The Civil War Was Not Reparation (A Response to Kevin DeYoung)

Theologian Kevin DeYoung wonders what it would take to complete reparations. When is enough enough? This is the issue of reparative closure. As far as I can tell, DeYoung thinks reparationism suffers from ambiguity regarding the conditions for reparative closure. He writes:

So the question must naturally be asked: when and how can that debt be discharged? Did the 700,000 lives lost and quadrupling of the national debt during the Civil War count as any sort of reparation? Was Lincoln justified, in any sense, when he claimed that every drop of blood drawn with the lash had been paid for with blood drawn by the sword?

DeYoung also wonders about government welfare programs and non-government assistance. Are they "any sort of reparation"? While these are important questions, I'll focus on DeYoung's question about the civil war. 

I think we should doubt that the civil war was reparation––not merely that it was incomplete reparation but that it was "any sort of reparation." The problem arises when we mix concepts: rescue with repair.

In their watershed work on reparations, Darity and Mullen offer the following illustration to make this point:

Suppose that you are forced to work for me. Suppose further that I also deprive you of your freedom and earnings. In addition, I profit from having done so. Then, finally suppose that, after some time––decades, perhaps–-I am made to or choose to cease this practice, but I retain all profits accrued up to this point and you have nothing. Is that justice? We think not.

Darity and Mullen make a similar point about affirmative action. Was affirmative action "any sort of reparation?" They answer as follows: "Affirmative action can get you through the door, but it does not provide you with restitution for having been kept out of the door in the past..." 

Actions that "open doors" or emancipate are undoubtedly central to reparative justice. But reparation, properly understood, refers to the steps we must take after the doors have been opened and after the oppressed have been liberated. Hence, to say that these actions were "some form of reparation" may stretch the concept of reparation too far or, worse, create the impression that we're nearing reparative closure. If the immense Black-white wealth gap represents the cumulative impact of historic racism (and, arguably, it does)––not to mention anything about the unpaid wages of the enslaved, ongoing Black poverty owing to housing discrimination and deindustrialization, persistent educational inequities attached to local wealth, etc.––then reparative closure is not within reach. Unless something changes. 

What DeYoung might be missing, and what Darity and Mullen are pointing toward, is the conceptual difference between rescue and repair. Arguably, the satisfaction conditions for one are not the satisfaction conditions for the other. Just imagine that a negligent, apathetic lifeguard dozes off while on duty at the beach. As a result, he fails to see a shark approaching the swimming area. The shark attacks a swimmer. Eventually the lifeguard rescues the swimmer, but both he and the swimmer suffer loses (e.g., each loses a limb). Imagine the lifeguard raises the following argument: "I don't owe any form of repair to the shark attack victim; after all, I rescued the swimmer and the process was highly costly to me." The argument has the ring of absurdity. 

Notice, moreover, that the lifeguard is partially at fault for the swimmer's injuries. In cases like this, it is most obvious to me that costly rescue does not address the cost of repair. This highlights the difference between the demands of rescue vs. the demands of repair. 

Now, while cases like these (and the one's raised by Darity and Mullen) are helpful steps toward answering DeYoung-style questions, they have limitations. For one, the lifeguard case does not model the fact that, pre-emancipation, not everyone supported slavery. In fact, many white Americans were abolitionists. What happens to the rescue/repair distinction in complex cases like that? Second, and relatedly, the case does not model corporate responsibility for slavery. The reparationist position has almost always claimed government institutions (e.g., federal, state, and local governments) bear blame for historic injustice and thereby owe repair (Darity and Mullen are clear about this). The responsibility is corporate and institutional, rather than personal.

To evaluate the relevance of these factors, consider a revised beach case. Imagine that the recreation department presides over the beach. It is responsible for alerting swimmers about inclement beach conditions, shark threats, openings and closings, etc. It must intervene to protect beachgoers from perilous conditions. However, the recreation department acts negligently and fails to alert beach goers to the inclement weather and the likelihood of shark attacks today. In fact, the department is incentivized to turn a blind eye toward these perils; it benefits from day-pass revenue. The department is even filled with numerous people who harbor unfounded biases––worse, antipathy––toward beach goers. Still, some in the department try to raise the alarm. Nevertheless, the recreation department fails to close the beach. Various swimmers are attacked, suffer injuries from the crashing waves, and nearly drown. 

Clearly, the recreation department (and the city administration more generally) has a moral responsibility to help repair injuries and compensate the victims. That is, the responsibility to repair is corporate (at the very least). Now ask: are these culpable institutions absolved of their rectificatory responsibilities simply because some of their lifeguards (and perhaps other city residents) were injured in the process of rescuing the victims? Clearly not. In fact, they would still have rectificatory responsibilities to the surviving victims even if some lifeguards and noble city residents lost their lives in an attempt to rescue the swimmers. Suppose, moreover, that the recreation department goes into immense debt in order to rescue beach goers (they have to purchase a large rescue boat!). Does that count as some form of rectification? Intuitively, no. Do they owe even a little less in compensation because of these things? Again, the answer seems to be "no."

Finally, suppose Lincoln shows up at the beach and says, "every drop of blood drawn by the sharks and jagged reef floor was paid for by the blood of every lifeguard injured or drowned in the rescue." Clearly, Lincoln is mistaken. Whatever the sense of "paid for" in Lincoln's statement, it is not the sense that matters for rectificatory justice. 

Here's the takeaway: the cost of rescue is not the cost of repair; satisfying one responsibility does not necessarily satisfy the other. This is true even when the responsibility to rescue is costly––and it is most clearly true when the corporate entity responsible for rescue is also at fault for the perilous conditions that created the need for rescue in the first place.

As far as U.S. slavery goes, the very institutions that allowed and protected slavery were partially at fault for the conditions of oppression. They were partially at fault for the harms that lingered in the aftermath of emancipation (think about "40 acres and a mule" and the hasty collapse of reconstruction). We can be grateful (and mournful) for the sacrifice made of thousands of Union soldiers (Black and white). We can be grateful that the U.S. federal government finally intervened on slavery. But we should not mistake that sacrifice with the satisfaction of reparative debt.