 The following argument parallels Locke’s argument: the slave holders harmed the slaves. Consequently the slaves had rights to reparations against the estates of the slave holders; these rights reduced the extent of the estates that the slave holders’ children would otherwise have inherited from them; the slaves were forcibly prevented from exercising those rights; but it is absurd to suppose that people lose rights just because they are forcibly prevented from exercising those rights; consequently the slaves retained their rights against the estates of the slave holders; present day U.S. blacks are their heirs; consequently present day U.S. blacks have rights against the estates of the slave holders. This argument does not prove much. Even if many descendants of the slave holders can be identified, proving that they inherited their property from their slave holding ancestors seems hopeless. But the argument can be improved. The first step is to see that the slaves did not have rights to reparations only against the slave holders. This step may seem to follow easily from Locke’s famous theory that residence in a state is tacit consent to it (Locke 1689: sec 119). This theory applied to the case of the lawful conqueror might seem to commit Locke to the view that the lawful conqueror had rights to reparations against all members of the state that waged the unjust war against him. But in fact Locke explicitly denied that it did. “The people” he said gave “to their governors no power to do an unjust thing, such as is to make an unjust War, (for they never had such power in themselves:) They ought not to be charged as guilty of the Violence and Injustice that is committed in an Unjust war, any further than they actually abet it” (Locke 1689: sec 179).