The horror of reparations for slave owners and not slaves is that slave owners, in droves, would take their slaves out of county when census takers came to enumerate slaves. Enslavers would boast an enormous “personal property” figure to the enumerators, most of whom were collateralized enslaved people. The slave census, though, would have scanty numbers of hostages.
Since enslavers were taxed on their hostage “property”, this meant that poorer taxpayers actually footed the bill for their reparations, aka welfare for the well-to-do. In reality, enslavers did not have to pay for any upkeep for their hostages after Emancipation, while the freed hostages had no jobs, no cash, and no housing unless they returned to the enslaver.
Finally, the Dirty South had huge sway over Congress after the advent of Jim Crow laws and voted themselves even more subsidies than before.
Modern Republicans are the ultimate Cadillac Welfaristas.
