Real reparations in the US

So I know there were some plans in the US for reparations for ex-slaves and their descendants, but were shot down by President Johnson during Reconstruction. Since then, there has been no real move on the subject.

What would have had to be different for actual, meaningful reparations to happen no later than 1880? Different President? Different Reconstruction policies? Different end to the Civil War? Or, given the racial attitudes of people at the time, is this an impossibility?
 
So I know there were some plans in the US for reparations for ex-slaves and their descendants, but were shot down by President Johnson during Reconstruction. Since then, there has been no real move on the subject.

What would have had to be different for actual, meaningful reparations to happen no later than 1880? Different President? Different Reconstruction policies? Different end to the Civil War? Or, given the racial attitudes of people at the time, is this an impossibility?
40 acres and a mule.
 
The time it could have happened was during the immediate aftermath of Lincoln's murder.

If a President wanted to he could have made large scale expropriation a condition of non prosecution for treason
 
I would have to say, off the top of my head,
that the ONLY way it could have happened is
if Lincoln had lived(unlike Johnson he was
actually sympathetic to the plight of the
newly freed former slaves). Even then though it’s problamaric as it goes very much
against the whole American creed of indivi-
dualism, of making it on your own(not to
mention racism in mid-to-late 19th Century
America was even more virulent than it is
today, thus unfortunately making white
people most unsympathetic to aiding blacks
no matter how much they needed it).
 
Yet there is no talk about reparations for the Native Americans...
A few points

1. Some would say federal recognition and the things that come with it are a form of reparations far more advanced than with American Blacks. I don't agree that reparations have been completely had, but the process hass begun at least.

2. the "five civilized tribes" as they were called were slaving nations, not all native americans have the same experience. In fact it took until Aug 2017 for the Cherokee Nation to finally accept and acknowledge tribal membership of Cherokee Freedmen by court ruling.

3. Most federally recognized tribes south of Maine to about Longisland as well as State Recognized tribes from New England to about Virginia descend in many ways from enslaved and free American Blacks. Mashpee Wamponoag, Shinnecock, Pequot, etc... are both federally recognized and legally indigenous while also black. One does not cancel out the other.

While testifying about this issue in a meeting with a committee of the state legislature in 1876, a Narragansett delegation said that their people saw injustices under existing US citizenship. The delegation mentioned Jim Crow laws that limited the rights of blacks despite their citizenship under constitutional amendments. They also resisted suggestions that multiracial members of the tribe could not qualify as full members of the tribe. One elder of the community spoke to state officials with this :

We are not negroes, we are the heirs of Ninagrit, and of the great chiefs and warriors of the Narragansetts. Because, when your ancestors stole the negro from Africa and brought him amongst us and made a slave of him, we extended him the hand of friendship, and permitted his blood to be mingled with ours, are we to be called negroes? And to be told that we may be made negro citizens? We claim that while one drop of Indian blood remains in our veins, we are entitled to the rights and privileges guaranteed by your ancestors to ours by solemn treaty, which without a breach of faith you cannot violate.


I think trying to pit two interwoven groups together who've both been fuck over by white people, white nationhood, white laws, colonialism, imperialism and other forms of general Whiteness is a silly, shortsighted and overall dismissive point made not to shine a light on indigenous people but rather not hold accountable those being asked to do something and instead point like a child and saying "BUT WHAT ABOUT THEM, THEY ARE MORE OPPRESSED".

So yeah

....
 
If a President wanted to he could have made large scale expropriation a condition of non prosecution for treason


Impossible.

Lee and the other Confederate army commanders were protected by the terms of their surrenders, as were all the officers and men under them. In theory I suppose civilian Rebel leaders could have been prosecuted, but it would have seemed absurd to do so while (often far more prominent) military figures walked free.

Had such "conditional pardons" been offered, the large majority of Confederates would have refused them, and waited it out in the hope that the next POTUS would be more lenient. They would soon realise that the North had no stomach for holding thousands of treason trials, and would call the government's bluff - which is all it would be.
 
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