Monday, May 20, 2019

Reparations Have Already Been Paid


Dear Friends,

I made the meme above to be posted on Facebook. I've had a lot of friends ask me about it so I will tell you what its all about. It's simple really, I did it to remind people of the price that was paid to free Black slaves during the American Civil War. Since this Memorial Day is approaching, it is only appropriate to talk about why some Americans have died for our country. To end slavery during the Civil War is one of those reasons.

Americans died fighting for our Independence from 1776 to 1783, and after by way of the diseases contracted during that time. During the War of 1812, Americans died as a result of poor administration policies pertaining to keeping a standing Army. President Jefferson was against that and the British saw his policy as a weakness to be exploited. Thus, the Brits invaded and burned down Washington D.C.. Thankfully, we were able to regroup and win that "Second War for Independence."

As for the Mexican-American War, that was for liberty. Freedom for those living under a tyrannical Mexican regime. The Civil War was fought as a result of a number of things including over-regulation by the Federal government and crippling taxation, and of course slavery. My belief is that it was not a single issue war. It is naive to think so.

For those who think it was strictly about slavery, they are fooling themselves. Slavery in the South, though slavery did exist and was being propped up by the extremely wealthy who wanted to hold on to cheap labor, was not shared by all. The vast majority of Southerners didn't own slaves.

And by the way, please don't bother writing to say that slaves were "free labor" and not simply "cheap labor." Slavery was "cheap" in that, whether we want to admit it or not, slaves were treated like livestock and that means they had to be fed and cared for like cattle. Doing so was not cheap. Because of that, the subsequent cost of slavery, the logistics of having slaves, involved housing, feeding, and caring for them. It is sad to say that some slaves were kept at all, but even more so when we think that they were in many cases kept in worse conditions than some expensive race horses.

Gave His Arms As Reparations
And also, after the Civil War, there were many farms and plantations that actually hired former slaves. It's said that those farmers treated their "new hires" like slaves, including floggings, beatings, killings, but the former slave owner actually saved money by refusing to feed and house them as they did previously when they were owned.

While there were anti-slavery organizations in the America's British Colonies before the founding of the United States, we forget that the import of slaves from Africa into the United States was made illegal and actually stopped by President Jefferson in 1808. That was 25 years after we became an independent nation. Slavery was still legal until 1865, but from 1808 to 1865 it was illegal to import Black slaves into the United States.

As for slavery itself, slavery existed in the United States from 1783, which was when we actually won our independence and became a new nation, to 1865 when slavery was abolished by President Lincoln. That was an 82 year period. No, not the 400 year number which we hear from political activists attempting to use to make our nation's history of slavery longer than it was.

So what are "reparations"? The term "reparations" is defined as "the compensation, the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged."

I'm not going into every battle that was fought. I'm not going to go into listing the name of every soldier or sailor who died knowing that they died while doing their part to free black slaves in the South. I'm not going to list the 596,670 Union troops that were killed, wounded, captured, or missing. No, but that is the compensation, what was used to make amends, the lives changed or ended as part of the reparations made to Black slaves.

Before someone writes to tell me that freed slave reparations was forty acres and a mule as part of Special Field Orders No. 15 approved by President Abraham Lincoln. Please understand that while freed slaves expected to legally claim their 40 acres of land and a mule after the end of the war, not too long after it was approved, it was superseded by the Freedmen's Bureau Act. That act reversed Lincoln's order. That was done by President Andrew Johnson who became president after President Lincoln was assassinated.

Besides, I content that the lives, dead and wounded, of over a half-million Union troops truly trumps 40 acres and a mule. In fact, because of the Civil War, I content that reparations for that 82 year period of American history when slavery existed in the United States has already been paid. The cost to the United States was huge. The reparations were paid in blood during the Civil War. It cost the United States the lives of 596,670 Union troops. Yes, those who died, were wounded, captured, or ended up being missing in combat to set slaves free.

Below shows what non-Slave States the dead Union troops came from. It also shows the number of black Union troops (Colored Troops) died as part of the price paid, all of the rest were White:


During his 2nd Inaugural Address, President Abraham Lincoln put it this way:

"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.”

The blood that was drawn by the sword during those horribly bloody years of the Civil War was the price Americans paid to set the slaves free, to pay for those years when black slaves were under the lash. The Union casualties, more than a half a million of them, was the price of reparations for what was done previously to that war. Those reparations made Union wives widows and orphaned children, and lift limbs piled. That was the price to our nation for condoning slavery. It was our nation's price to make amends for all of those who were kept in bondage by both white and black slave master.

And frankly, so that those Union soldiers didn't die in vain, or had their arms and legs blown off for nothing, it's OK to say "Thank you."

Tom Correa

5 comments:

  1. Tom, I respect your views but I reluctantly have to disagree with you on this...

    Firstly, for the last three centuries ALL wars, depressions and general misery and destruction all came about as a result of greedy BANK$TER$ and industrialists fronting for the ultra-rich families that own and control them.

    Even before I gained my masters degree in American history and went on to spend 45 years in HOLLYWOOD as an historian and writer, I knew what I had been spoon fed from childhood just didn't add up. I began to realize that they were faking events, lying about them long before what passes as 'news' today...

