Democrats have no shame.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25921453
Actually the U. S. government could have done this 148 years ago and possibly began a process to avert the War Between the States (or at least one of the economic issues that caused it) without nary a shot being fired like so many other nations (including the British Empire which enacted a compensated abolition long before our "Civil War" started...the compensation was for "former" slave owners...not the newly freed slaves) did before the War Criminal (read as
Lincoln) signed the so-called "Emancipation Proclamation" freeing slaves only in areas that he nor his government had any control over (namely the un-occupied parts of the Confederacy).
If reparations becomes an issue the Southern States should receive reparations for being raped and pillaged by the U. S. government and Republican carpet-baggers during reconstruction. Not to mention compensation to the living relatives of former slaveholders who were robbed of their legal property.
And what about the Native Americans!?