# Do any states (from its colonial days or Civil War days) still owe Britain any money? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 28, 2016, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-states-from-its-colonial-days-or-civil-war-days-still-owe-britain-any-money/775799 "2016-12-28T22:10:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2016, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-states-from-its-colonial-days-or-civil-war-days-still-owe-britain-any-money/775799/21 "2016-12-30T10:34:32Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Well, that’s really an accounting fiction. It’s fixing the books when you charge the colonists with the costs of the soldiers who are oppressing them. > > It’s a common tactic to allow an oppressor to claim “we’re doing it for their own good – it actually costs us money to do this”. Britain claimed that ruling Ireland cost them money – because they charged the costs of the occupying soldiers to the Irish people. US Southern states claimed slavery was costing them money – they charged the costs of slave-catchers to the slaves. Nazi Germany fined the Jewish community 10 billion reichsmarks for the Kristallnacht anti-Jewish pograms that destroyed & confiscated Jewish property – for the costs of the government employees who planned & organized these attacks. > > With creative accounting, you can change a profit to a loss for any activity. What **slash2k** said. Britain’s primary motivation for posting troups in the colonies was not to oppress the colonists - for most of the colonial period, until the actual run-up to the Revolutionary War, there were no major hostilities between the colonists and the British authorities which would have required a strong military presence. The motivation for the military presence came from outside the colonies, mainly the wars against the Native Americans and the French - North America was a major battleground in the Seven Years’ War, which took, in that region, the form of a war by the British against the French and their Native American allies. This action was also in the interest of the American colonists, which is why the British perception was that the colonists were free-riding on British military expenditures to defend them against external threats. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2016, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-states-from-its-colonial-days-or-civil-war-days-still-owe-britain-any-money/775799/22 "2016-12-30T13:44:34Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Section 4 of the 14th Amendment makes any such payment by either the US or a state unconstitutional, so it’s a moot issue. > > As far as British American colonies, I do wonder if the British could have gotten away with taxing the colonies themselves, rather than imposing taxes on individuals (e.g. the Stamp Tax). That is, a law that says: Massachusetts, you owe X pounds/year, Rhode Island Y pounds/year, North Carolina Z pounds/year, etc. It’s up to you to impose the taxes to raise these amounts and we don’t care how you do it. Oh sure, there’d be complaints but would they rise to the point of armed insurrection? That’s what many Americans would have preferred. The colonies had been set up by various groups & pretty much left to govern themselves. It was a profitable situation for British & American merchants. Or for English/Scottish factors & the perennially in debt tobacco planters. There were periodic wars in which the Brits had “defended” America–with help from American militia. What we call the French & Indian War was the Seven Years War–a worldwide struggle that left Britain with a great empire. So the British government looked at its possessions worldwide & wondered how to make them more profitable. Not just for certain merchants–but for King & Parliament. Should the 13 colonies have to pay for governing the vast new territory of Canada? Disbanding the British army would put a lot of officers out on half-pay; most were highly connected, so posts had to be found. (Kicking out other ranks was no problem.) There were also Colonial concerns that Britain would try to make the Colonies more orderly–for example, Calvinist Massachusetts feared the imposition of Anglican Bishops from England. (The Anglican colonies sent their pastors to England for ordination; their churches were governed by laymen.) Other fundraising schemes than the Stamp Tax could have been devised. In fact, the Tax was canceled before it really began–but the outraged Colonists had begun to meet & realize they had things in common. (And, yes, the tea tax was not onerous–but it represented a monopoly for the quasi-governmental East India Company. Americans were capable of building ships, sailing them & engaging in commerce. The Colonial role of supplying raw materials cheaply & buying manufactured (or luxury) items expensively was getting old.) ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2016, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-states-from-its-colonial-days-or-civil-war-days-still-owe-britain-any-money/775799/23 "2016-12-30T14:32:02Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > I just happened to have read the other day that the last payment was made in 2006. Huh. > > I wonder if other nations have paid the US back? That was just for aid in transit between VJ Day and 1st September 1945 when Lend-Lease came to an end. Which was converted into a fifty-year loan at 2%, with the option to defer annual payment if necessary (which has been exercised several times) The First World War loans aren’t being serviced, but they haven’t been written off either. Everyone concerned prefers to ignore them. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2017, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-states-from-its-colonial-days-or-civil-war-days-still-owe-britain-any-money/775799/24 "2017-01-07T10:28:49Z")
> [@Mk\_VII](#): > > That was just for aid in transit between VJ Day and 1st September 1945 when Lend-Lease came to an end. Which was converted into a fifty-year loan at 2%, with the option to defer annual payment if necessary (which has been exercised several times) > > The First World War loans aren’t being serviced, but they haven’t been written off either. Everyone concerned prefers to ignore them. Thank you all. Very helpful ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2017, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-states-from-its-colonial-days-or-civil-war-days-still-owe-britain-any-money/775799/25 "2017-01-09T23:01:58Z")
Wasn’t part of the deal to end the Civil War that confederate states had to repudiate their war debts? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2017, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-states-from-its-colonial-days-or-civil-war-days-still-owe-britain-any-money/775799/26 "2017-01-09T23:25:12Z")
Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, cited in post 20 above, makes those debts null and void. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-states-from-its-colonial-days-or-civil-war-days-still-owe-britain-any-money/775799.md?page=1)