California will issue a formal apology for being complicit in slavery

[David Lockmiller]

The New York Times reported today:

California will issue a formal apology for being complicit in slavery during the 19th century and for enforcing segregationist policies against Black residents as one of several new laws that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed on Thursday to atone for the state’s past discriminatory treatment of African Americans.

Last year, California became the first state in the country to explore concrete restitution for historical racism. A state reparations task force last year determined, among other acts, that California courts had enforced fugitive slave laws and that more than 2,000 enslaved people were brought to California even after it was admitted as a free state in 1850.

As I recall, President Lincoln also "had enforced fugitive slave laws." But as President Lincoln himself noted: "[B]efore I could have any power whatsoever, I had to take the oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and execute the laws as I found them.