We have recently heard renewed calls for reparations for American slavery.

A few presidential candidates seeking the nomination of the Democratic Party have endorsed the idea.  This is not surprising or even coincidental.  The recent reparations discussion among candidates and commentators is not about paying a debt to black Americans; it is about politics.

It is not about paying a debt because no one believes that checks will ever be issued to blacks.  It is about politics because black Americans have been a key part of the Democratic Party’s coalition and the twenty-plus candidates competing for the nomination want those votes.  Endorsing reparations, many believe, signals to black voters that those candidates are on their side.

The political benefits of the reparations issue go beyond the contest for the Democratic nomination.  Polling indicates that black support for President Trump is higher than for prior Republican presidents.  Republican presidential candidates normally get about 10% of the black vote, though it was lower in 2008 (4%) and 2012 (6%).  The Rasmussen poll typically shows black approval of Trump above 20%.  If that is indicative of 2020 voters, Democrats are in real trouble.  Reparations talk could lower Trump’s support among black voters.

A few days ago, Congress held hearings on the issue of reparations.  Specifically, the discussion centered on whether to pass a bill that would study the issue.  Among those who testified were actor Danny Glover (in favor), author Ta-Nehisi Coates (in favor), Columbia University student Coleman Hughes (against), and former NFL player Burgess Owens (against).  Some of the justifications for reparation offered were (1) the immorality and brutality of slavery, (2) the current prison population, (3) the historical and current existence of racism, (4) the current disparity in wealth and health between the races.

Nearly everyone today agrees that slavery was immoral.  However, no one alive today was a slave or slave owner.

Since no former slave is alive to request compensation for the injustice of being enslaved, it is difficult to justify paying out money now — over 150 years after abolition — to black Americans.

If the United States were to compensate black Americans today, there is a challenge identifying who is eligible for payment.  If one is identifiably black but none of his ancestors were slaves, such as children recent immigrants from Africa, they would not be eligible for reparations.  If slave descendants’ ancestors were slaves but were slaves in the one of the Caribbean islands, they would also be ineligible.

Even if we could identify who has American slave ancestry, intermarriage over the decades, particularly between blacks and whites, would complicate the amount of payment.  Would the amount get prorated according to the extent of European blood (or Asian or non-slave African blood)?  How would we fairly determine how much to decrease the amount of payment compared to someone with ancestors who lived in America between 1619 and 1865, all of whom lived in bondage?  What about people living as white Americans?  This would be an administrative nightmare.

Assuming we could come up with a reasonable way to administer making payments to all those who could claim slave ancestry, there is the question of whether someone living today, who was never a slave, owed reparations.

The less-than-ideal conditions today for some the black Americans cannot be easily linked to slavery, if at all.  Conditions such as the disparity of wealth, health and life expectancy, incarceration rates cannot be entirely be blamed on slavery.  Much of this is due to the breakdown of the traditional family, by government programs (expanded welfare, etc.) that incentivized behavior that kept families from forming.  Fatherless children are more likely to grow up and remain poor, to drop out of school, have children before or without marriage, and are more likely to commit crimes.  Such behaviors result in less wealth creation, shorter lifespans, and a greater likelihood of being involved in the criminal justice system.

After the nation adopted the Thirteen Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment, the former slaves we promised, respectively, freedom from involuntary servitude, U.S. citizenship and legal protections, and voting rights.  For much of the period after these amendments were adopted, they were not enforced, and black Americans were confined to second class citizenship.  For decades after the 1870s, many parts of the nation remained racially segregated, and blacks did not enjoy the full rights of American citizenship.  This formally ended when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law.

One could argue that black Americans who lived between the post-Civil War Reconstruction and pre-Civil Rights Act deserve reparations.  After all, by adding these amendments to the Constitution, the nation was making its citizens a promise.  For the most part, the nation broke its promise to black Americans.  Many of those Americans are still living.

Consider this formula for amends to those citizens.  The amount of money would be arbitrary, but let’s say $1,000 per year of living during the segregation era.  This would amount to roughly three dollars per day.  Not only can we identify who lived during this time, we can award an amount based on the length of time they lived during this era.  We can call this the 3-Bucks-a-Day Plan.  Those eligible would get $3.00 for every day they lived prior to July 2, 1964, the day President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.

The issue of slavery is difficult to settle.  The victims and perpetrators are dead.  Most of the descendants of slaves have very little connection to the institution.  There are some senior citizens who perhaps met a grandparent or great-grandparent who was a slave but that is not a strong connection.  It is difficult to put a price tag on the effects of slavery.

To make amends, if possible, it would take a gesture.  One possible gesture is for white Americans to volunteer to live as slaves for the next 250 years.  Few would volunteer and it would be difficult to compel future generations to honor such an arrangement.

It turns out that a gesture that could address the sin of slavery has already be offered.

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

A. Lincoln – March 4, 1865

President Lincoln, in his second inaugural, makes the case that the war was God’s way of punishing America – North and South – for its participation in the slavery institution.  The war would last as long as was necessary, to spill as much blood as necessary, to address the length and the brutality of that institution.

Let us assume though that we as a nation could put a price on slavery and segregation, and we could also identify those who should get payment.  The issue, unfortunately, would not end there.

After the necessary number of states voted to ratify the amendment in 1865, a few other states voted to ratify in short order, but others did not bother.  One of those states was Mississippi, which voted to ratify the amendment in 2013.  Some would say better late than never, but I’m not so sure.  Some press reporting on the 2013 vote stated that Mississippi finally ratified the amendment and that it took 148 years for it to happen, as if Mississippi was for all those years trying to repeal the amendment.

If America paid reparations for slavery now, it could be seen as a way overdue payment.  The fact that it took over a century and a half to formally make amends, could, in itself, be seen as an insult.  Given the troubled history of race in America, the psychology of much of black America could never simply move on after reparations.  There is simply too much bad history, as well as real and perceived bad racial experiences in the present, to end the animus and distrust.

We as a nation would be better off not trying to perform the difficult task of appropriately compensating descendants of slaves in America.