Date posted: 08-04-2026
Estimated Reading Time : 6 Minutes
A leading black pastor and I were discussing financial reparations for slavery that took place in early America. He was for them, I was not. We discussed how a government could accurately put a dollar amount on “punitive damage for enslavement experienced by others.” This pastor, generally conservative in most other of his positions, was nevertheless adamant that reparations paid to persons living today are morally necessary.
I asked him if reparations would solve racism and eliminate that animus that some black Americans feel toward the U.S.? He quickly replied, “No.” He believed that America is structurally racist, and that reparations, though necessary (he believed), would not solve racism. “Reparations can’t change a person’s heart,” he said.
I agree. You can’t purchase nor coerce the change of someone’s heart. Spiritual issues can’t be ameliorated with money. “If writing an exorbitant check (one that feels unfair by the remitter in the first place) won’t finally solve the problem, then why do it?” I asked.
Leftist rectification of racism¾ default show prep for The View
The issue of slavery reparations made national news once again in light of recent comments by View co-host Sunny Hostin. She suggests that increased oversight of the Smithsonian Institution is really about opposition to reparations. Whether one agrees with her interpretation or not, the broader debate deserves to be grounded in history, fairness, and sound public policy rather than leftist rhetoric.
It is estimated that some 642 million people have lived in the United States since the colonial era. More than half of that total number calls America home today. 16 percent of the current population (more than 53 million people) have migrated to the US from other countries.
Slavery in America inflicted immeasurable suffering on masses of human beings (the high estimate is around 10 million people). As with the barbaric practice of abortion, acknowledging the immorality of human enslavement is essential. However, recognizing an historic evil does not automatically justify transferring wealth from Americans living today to other Americans who were never enslaved.
Such a policy would raise serious questions of justice, constitutional equality, and practical governance.
America did not tolerate slavery indefinitely
America also did not simply tolerate slavery indefinitely. The nation fought a devastating Civil War in large part over the institution of slavery. Approximately 750,000 soldiers lost their lives in that conflict, making it the deadliest war in American history. Those sacrifices reflected the country’s struggle to abolish slavery permanently. On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring enslaved people in Confederate-held territory to be free. The subsequent ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States.
Ending slavery did not end discrimination. The Jim Crow era subjected black Americans to segregation and unjust treatment, particularly throughout the Democrat-led South. Yet the nation did not remain static. Over the twentieth century, Congress enacted landmark civil rights legislation designed to dismantle legal discrimination and protect equal rights. These reforms—including the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act—represented significant national commitments to expanding equality under the law.
None of this suggests that racism completely disappeared. Prejudice still exists, as it unfortunately does in virtually every society. But the persistence of racism does not necessarily establish that broad financial reparations are either just or effective. Money cannot erase historical suffering, nor can government payments eliminate prejudice. Indeed, reducing every discussion of racial inequality to financial compensation risks oversimplifying complex social, economic, educational, and cultural challenges.
Let’s revisit the accusation that present-day disparities demonstrate ongoing structural injustice requiring compensation. Critics respond that disparities alone do not establish causation or justify assigning financial liability to today’s taxpayers. Americans come from extraordinarily diverse backgrounds. Millions descend from immigrants who arrived long after slavery ended. Others are themselves members of families that experienced poverty, persecution, or discrimination. Assigning collective financial responsibility based primarily on race or ancestry raises difficult moral and constitutional questions.
The central problem with financial reparations is straightforward: they would require imposing financial obligations on individuals who neither committed the original wrong nor benefited from slave ownership in any direct legal sense.
Distributing payments to individuals who themselves were never enslaved may feel good, but this is not justice. Moral justice rests upon individual responsibility and/or personal ‘tort.’ For one to deserve remuneration, there must have been actual, personal injury.
Our legal system does not hold children financially liable for the crimes of their ancestors, nor does it ordinarily award damages to descendants who were not themselves the direct victims of a particular legal injury. Applying a different standard here would depart from longstanding principles of equal treatment under the law.
Determining fair and accurate eligibility for reparations would be enormously complicated. (Let’s acknowledge here that the careful stewardship of hard-won taxpayer dollars has never been one of the left’s nor the right’s consistent strong suits).
Would payments go only to descendants of enslaved Americans? How would ancestry be verified? What about individuals of mixed heritage? Would wealthy recipients qualify while poor Americans of other backgrounds receive nothing? Such questions illustrate how difficult it would be to construct a reparations system that is broadly perceived as fair.
Beyond practical concerns lies an equally important social consideration. Public policy should strive to strengthen civic unity rather than deepen division. Policies that classify citizens primarily by ancestry or race risk encouraging resentment across communities. Americans already disagree sharply on many issues. Introducing large-scale racial compensation programs could intensify polarization rather than promote reconciliation.
A more constructive approach would focus on policies that benefit Americans based on present need rather than historical lineage. Improving schools, strengthening public safety, encouraging economic growth, expanding opportunities for entrepreneurship, supporting workforce development, and reducing barriers to upward mobility can benefit disadvantaged communities of every race. These policies address current challenges without requiring the government to determine whose ancestors deserve compensation and whose descendants must provide it.
The American promise has never been a guarantee of equal outcomes
Rather, it has been the pursuit of equal rights, equal protection under the law, and the opportunity to improve one’s circumstances through education, work, innovation, and responsible decision-making. Those ideals have not always been perfectly realized, but they remain worthy national aspirations.
The horrors of slavery should never be forgotten, and the nation should continue teaching its history honestly and completely. Remembering injustice, however, is different from concluding that modern taxpayers should finance compensation for historical wrongs committed by people long deceased. A society committed to equal justice should resist replacing one form of inherited grievance with another form of inherited obligation. America’s future will be better served by policies that unite citizens around shared opportunities than by proposals that assign collective debts across generations. Lasting progress comes from strengthening institutions, protecting equal rights, and expanding opportunity—not from redistributing money based on ancestry.
Our shared goal¾ and prayer¾ should be a nation that remembers its past, learns from it, and moves forward together. This forward motion should be under the conviction that every citizen deserves equal treatment before the law.
by Alex McFarland
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