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Because in the Constitution, there are ex post facto bans: you can't declare something illegal if it was done while legal. The myriad abominations committed against black people throughout history were done, shamefully enough, with the blessings of American law at the time - see the Dred Scott decision and look up Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws.

The laws were wrong, but the US Constitution says that if something was legal, you can't prosecute or demand reparations for it after it's declared illegal.

An anti-abortion group ran into this same thing during the Bush administration. They wanted to go into medical records and prosecute women who have had abortions since 1973 for murder...but they had their abortions when it was legal, so no dice.

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15y ago

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