    Take the Civil War, or as HOLLYWOOD and a good many 'scholars' like to call it "the war between the states." It certainly was not about something heroic like ending slavery, it was about states rights, the right of states not to be dictated to by the already BANK$TER owned Federal government. It was as is still a 100% war created by the BANK$TER$.. They always play both sides as if it was a game.

    The Union had no love for black people, they were just the excuse. President Lincoln was promoted and fast-tracked into the White House by the railroads, he had been one of their lawyers. The elite 'families' are always jockeying for position, British and French BANK$TER$ backed the South, and the North had the Eastern BANK$TER$. The Civil War had no noble aims except to make more obscene profits and consolidate power.

    As for your article on Wyatt Earp, I agree with a good deal of what you say... Wyatt was a crook, a fake, but just like the line from the movie THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE -"this is the West Sir, when the legend becomes fact print the legend."

    People don't want the truth about anything as their COGNITIVE DISSONANCE prevents them from processing it. The LIES are sexier and easier to digest... Whether its the American West, WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam, 9/11 and the perpetual wars we have now.

    Stuart Lake would fit right in today wouldn't he?

    Good blog though, you're a good writer Tom!

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    1. Hello my good friend, thank you for the great comment. But, I think you have gotten me wrong in regards to what I see caused the Civil War. My personal opinion is that slavery was a convenient moral standard to waive at the time. While I will go into it in my upcoming post, I believe it was Northern manufacturers and subsequently Yankee bankers used the issue of slavery to penalize the South for trading with England. The North did not like the fact that goods were cheaper from England than they were from the North and got the government to punish the South for not buying the more expensive goods. So to me, it was the manufacturers and bankers in the North who pushed the South into secession and war through oppression. I really don't think slavery meant a thing to those pushing for war and who profited enormously from that war. Please check out my upcoming blog on "What Caused The Civil War?" You may be surprised at just how much we agree.

      Now, after saying that, I need folks to understand that this post is not about the cause about the Civil War. I only brushed by the cause in one paragraph, but it is more detailed than what I said in passing. This post was strictly to acknowledge the cost involved when looking at our ending slavery. My contention is that reparations have already been paid in every battle and skirmish where blood was spilled during that war. To ask for reparation in 2019, while knowing that so many Americans died paying the cost to set them free, is an affront to any sort of decency. That's just the way I see it.

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  2. Oh I totally agree with you on not giving reparations Tom... The idea is ludicrous, I come from England so are we entitled to sue Italy for what the Romans did,or what the Normans did -of course not.

    But the BANK$TER$ or primarily the Rockefellers who created and funded Communism, that came up with PC political correctness as it is a communist term to put down anyone or anything that questions authority.

    Some believe that the Civil War was payback for the BANK$TER$ when Andrew Jackson thwarted their plans for a central bank... Lincoln somewhat opposed the BANK$TER$ with the creation of his greenbacks, but in the end the BANK$TER$ won as they always do, and instead of sovereign countries being able to issue their own currency debt-free like they used to, we all exist at the mercy of the banks. They create and control the price of everything.

    The irony is that slavery in the South was abolished, only to be replaced by an even greater more evil and more economical way of life called debt slavery. America is a slave plantation like every other country, and we pay for our own enslavement. We're easier to control when we're traumatized by debt, by terrorism, by poisoned food and air...

    The billions of people who died fighting in all the wars truly believed in their countries and their 'governments' they were good people who wanted freedom from tyranny... Only as with the Civil War, the BANK$TER$ can only thrive when North is pitted against South, East against West, Blacks against Whites, Christians against etc. etc... And they fooled all of us with slogans like "making the world safer for democracy,""winning hearts and minds" and alike.

    Anyway enough of me going on, I apologize for not fully understanding your article... But I feel the cause of all wars is to consolidate power,land grabs, our military are just the strong arm muscle in a monumental extortion racket that rapes other countries and gets us to pay illegal taxes to the private Federal Reserve that maintains their control over us.

    Mark Twain said it best - "It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled."

    Once people finally wake-up to whats really going on and realize that it isn't the trending now term "the 1%" that runs everything, it's more like a 1000th of one per cent that controls the 7 billion people who populate the Earth, and they only stay in power because of our apathy and total ignorance of their evil.

    The Civil War was crucial to the BANK$TER$ takeover of America, the North didn't win, it just aided it's own demise that was always planned for the times we live in now!

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  3. Tom, I have to agree with you here. After so much fighting was done to have the slaves be free, there were still not enough reparations for them in South. 596,670 does not seem like enough for all the pain and suffering they had to go through. I almost get a tear in my eye when one of the descendants of a black slave starts asking, "What have you done for us lately?" My bitter answer would be, "Not near enough". Whenever I think of the Civil War, I think of what might have been instead of what was. And to some degree, that seems to help. But then again I feel that if it were that way, we never would have had a Civil War to begin with. So it's not about "What have we done"? It's more about "What can we do?" And I say that we deserve to give the descendants of slaves the respect they deserve. Because in my mind, that's what I think this is all about. We took more than we gave and it wasn't fair. Now we are giving back as we should. And that shouldn't be too much to ask.

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Thank you for your comment.