‘No’ to reparations

To the editor:

The Civil War ended 159 years ago, yet today some blue states and cities are considering reparations to the descendants of slaves. This means taking money from people who never owned slaves and giving it to people who never were slaves. This is nonsensical.

Slavery was an acceptable practice in the world for centuries. Africans went into the interior, brought out captured slaves, and sold them to slavers on the coast. In 1804 the United States outlawed the importation of slaves, and Republican president Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The country saw the evil of slavery and ended it.