Wiki_QA__##

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
Title: 13th Amendment - Who Was Harmed?

Original CoS Document (slug): [[https://conventionofstates.com/13th-amendment-who-was-harmed|13th-amendment-who-was-harmed]]

Login Required to view? No

Created: 2023-06-21 12:10:42

Updated: 2023-07-11 16:01:44

Published: 2023-06-22 00:00:00

Converted: 2025-04-14T21:25:24.296726040


----




In December of 1791, the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”[1] \\
\\
“While the federal government has a constitutional right to ‘take’ private property for public use, the Fifth Amendment's Just Compensation Clause requires the government to pay just compensation, interpreted as market value, to the owner of the property, valued at the time of the takings. [2]\\
\\
A precedent had been set in England when they ended slavery in 1838 “**but only after slave-owners, rather than the slaves themselves, received compensation.**”[3] Emphasis mine.\\
\\
“The British government paid out £20m to compensate some 3,000 families that owned slaves for the loss of their "property" when slave-ownership was abolished in Britain's colonies in 1833. This figure represented a staggering 40 percent of the Treasury's annual spending budget and, in today's terms, calculated as wage values, equates to around £16.5bn.”[4] This calculated amount was far greater than Britain could afford at the time so it borrowed the money, finally paying off the debt in 2015.\\
\\
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1865, ended slavery in the United States. “Roughly 50% of the wealth in the antebellum South was held in slaves. After the surrender of the Confederacy in 1865, all this disappeared: wealth for the top 1% dropped by 76% between the censuses of 1860 and 1870.”[5]

The top 1% were the most powerful and influential people in the South. On top of losing most of their wealth, the Union Army was occupying southern Capitols, removing white elected officials and installing black former slaves in their place. 

Since the beginning of our Republic, Congress has violated the Constitution. The States formed the Federal Government and should through Article V Convention of States meet annually as "Oversight" keeping the Federal Government within it's enumerated duties.\\
\\
So who was harmed by the passage of the 13th Amendment, or to whom should reparations be paid? \\
\\


\\
 \\
[1] U.S. Constitution\\
[2]https:%%//%%www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fifth_amendment#:~:text=A%20right%20against%20forced%20self,market%20value%20of%20the%20property\\
[3] https:%%//%%www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/2015-parliament-in-the-making/get-involved1/2015-banners-exhibition/maria-amidu/1807-abolition-of-the-slave-trade/#:~:text=It%20was%20only%20after%20many,the%20slaves%20themselves%2C%20received%20compensation.\\
[4] Britain's colonial shame: Slave-owners given huge payouts after abolition | The Independent | The Independent\\
[5] https:%%//%%www.economist.com/united-states/2019/04/04/the-sons-of-slaveholders-quickly-recovered-their-fathers-wealth