Facts Suck

Sometimes to do the right thing,
we must keep a promise we never made.

– Robert Breault

A friend objected to my latest post, "I Deserve Reparations, Too," where I argued that slaves' descendants should receive cash reparations only if wage-slaves' descendants do as well.

"Black slaves in America were promised reparations," she wrote. "Whether it's fair or not that just one group of people whose ancestors were slaves (or wage-slaves) receives reparations is subjective."

Facts suck. They're as stubborn as a mule.

My friend was right to remind me of the fact that our government promised slaves what became known to historians as "40 Acres and a Mule." It made no such pledge to wage-slaves.

At the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln confiscated 400,000 acres South Carolina, Georgia and Florida farmland owned by Confederate planters, promising to distribute it to the emancipated slaves. But Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor and a Southerner, rescinded the deal six months after Lincoln's death and returned the land to the planters.

The promise of reparations was made–and broken–a century and a half and six generations ago.

Does it still have full force and effect?

It does.

US laws hold no arbitrary right exists to rescind a contract. A contract can only be rescinded on the grounds of fraud, duress, material mistake, insanity or habitual drunkenness.

Unless you can credibly argue Lincoln's confiscation of planters' land was illegal, by returning it to the planters, Andrew Johnson acted arbitrarily.

The deal still stands–and I can't insist it must now include wage-slaves as a party.

Crap. I was so looking forward to my first reparations check!

To my friend: Trisha, thanks, you pointed out a fact I overlooked. My argument for wage-slave reparations wasn't merely subjective, it was illogical.

Keep smiling!