It's Confederate History Month in Dixie

[PanzerJaeger]

Slavery isn't a horrible injustice? Fascinating.

That's not exactly what I said...

Certainly by today's standards slavery is an injustice; but by the standards of 1861, things get a bit murkier. Taking things all the way back to 1776, it becomes even more difficult for me to justify land redistribution and reparations without completely ignoring the historical context in which slavery was practiced. As I said, it become subjective.

That’s just me though. You obviously feel differently. That's why the law is important, and why the framers specifically wrote ex post facto language into the Constitution. You're arguing from an emotional level - essentially "the evil slave owners deserved to be punished". However, the question isn't about the morality of slavery - that was decided with the emancipation, but with the legality of retroactively punishing formerly legal behavior - that was decided in the Constitution.

Were the lands given to the people who had worked them, or to peasants in general.

They were given the land on which they lived and worked.

And if we must defend slaveowner's plantations in the name of productivity, what do you think of my suggestion that freed slaves be paid the wages they should've earned if they were white laborers? Keep in mind that that is much less than the value the slaveowners received from having those slaves.

I think that would be equivalent to cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. Damaging the Southern economy more than it already had been during the war in the name of retribution would end up helping no one. Further, as can be seen in the Mexican example, land distribution schemes can have negative repercussions far beyond the immediate generation effected by them. I would venture to say that even after the North abandoned Southern blacks after Reconstruction, they still fared better than most of the Mexican peasantry during the land reform period. Their progeny certainly have.

If we’re looking to give the former slaves a boost after coming out of such conditions, may I suggest looking westward? America in 1865 still had vast tracts of rich, arable land that the government was literally paying people to settle. Aiding the former slaves in homesteading this land could have been the basis of strong and productive communities.

With proper government support in things such as capital investment, social organization, protection from the natives, and education in farming techniques, such a plan could have worked out well.