Bank of America insists it can't find slave profits in its past

Under fire from the City Council's champion for slave reparations, Bank of America stuck to its guns Friday: The bank has hired a researcher to dig deeper but has so far has uncovered no evidence that a predecessor bank invested in or profited from the slave trade.

To the contrary, Bank of America said its research suggests that the predecessor, Providence Bank, "distanced itself from and declined to support slavery-related activities." That's even though John Brown -- Providence Bank's founding president, director and shareholder -- was a well-known slave owner who arranged for the transportation of slaves.

Founded in 1791, Providence Bank is a predecessor of Fleet Boston, which was acquired by Bank of America last year.

"First, the research disclosed no evidence establishing that the Providence Bank had investments or profits from slavery. Second, there is no indication of the source of the funds used by Brown to purchase his 23 shares in the bank. Last, the evidence suggests that the bank, in fact, avoided slave-related activities of John Brown or any other bank customer," said the bank's attorney V. Duncan Johnson.

Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) accused "arrogant" bank officials of providing "selective and fraudulent" information to a joint City Council committee.

Tillman said research conducted by her daughter at some of the same places Bank of America looked -- the Rhode Island Historical Society and Brown University Library -- has already produced evidence that Providence Bank made loans used to purchase ships that transported slaves.

"The whole reason the bank was founded was so that the merchants could have a bank for their money to go through. Their whole existence was slavery. They had no other existence," she said.

"They thought they could bring this lawyer in and lie and just say, 'Moses Brown [John's brother] was an abolitionist. You see, they were good guys.' The lawyer's job was to protect Bank of America -- not to get to the truth. And we won't stop until we get to the truth."

Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) cautioned Tillman not to "toss around the words 'fraud' and 'misrepresentation.' "

"It is the opinion of the chair that there has been no fraudulent conduct on the part of these witnesses," he said.

Ald. Burton F. Natarus (42nd) also urged Tillman to take a deep breath -- prompting an uncomfortable clash between black and Jewish aldermen.

"Prior to the Civil War, you're going to find almost every one of these corporations were involved with the institution of slavery. You're going to find it, and no matter what you do, you can't hide it. But the problem is, how long are you going to badger them with it?" Natarus said.

That infuriated Tillman, who reminded Natarus that African-American aldermen had supported him in the threat to punish Swiss banks that ultimately resulted in the return to Holocaust victims of hundreds of millions of dollars in gold looted by conquering German armies.

"The Jewish community -- your community -- received reparations. What happened to them was wrong. And you were relentless in making sure that anybody and everybody who had anything to do with the Holocaust would be brought to justice . . . What we're saying is, we have a right to be repaid," Tillman said.

Ald. William Beavers (7th) added, "You want to know how long it's going to go on? It's going to go on as long as the Holocaust. The Holocaust is never going to end, and this is never going to end. So when we support you, you support us."

Ten Reasons Why Reparations Are a Bad Idea - and Racist, Too

Who Owes the Debt?
Are reparations going to be assessed against the descendants of Africans and Arabs for their role in slavery? There were also three thousand black slave owners in the antebellum United States. Are reparations to be paid by their descendants too?
African-Americans Have Also Benefited from Slavery
American blacks on average enjoy per capita incomes in the range of twenty to fifty times that of blacks living in any of the African nations from which they were kidnapped. What about this benefit of slavery? Are the reparations proponents going to make black descendants of slaves pay themselves for benefiting from the fruits of their ancestors' servitude?
What About the Descendants of Union Soldiers Who Gave Their Lives to Free the Slaves?
What about the descendants of the 350,000 Union soldiers who died in the war that freed the slaves? They gave their lives. What possible morality would ask them to pay (through their descendants) again?
Most American Whites Have No Connection to Slavery
The two great waves of American immigration occurred after 1880 and after 1960.
The Cases of Jewish and Japanese Reparations Are Not Comparable and Therefore Do Not Provide Precedents
The Jews and Japanese who received reparations were individuals who actually suffered the hurt.
What about Successful Blanks?
What Is Their Economic Grievance?
How are blue-collar whites and ethnics expected to understand their reparations payments to African-American doctors, lawyers, executives, and military officers, let alone multimillionaire entertainers and athletes who are descendants of slaves?
Reparations Will Increase Victim Mentalities, Negative Attitudes, and Alienation within the African-American Community
To focus the social passions of African-Americans on what some Americans may have done to their ancestors fifty or a hundred and fifty years ago is to burden this community with a crippling sense of victimhood.
What about the Reparations that Have Already Been Paid?
Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great Society in 1965, trillions of dollars in net transfer payments have been made to African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits and racial preferences (in contracts, job placements, and education admissions) - all under the rationale of redressing historic racial grievances. These funds have been paid by taxpayers who are mainly white. And while it is true that most welfare recipients are also white, the proportion of the African-American community which is on welfare is far greater, and since welfare reform, has become absolutely greater.
What about the Debt Blacks Owe to America?
What about the debt blacks owe to America - to white Americans - for liberating them from slavery? Slavery existed in all societies, and for thousands of years before a white person set foot in Africa or the Atlantic slave trade began.
Blacks Are Virtually the Oldest Americans.
Why Not Embrace Their American Destiny?
"Many blacks - most perhaps," [Randall Robinson] claims in his discussion of Castro, "don't like America." But apparently they should like Cuba's gulag. This unthinking anti-Americanism is the crux of the problem the reparations movement poses for African-Americans, and for all Americans. Behind the reparations idea is an irrational fear and hatred of America. It is about holding America responsible for every negative facet of black existence, as though America were God, and God had failed. Above all, it is about denying the gift America has given to all of its citizens, including its black citizens, through the inspired genius of its founding.

The Real Lincoln

Do states have a right of secession? That question was settled through the costly War of 1861. In his recently published book, The Real Lincoln, Professor Thomas DiLorenzo marshals abundant unambiguous evidence that virtually every political leader of the time and earlier believed that states had a right of secession.

Let's look at a few quotations. Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address said, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it." Fifteen years later after the New England Federalists attempted to secede, Jefferson said, "If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation . . . to a continuance in the union . . . I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate'."

At Virginia's ratification convention, the delegates said, "the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." In Federalist Paper 39 James Madison, the father of the Constitution, cleared up what "the people" meant saying, the proposed Constitution would be subject to ratification by the people, "not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong." In a word, states were sovereign; the federal government was a creation, an agent, a servant of the states.

On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. Maryland Congressman Jacob M. Kunkel said, "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty." The northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.

Just about every major northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. New York Tribune (2/5/60): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." Detroit Free Press (2/19/61): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful could produce nothing but evil - evil unmitigated in character and appalling in content." New York Times (3/21/61): "There is growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go." Professor DiLorenzo cites other editorials expressing identical sentiments.

Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry not logic; beauty, not sense." Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of self-determination - government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says, "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves."

In Federalist Paper 45, James Madison guaranteed, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." The South seceded because of Washington's encroachment on that vision. Today, it's worse. Turn Madison's vision on its head and you have today's America.

Professor DiLorenzo does a yeoman's job in documenting Lincoln's ruthlessness and hypocrisy and how historians have covered it up. The Framers had a deathly fear of federal government abuse. They saw state sovereignty as a protection. That's why they gave us the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. They saw secession as the ultimate protection against Washington tyranny.

Walter E. Williams
c16-01
April 1, 2002
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