Reparations

“ What are the arguments against reparations? Assuming reparations are justified, what form should these reparations take? Which specific individuals or groups will pay these reparations? To which specific individuals or groups will these reparations be paid?
In general, reparations advocates argue that reparations are justified because America itself owes a debt to the descendants of slaves. America owes this debt, advocates assert, simply because the slaves themselves were never paid for their labor. " [B] lack people worked long, hard, killing days, years, centuries—and they were never paid. ”

“ The law that permitted a debtor to be sold into bondage for an unliquidated liability has now been voted barbarous by the more humane usage and wont of the day. That is why I protest against using armed force to occupy and control a country whilst the scourge of starvation is being used to whip its workmen into toiling for payment of a foreign debt. As Mr. Gladstone once said: "Justice means justice to all." The main difficulty of a just settlement of reparations comes from the growing disposition to take sides blindly in this dispute. ”

“ There is a new note of confidence ringing through French despatches and echoed in the French Press. France must get what she wants; Britain must take what she is given. The French share of reparations must first be assured—debts due to Britain can come out of what is left. ”

“ When you come to consider that issue you must view the claim for reparations as you would any ordinary debt. You must make up your mind whether you wish to ruin the debtor or to recover the cash. If there are no sufficient realisable assets, [Pg 142] then, if you want your money, you must keep your debtor alive. If you want beef from your cow you must forgo the milk. If your object is to destroy your debtor, you press for payment of more than he can be reasonably expected to pay, and then seize his house, his lands, and his chattels, whether they can be disposed of or not. ”

“ That the proceeds from the sales of capital goods from reparations should constitute a perpetual source of funds for investment in our economic development. To this end, the establishment of an Economic Development Bank capitalized with these proceeds is indicated. This is perhaps the only way to bring our people not only of this generation but of those yet to be born the benefits of reparations. ”

“ The reparations movement has thus moved towards the notion that reparations should be directed towards certain groups of people, rather than specific individuals. "Pro-reparation positions more readily see harm to entire groups and want to repair that economic and psychological harm." ”

“ Could France or Italy, by any kind of sacrifice, have paid any indemnities after ending the War? Germany has not only to live and make reparation, but to maintain an inter-allied army of occupation and the heavy machinery of the Reparations Commission, and must prepare to pay an indemnity for thirty years. ”

“ The transfer of surpluses of wealth from one country to another is an economic problem of both reparations and interallied debts that has not yet been solved. In the midst of all our discussion of the insistence upon the settlement of reparations and interallied indebtedness, where is the economist who has shown us how this can be done without the willingness of French markets to absorb German goods and American markets to absorb European goods? ”

“ Other reparations advocates propose that reparations take "the form of subsidies to black-owned businesses, investment in education programs and scholarships for black youths, training programs for black workers, affirmative action programs, resources for community-based organizations in predominantly black communities, and development and implementation of programs designed to educate the country about the legacy of slavery." ”

“ The annual schedule of payments and allocations to the public and private sector is with a view of utilizing reparations payments in such a manner as shall assure the maximum benefits in an equitable and widespread a manner as possible. We set aside P5 million o develop the potential cottage and home industries and thereby provide more employment opportunities for the masses. This policy will be implemented annually as long as necessary. ”

“ Our inability to make a bigger contribution does not derive from any lack of will but from a lack of means. To augment the limited government resources available for these projects, we have recommended to Congress the amendment of the Reparations Law in order to allow greater utilization of reparations goods, services and funds for public works development. ”

“ The attitude which our Government took and maintained toward an adjustment of European reparations, by pointing out that it wits not a political but a business problem, has demonstrated its wisdom by its actual results. We desire to see Europe restored that it may resume its productivity in the increase of industry and its support in the advance of civilization. ”

“ The question before us, then, is whether a District Court has jurisdiction in an injunction action brought by the Secretary of Labor under § 17 of the Act to make an award of reparations against an employer in favor of an employee, found to have been wrongfully discharged and entitled to reinstatement, for the 'wages' that he lost by being wrongfully excluded from his job. ”

“ Satisfaction might involve taking the offender’s life or the payment of a fine to compensate for loss through theft or killing. If satisfactory reparations were not made the offended party usually tried to forcibly take the equivalent in lives or goods to what had been lost. ”

“ After many stupidities and many exaggerations which have helped considerably to confuse the public, in face of the new difficulties which have arisen, new arrangements for the payment of the indemnity have been established. On May 11, in face of the situation which had arisen, the Allies proposed and Germany accepted a fresh scheme for the payment of the reparations. Germany is constrained to pay every year in cash and in kind the equivalent of 500 million dollars, plus 26 per cent. of the total of her exports. ”

“ Genetic mapping, or DNA testing, is more promising than the above two methods, but [*734] "alone is insufficient to provide a decisive link to a homeland . . . ." Id. at 2547.
The question of who ought to pay the reparations is also complex. The value of slaves' unpaid labor, reparations advocates argue, was scattered amongst numerous entities: "plantation owners, northern entrepreneurs, state treasuries, the United States government." ”

“ The cause of the desperate condition in which Germany finds herself is the impossibility of balancing her budget. The key to the inflation of the currency does not lie in the first place in the indemnity liabilities but in the further contents of the Treaty of Versailles. The reparations demands intensify the process of impoverishment and413 hasten the crisis to which it leads, but they are not the real cause of the impoverishment and of the crisis. ”

