> However, should the government be held responsible? Afterall, the government is unbroken since the time of slavery and injustice*, so is the governement at fault, or when those people ask for recompense, can the government look back and say: "It was a younger, irresponsible government. It is not our fault"?
> samhael

It *is* the responsibility of the government, especially because of its past mistakes, to make sure it does nothing of the sort again. No one's mentioned reparations here yet, but the issue tends to hang around anytime blame is being assigned for slavery. The US government, in any case, long ago paid the debt in full; the Civil War freed the slaves at a blood price of 620,000 people (the vast majority white, if it matters). I have a copy of a letter written by a woman in my family after her husband died in the Civil War. Though her tears eventually ate holes in the page, the grief in the words is still clear, and through the grief, she still considered the cause to be just.

gabby