Reparations for Slavery
- Thread starter Thoreau
- Start date
Here are your reparations:
360,222 Union dead in the US Civil War.
360,222 Union dead in the US Civil War.
30 cents was alot of money in the 1700's.
the net lives destroyed is still several million in the red.
"Millions?" In the Civil War??? Where did you study American history - in Russia???:bugeye:
He means many more slaves were killed, but whatever, what's a life worth? 360,000 people is nothing to laugh at.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
Yes, but the Southern economy was geared around it. By law all adult males had to serve in Slave Patrols that looked for escapees, and mostly the wealthy found ways out of it (by hiring substitutes on the nights they had to ride), so it was the poor who could not afford the slaves who wound up enforcing the laws against the escaping men, women and children.
When there was a slave uprising, by Nat Turner, the U.S. military was sent in to put it down, and the government passed the Fugitive Slave Laws, requiring that every American citizen act as a slave catcher when confronted with a runaway. Even without everyone owning slaves, then, the governments of the time (which are legally speaking the same governments that exist today) were deeply complicit in the practice and perpetuation.
I'm pretty sure that were anything to ever happen on this issue (which it won't), it's the governments that would make the payments.
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i really dont know how people got paid back then, 17-1800's. i now that around that time most states didnt even have paper money.
Who said I was laughing at that - certainly not ME! I simply pointed out his lack of knowledge about history. Even counting slaves, he has NO chance of proving his claim of "MILLIONS." (He always exaggerates *everything*.)
No. But my ancestors are from Carthage, and Rome should better pay a reparations for the destruction or I will be MAD!!!!
superstring01
Moderator
Indeed, I'm waiting on my Irish ancestors to get paid by my English ancestors for the whole Potato Blight thing (Ireland actually produced enough food to feed itself, the British just took it all to Britain to feed their masses). Also, my German ancestors (who left the homeland before the world wars), are owed a great deal for their suffering when Rome attempted to invade their homeland.
My French ancestors owe everybody, and are owed by pretty much everybody. And don't even get me started on the tiny portion of Cherokee, that I inherit through my father's side, and how much they are owed.
~String
Estimates of the death toll resulting from the slave trade are between 6 and 58 million, and some people estimate it as 150 million. There is little chance it was below 1 million.
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatv.htm
The people alive today aren't slaves, and none of the people responsible for slavery hundreds of years ago are alive anymore.
If you're so concerned about slavery, why don't you make a thread about slavery that occurs now in Africa and around the world ? rather than one about something that happened before any of us were alive.
Thoreau
Valued Senior Member
Because that is not the exact question I'm asking. I'm asking a general question. You can include present-day Africa in this discussion if you wish, but again, this is a broad question that covers all of slavery, both past and present.
exactly. The people that suffered should get reparations, not their descendants
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
The Italian or Libyan governments are not legally responsible for the acts of the Roman Republic/Empire or the Carthaginians, respectively...but the the U.S. Government, and the South Carolina government are legally responsible for their acts in the 19th century. Italy is not ancient Rome, but South Carolina is still South Carolina.
For example, the federal government is still a party to treaties signed then, and they are still valid. The argument "but no one alive today was alive in 1823, and no one from 1823 is alive today" does not mean that the "Convention of navigation and commerce, with separate article" (Signed at Washington June 24, 1822, Entered into force February 12, 1823) (8 Stat. 278.) between the U.S. and France is no longer in effect. In fact it was still recognized as being in force as of Jan. 1, 2009: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/123747.pdf.
Most likely the defense raised if no statute of limitations applies is the related concept of "laches" which is an equitable remedy, and so subject to court approval. Which is to say that the claim is so old that it is "unfair" to bring it. "Unfair" is not much of a legal standard.
The first obstacle is any descendant of a slave showing that he has standing to sue, in effect, for the estate of the deceased slave, which is very hard. Then comes the question of measuring damages, which is very hard...you keep adding up all the unprovable elements and laches looks like a good idea, but not directly because those people are dead, but because the proof of what specifically happened in undiscoverable.