“ The force of this article is somewhat strengthened by article 251, by virtue of which dispensations may also be granted for 'other payments' as well as for food and raw material.↑ This is the effect of paragraph 12 (c) of annex II of the reparation chapter, leaving minor complications on one side. ”

“ The end in view should be adequate material payments. If, however, reparation is to be used as an instrument of punishment and diverted from economic to political ends, general confusion is bound to result. ”

“ Although the commissions, and the captures made under them, were valid as between the parties at war, they were not so as to the United States. For the violation of their rights, they had a claim to reparation, and might reasonably demand, as the reparation to which they were entitled, restitution of the property taken, with or without an apology for the infringement of their sovereignty. This they had a right to demand as a species of reparation consonant with the nature of the injury, and enabling them to do justice to the party in injuring whom they had been made instrumental. ”

“ Even after this is done, reparation will be incomplete. Restitution of the profits will not make up, without more, for the inadequacy of the overvalued land to return to the lienors their principal and interest. ”

“ One of the chief punishments of you men of ill-gotten wealth is that when you do repent you find that you have lost the power to make reparation or restitution. I admire your good intentions, Dan, but you can’t do anything. Those people were robbed of their precious pennies. It’s too late to remedy the evil. ”

“ In Scotland the law of compensation for breach of contract is substantially the same as in England. In cases of delict or quasi-delict, the measure of reparation is a fair and reasonable compensation for the advantage which the sufferer would, but for the wrong, have enjoyed and has lost as a natural and proximate result of the wrong, coupled with a solatium for wounded feelings. The claim for reparation vests as a debt when it arises and survives to the representatives of the sufferer, and against the representatives of the delinquent. ”

“ I could not doubt that the case demanded the interposition of this Government. Justice required that reparation should be made for so many and such gross wrongs, and that a course of insolence and plunder, tending directly to the insecurity of the lives of numerous travelers and of the rich treasure belonging to our citizens passing over this transit way, should be peremptorily arrested. Whatever it might be in other respects, the community in question, in power to do mischief, was not despicable. ”

“ There are, to be sure, difficulties, not present where ordinary assets are involved, in applying this principle to compensation for the loss of something which has no basis and which is not ordinarily thought of as a capital asset, such as health or life or affection or reputation. With those difficulties we have no concern. The relevant question is whether the Commissioner has, or reasonably could have, applied a principle of reparation to deal with these cases, and the reasons given by him in Numbers 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 14, 16, and 20 show that he has. ”

“ America will consult hers also. Do disputes in which the national honor is involved admit of consultations of this sort? Are lawyers or judges ever asked whether the country is insulted or attacked when it really is so?
Let England assure herself that the first condition of the demand for reparation is, that she shall make the reparation possible. Time is needed. Patience is needed—patience which will not pause before the first difficulty, and take as final the first refusal. ”

“ The unhappy situation of that country for some time past has not allowed its Government to give due consideration to claims of private reparation, and has appeared to call for and justify some forbearance in such matters on the part of this Government. But if the revolutionary movements which have lately occurred in that Republic end in the organization of a stable government, urgent appeals to its justice will then be made, and, it may be hoped, with success, for the redress of all complaints of our citizens. ”

“ But when a man was stolen, no property compensation was offered. To tender money as an equivalent, would have been to repeat the outrage with intolerable aggravations. Compute the value of a man in money! Throw dust into the scale against immortality! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impiety. To have permitted the man-thief to expiate his crime by restoring double, would have been making the repetition of crime its atonement. But the infliction of death for man-stealing exacted the utmost possibility of reparation. ”

“ As individuals, Englishmen have already returned to Him. But a corporate crime must be expiated by corporate reparation, and it is that reparation which has already waited too long. I am an old man, gentlemen. ”

“ Who would not conceive of the flagrant injustice of expelling those inhabitants and restoring the Indian country to the Cherokees and the Creeks, under color of repairing original injustice? During the war of our revolution, millions of paper money were issued by our ancestors, as the only currency with which they could achieve our liberties and independence. Thousands and hundreds of families were stripped of their homes and their all and brought to ruin, by giving credit and confidence to the spurious currency. Stern necessity has prevented the reparation of that great national injustice. ”

“ The American people would more easily tolerate a spontaneous offer of reparation made by its government from a sense of justice than a compliance with a demand for satisfaction from a foreign minister. ”

“ All the calamitous effects were here seen of the old harsh law of debtor and creditor—once prevalent in Greece, Italy, Asia, and a large portion of the world—combined with the recognition of slavery as a legitimate status, and of the right of one man to sell himself as well as that of another man to buy him. Every debtor unable to fulfil his contract was liable to be adjudged as the slave of his creditor, until he could find means either of paying it or working it out ”

“ When a person offends the sentiment of a community, or inflicts injury upon a neighbor, the matter is talked over among those interested, and reparation may be demanded in the shape of payment, not in money, for they have none, or anything that represents it, but in goods, such as a knife, a sled, a dog, gun, fish-hooks, walrus line, or, indeed, anything that comes handy. ”

“ There is no security for the permanence of public effort, save in the clear conviction of its intrinsic rightfulness and conduciveness to the public good. The rest must be left to time and posterity. True, the debt is sometimes paid after the creditor is dead. But if reparation never comes to the living, unknown persons whose condition needs betterment receive it, and that is the proud and consoling thought of those who—unrequited—effected it. ”