A Provocative Thought That Should Not Be Provocative

Reparations have already been paid in blood

244 years ago today, the thirteen colonies that would soon become thirteen independent nations united together in a common struggle against a great empire. Men from those colonies came together in Philadelphia to put their names on one of the greatest documents ever written. They would win the war and instead of parting ways would unite.

84 years later, 160 years ago for us, those independent nations, having united, split apart over the issue of slavery. Prior to the Civil War, most Americans considered themselves citizens of their respective states. It was more common to hear people refer to “these united States” than “the United States.” Only after the Civil War and the clear indissolubility of the union did the latter become dominant.

More Americans died in the American Civil War than in all other wars combined until, in the last decade, the deaths of Americans in all other wars in which we engaged surpassed that one bloody war.

In Gettysburg, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and beyond — there are your reparations. The debt was paid in blood.

In 1773, Patrick Henry said of slavery that he longed for "when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil."

Also in 1773, Benjamin Rush declared, “The plant of liberty is of so tender a nature that it cannot thrive long in the neighborhood of slavery. Remember, the eyes of all Europe are fixed upon you, to preserve an asylum for freedom in this country after the last pillars of it are fallen in every other quarter of the globe.”

In 1774, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Virginia’s delegates to the First Continental Congress, “The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.”

In 2020, Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times attempted to revise American history in their 1619 Project and claim the American Revolution was about the preservation of slavery. The very words of the founders contradict them. But then this is a woman who once claimed Africans beat Europeans to the new world and the proof was the Aztec pyramids.

There are those who think we need to make reparations now or do some great deed to right wrongs. While injustice in America exists and racism exists, we all still strive for a more perfect union.

But let’s not kid ourselves. We did that great deed to right that wrong and reparations were paid in blood on battlefields across America. Fathers turned against sons and brothers turned against brothers in the cause and the Union won. 618,222 American men died fighting each other to finally do what the founders had wanted and put off necessarily as they fought a great empire and forged a new nation.

As Christ died to make men holy, Americans died to make men free. Glory, glory, Hallelujah!