalized slavery in the states, and only mentioned it directly when it provided for the termination of the transatlantic slave trade in 1808. Congress twice passed laws regulating the capture of fugitive slaves. But there was no federal slave code and no federal statute legalizing slavery.
Nor was slavery confined only to the 11 Southern states of the old Confederacy. It was legal in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey as late as the 1820s. If reparations are what's in view after an apology, the real target has to be the states; and if reparations are demanded from Alabama, it will want to know why it's more guilty than other states.
2. Who should be paid? At first glance, the answer seems obvious: the slaves. But the victims of slavery are now long dead; it is the heirs of those victims who stand next in line for compensation. Still, the line is a shaky and complicated one, with the chief complication lurking in the genes of African-Americans themselves.
Slavery was a system of bondage; it was also a system of forced rape and violent sexual exploitation across the old slave South. The mixed-race offspring of slavery were plain to see on every plantation.
And the long-term result is that the average African-American today has been estimated, in genetic terms, to be approximately 20 percent white – and much of that 20 percent includes the genes of the white slaveholders who originally owned his great-grandparents.
By what logic do we pay reparations for slavery to those who, in all too many cases, are literally descendents of the actual slaveholders? And should reparations for slavery include the descendents of those blacks who – like President Obama – did not arrive in the US until after slavery was ended?
3. What about the Civil War? Slavery did not end by evaporation. It took a catastrophic civil war, which cost 620,000 dead – equivalent to nearly 7 million today; it cost $190 billion (in today's dollars) to wage and multiplied the national debt by 400 percent; and it inflicted a casualty rate of 27 percent on Southern white males between the ages of 17 and 45, the very people most likely to own slaves.
At that time, there was no shortage of racists in the North who insisted that the Civil War was being waged only to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery. But Lincoln knew otherwise, and he charged both North and South with knowing it, too. Slavery "constituted a peculiar and powerful interest" in the South, Lincoln said in 1865, and "all knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war."

The war, Lincoln said, was God's instrument for the ultimate reparation – every drop of blood drawn with the lash had been paid for with blood drawn by the sword. The blood-price of the Civil War may not automatically silence the case for reparations on its own. But the case for reparations cannot ignore it, either.
Reparations are held up as a gesture of retroactive justice, righting the wrongs that were done to our great-grandparents and before. Yet there is a deep instinct in the American national psyche that bucks at the notion of defining the present by the definitions of the past, which is one reason why reparations lawsuits have so routinely failed.
If it is racial justice we seek, the greater wisdom lies in addressing it directly, for this generation. Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College, and the author of "Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President."

The Cival War was fought over Economic reasons, it had nothing to do with slaveryThis article is a croc...

[troy2000]

I see no point in people now living "apologizing" for what people dead a hundred years or more may have done. Frankly, I'm not big on apologies of any sort, anyway. They're very seldom sincere, and don't really change anything.

But your claim that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War is a rewriting of history on a breathtaking scale.

[ssbn642blue]

Originally Posted by troy2000

I see no point in people now living "apologizing" for what people dead a hundred years or more may have done. Frankly, I'm not big on apologies of any sort, anyway. They're very seldom sincere, and don't really change anything.

But your claim that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War is a rewriting of history on a breathtaking scale.

Troy, you're a smart guy. If you looked into the reasons for the civil war, you would find that it was of economic causes, not slavery. Do not believe what they taught you in K-12. Or beyond in college. This government re-writes history all the time, and the MSM is helping every day in skewing the truth about history.

[Rambo]

I, for one, am waiting for an apology from our Government for the wholesale slaughter of the Native People of this continent since the very first Europeans came here. Oh yeah, that'll never happen. How about an apology from the NAACP for the disproportionate number of blacks crowding our penal institutions. Oops, that could be deemed racist as we all know that crime is committed solely based on your race percentage of the general population of wherever you commit your crime. Darn. I'd better quit while I'm behind.
Actually, my ancestors took white people as slaves, gave the Irish their red hair, came to this continent and found it full of Indians so went back to their homelands to live a peaceful life until the 1800's when they came here in droves, after the introduction of Africans as slaves, to become Americans, not hyphenated Americans. They learned the language, became educated, built homes, farms, etc. and are presently under-represented in our penal institutions based on their ethnicity. They never owned an African slave and have no reason to appologize.
Shove it up your ass, Tom Harkin! Yeah, I know, he's from Iowa. But he doesn't own a home here anymore so we don't know how he keeps in offfice. He has a P.O. box somewhere.

[woody1981]

They learned the language, became educated, built homes, farms, etc. and are presently under-represented in our penal institutions based on their ethnicity. They never owned an African slave and have no reason to appologize.

1000% thumbs up on this!!!!

[Windwalker]

The slave owners are dead now. The slaves are dead now. This was a period in our history that is now past. May they all rest in peace. The dead have no use for money and the living did not earn it. No reparation.

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by ssbn642blue

Troy, you're a smart guy. If you looked into the reasons for the civil war, you would find that it was of economic causes, not slavery. Do not believe what they taught you in K-12. Or beyond in college. This government re-writes history all the time, and the MSM is helping every day in skewing the truth about history.

I have looked into it. I don't blindly believe what I was taught in kindergarten, and I don't sit on my tail and let the mainstream media (or Rush or Sean) spoon feed me Pablum, either. Nor do I sit idly by while people rewrite history for their own reasons.


Here's a pretty good summary of the subject:

Was the Civil War about slavery?

