If one seeks a state that should pay reparations for slavery, California is not that state. In fact, California gold paid the most of any state to finance the Civil War to a successful conclusion that ended slavery in the United States. California residents paid interest on one large Civil War bond issue until the World War II era. The federal government promised to repay California and never did. Other states were repaid as promised, but not California.
California was not a slave state, though at least one tribe of Northern California Native Americans did hold other Native Americans as slaves prior to European contact.
Few now realize that when the Civil War started what a struggle it was to keep California and its gold dedicated to the Union cause. The federal government issued paper money, but it was largely considered of no value, only gold mattered and that gold came from California.
Gold Rush immigration to California came from eastern states and around the world. Much of the eastern state immigration was from the south, and when California became a state, southern influence was predominant in many areas. California Governor John B. Weller (1858-1860) even predicted that California would join the Confederacy. It was the election of the young Republican Leland Stanford as governor that secured California for the Union. State and federal moves then shut down southern leaning newspapers and some state militia companies with southern officers had weapons seized in sudden night time raids of armories. Even some southern leaning judges were sidelined. A former Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Kentuckian David Terry, returned to that state and became a confederate brigadier general.
California provided over 16,000 troops to the Civil War effort, most replacing regular army garrisons over much of the west that were withdrawn and sent east to the main theaters of fighting. One column of California troops left from the Los Angeles area to drove back Confederates that had invaded from Texas up to the California border. At the war’s end troops trained in what is now Sacramento’s Land Park neighborhood.
Some have pointed to the reparations paid to United States citizens of Japanese ancestry that had been interned in remote camps during World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt as justification for slavery reparations by California. The two situations are starkly different. The interned Americans of Japanese ancestry lost homes, farms, and businesses for no legal reason. President Ronald Reagan, supported Japanese reparations for that stain on our nation, and Congress voted for payment that was made in the 1980s. That is no analogy for California reparations for slavery that never existed in this state.
Further, some point to lower average black achievement and economic outcomes compared to other racial groups in California as “proof” of a legacy slavery and discrimination of various types, even if not now in effect. Some even claim “white supremacy” as the cause.
That phony contention is easy to dispel as highly credible studies by Pew and other research organizations have found that African born blacks that immigrate to the United States have significantly higher average family incomes than blacks born here. That suggests a cultural problem of low expectations by American born blacks holding themselves back rather than suppression by those of other racial backgrounds. A defeatist attitude brings defeatist results. The real problem of economic outcome disparity may well be cultural, not racial. That deserves study, but is out of the scope of California slavery reparation considerations.
What is the Conclusion?
California financially bailed out the Union during the Civil War, was never a slave state, and provided large numbers of troops to fight the confederacy. California paid interest on Civil War bonds well beyond the period of any other state, through World War II. To suggest that California owes reparations for slavery defies fact, defies logic, defies fairness, and defies law.
Slavery reparations by the non-slave state of California would legally constitute “a gift of public funds” which is not allowed under the state constitution.
Since the California reparations issue is an exercise of historic and legal silliness, went to work with my chemistry set and created something to end the California slavery reparations issue, an ointment called Reparation H.
