There have been a few lawsuits filed on the Southern states asking for compensation for the loss of economic status due to their ancestors losing their slaves during the civil war.
Should we reinstate slaverly for the decendants of those slaves..or should we simply garnish the wages of the slaves decendants to offset this debt they owe?
2007-02-13 03:12:06 · 21 answers · asked by John F 2 in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
I encourage you to go to Compton at night and ask this very same question to every passerby!
2007-02-13 03:15:31 · answer #1 · answered by Philip Kiriakis 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Slavery was just plain wrong in the first place. I do not believe decendants of the slave owners should get any compensation. America is the land of the FREE and that means the slaves had that right also. A lot of other perople lost wealth in the past for various reasons, should their decendants file lawsuits to be compensated for their ancenstors losses? I think not. I think someone is just looking for an easy way to get money. The slaves lost homeland and families when uprooted to serve others, I think the loss of economic status is justice being served.
2007-02-13 03:25:56 · answer #2 · answered by Katykins 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
First of all, any political party that tried to adopt this issue would immediately lose any hope of getting ANY support from the Black community, and from a vast number of white people who feel that slavery was morally abhorrent. If anything, the descendants of slave owners should have to compensate the descendants of slaves for the brutality that slaves were subjected to while they were held in slavery. As for the rightness of your position, remember the specific terms of the Emancipation Proclamation: it actually applied only to those slave living in parts of the nation that remained in rebellion. Because rebellion amounted to actively making war on the United States, slave owners effected by the Emancipation Proclamation were committing treason, which is regarded as a capital offense. It was not unreasonable to say that such people should suffer the forfeiture of property, such as their slaves. After the Civil War, the ratification of the thirteenth amendment ended slavery by declaring it to be illegal. In that circumstance, again there is no duty to pay compensation. In effect, slaves then were treated about like sex slaves are treated now: if the police break up a slave/prostitution ring, they do not pay the pimp compensation for the women who are freed from the pimp's control. In the same way, if federal agents find someone operating an illegal still and making moonshine, they can confiscate the moonshine, without compensation. If the government seizes an airplane that is being used for drug running, they do not owe compensation to the owner, Nor can the owner collect any insurance for the loss, because insurance cannot protect against seizure due to illegal activity. The government eventually will auction the aircraft, and the former owner, the drug runner, is not entitled to any cut of the proceeds of the sale. Finally, if a landowner is caught raising marijuana on his land, the land is forfeited to the government, even if this amounts to a grotesquely disproportionate penalty to the landowner: one plant can mean the forfeiture of any entire 1,000 acre farm and the house located on the land. So I think your idea has very, very little chance of gaining any traction with any group.
2016-05-24 05:20:55 · answer #3 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Reparations, the dumbest idea. Why should decendants of slaves, who were never slaves (neither were their parents nor grandparents for that matter) get money? People who would end up paying had nothing to do with slavery. I've never owned slaves, and neither have either of my parents or their parents. I'd say 100% of the people alive today in the U.S. have not owned slaves. Reparations, give me a break.
2007-02-13 03:17:43 · answer #4 · answered by aj1964 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
NO!!!!. Slavery is over and we have all suffered for it in some way or another. If we continue going backwards and compensating for the past, we'll never get to the problems of the present.
We have statutes of limitations on just about everything, even in international law. Therefore, the statute of limitations on this debt has run out on both sides of the issue. Let's get to the problems of the present.
2007-02-13 03:18:30 · answer #5 · answered by MH/Citizens Protecting Rights! 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
WOW deep question. I'm a African American woman and I would say yes. I think about it this way if the government outlawed cars that use gasoline tomorrow and took my car. It would create hardship for me as well as financial lost.
Garnishing the wages of slavery descendants wouldn't be the answer because it wasn't their ancestors fault that they were freed, it would be the government's fault and they should accept the financial blow for it..
2007-02-13 08:10:24 · answer #6 · answered by TD 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
that doesn't make a bit of sense. I am distantly related to Thomas Paine. (author - American Revolution timeframe).
Does that mean I should automatically be a published author. or get paid as if were an author. No.
I have to work for money, so does everybody else is this F***in country.
2007-02-13 03:18:20 · answer #7 · answered by The Enlightened One 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You're joking, right?
First of all, there is no compensation for a now-illegal institution.
Second of all, the statute of limitations must have passed by now.
Move on!
2007-02-13 03:15:42 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
Only if the slaves' descendants get compensation too -- and we all know that's never gonna happen!
2007-02-13 03:19:12 · answer #9 · answered by texasjewboy12 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
That sh*ts ridiculous. About as worse as descendants of slaves getting reparations.
2007-02-13 03:16:08 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
No way, that would open up a can of worms too large for our government to even pay for, especially now. Besides what damages do they have?
2007-02-13 03:16:03 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