The short answer is "yes." One might consider, for example, Mississippi's 21-paragraph declaration of reasons in 1861 for leaving the Union. Only two paragraphs, one introductory and the other conclusory, did not mention slavery. The state's principal complaints concerned the refusal of free states to return fugitive slaves and opposition of the extension of slavery into the territories. The election of Abraham Lincoln, on an anti-slavery platform, obviously had a lot to do with the decisions of southern states to secede as well.

The best evidence that "states' rights" was a secondary interest of the southern states is the Confederate Constitution which forced states to accept central authority on the issue of slavery and required all new territories in the Confederation to become slave states, regardless of the popular will of the people of the new state.

The Thirteenth Amendment: Slavery and the Constitution

Let me repeat that: of the 21 paragraphs in Missouri's declaration of secession, every single oaragraph except for the first and last specifically mentioned slavery... not economics.

[ArkansasHunter]

I'll say it. Today some citicens of a minority'(s) use past tense excuse's like this as an excuse for there un-ability to motivate them selves or pick themselves up.

Welfare, Entitlements, Affirmitive Action, Free College Tutuions, WIC and other goverment help aids have failed to "motivate" the receipents into becomeing better off.

So as the saying goes : You can lead a horse to water But you can't make him drink it.

Also it's easier to make excuse's than it is to try...A.H

[woody1981]

Originally Posted by ArkansasHunter

I'll say it. Today some citicens of a minority'(s) use past tense excuse's like this as an excuse for there un-ability to motivate them selves or pick themselves up.
Welfare, Entitlements, Affirmitive Action, Free College Tutuions, WIC and other goverment help aids have failed to "motivate" the receipents into becomeing better off.
So as the saying goes : You can lead a horse to water But you can't make him drink it.
Also it's easier to make excuse's than it is to try...A.H

AH--I was wondering where you were!! Did you sleep in late?

[blaster]

all my ancestors came to North America around 1900, well after any slaves were freed here. they never owend slaves, infact while in fuedal Italy, they were no better off than most of the slaves here in the 1800 s. making apologies for something that happened many generations ago is rideculouse. it is just another case of someone trying to get something for nothing.

[bigbuddy21]

the civil war was about states rights and wether the gov't. could dictate to the states about slavery. so it was in fact about slavery.
and no we don't need to pay any reperations for slavery except on one condition, find someone who was a slave back then and pay them. i would go along with that.
i'm of german heritage do i need to be paid reperations for what hitler did, no, these people are ridiculus if they think that the gov't. needs to pay them for something that happened 150 yrs ago.

[ArkansasHunter]

Originally Posted by woody1981

AH--I was wondering where you were!! Did you sleep in late?

Woody my wife and I stayed up late watching T.V. Turner Classic movies showed 3 or 4 Ma and Pa Kettle movies in roll LOL !!! They were funny.
We ended up in bed watching them. We both fell a sleep watching the last one.
By the way I learned there's 8 of them in all...A.H

[Rambo]

Originally Posted by ArkansasHunter

So as the saying goes : You can lead a horse to water But you can't make him drink it.

I thought it was, "You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think!"

[Rave]

Originally Posted by windwalker

the slave owners are dead now. The slaves are dead now. This was a period in our history that is now past. May they all rest in peace. The dead have no use for money and the living did not earn it. No reparation.

+1

[PAPA G]

just what till all you honky's get the bill

[stalebiscuit]

retarded feel good legislation

[.22hustler]

Originally Posted by rambo

i, for one, am waiting for an apology from our government for the wholesale slaughter of the native people of this continent since the very first europeans came here. Oh yeah, that'll never happen. How about an apology from the naacp for the disproportionate number of blacks crowding our penal institutions. Oops, that could be deemed racist as we all know that crime is committed solely based on your race percentage of the general population of wherever you commit your crime. Darn. I'd better quit while i'm behind.
Actually, my ancestors took white people as slaves, gave the irish their red hair, came to this continent and found it full of indians so went back to their homelands to live a peaceful life until the 1800's when they came here in droves, after the introduction of africans as slaves, to become americans, not hyphenated americans. They learned the language, became educated, built homes, farms, etc. And are presently under-represented in our penal institutions based on their ethnicity. They never owned an african slave and have no reason to appologize.
Shove it up your ass, tom harkin! Yeah, i know, he's from iowa. But he doesn't own a home here anymore so we don't know how he keeps in offfice. He has a p.o. Box somewhere.

+1

[cremley]

Originally Posted by stalebiscuit

retarded feel good legislation

+1

I don't have anything to apologize for. I didn't do anything to anyone in my life that needs apologizing.

[tlarkin]

Do you guys feel we should not have memorials for such things, and I may go as far as to say even our veterans?

It is not a bad thing to look at the past and learn from our mistakes and recognize that we have changed, progressed, and moved on from darker times.

As much as I hate bs pointless legislation, since I see that as a waste of my tax dollars at work, I do think that it is good to remember what our nation once was and what it is now.

We have a holiday celebrating Christopher Columbus, yet he wasn't the first one here, didn't know where he was, enslaved and killed off several Atlantic islanders (complete genocide), and was not a very good person at all. Yet we have a holiday for his sorry butt, and it is all in false pretenses too. You don't always learn the truth, or what is right in schools, books, and other forms of education. Sometimes you have read inbetween all of that to dig up the truth.

I don't think we need any more holidays or anything (unless it involves me getting off work) but I do think we could all recognize what we did wrong, who we have hurt, who has made sacrifices, who has worked and bled for this country, and so forth.

[samuel]

Could someone please talk to my wife about this slavery and repatronising thing,she has held me in bondage for almost 48yrs and I never get any money. ,,,sam.