This talk of reparations for slavery excites me. I had, according to family lore, only one ancestor in this country at the time of the Civil War. He was a soldier in the Union Army. Since blacks were freed not by act of God, but by the bullets and bayonets of men like my great-great grandfather, I figure it's about time Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton wrote me a check.

Liberals love to apologize for everyone's sins but their own. Many think a lugubrious lament, coupled with huge handfuls of greenbacks from the public treasury, will blot out the stain slavery has made on America's past.

There are many things I have to apologize for. Slavery isn't one of them. Great-great granddad owes no apologies, either. He was, so I'm told, a Mick just off the boat when he enlisted in the Great Cause. The Irish, in times past, may not have lacked the venality to oppress others, but they sure as hell lacked the opportunity.

Slavery was evil. "I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself," Abraham Lincoln said in a debate with Stephen Douglas. "I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world, enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites, causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty."

But to the extent American blacks believe slavery was a horror uniquely visited upon them, they are mistaken. Slavery has existed in every culture known to man, ancient and modern. The word slave comes from Slav, the peoples most frequently enslaved during Roman times. (Could we salve this historical wound by requiring Italian-Americans to give Polish-Americans discounts on pizza?) Only prostitution has been more ubiquitous. What is unique about western civilization is not that we, for a time, practiced slavery, but that we abolished it:

"In having practiced sexism, racism, and imperialism, the West has merely followed the common practice of mankind," wrote Princeton Professor Bernard Lewis. "What is unique and distinct from all others is in having recognized; named, and tried, not entirely without success, to remedy these historic diseases."

Other cultures were not eager to follow our lead. Arabs were importing black slaves 1,000 years before the European slave trade began. Negro slavery was legal in Saudi Arabia until 1962, and is still practiced in the Sudan today. Brazil - which didn't abolish slavery until 1888 - imported six times as many Africans as did the United States. Islamic countries imported more African slaves than the whole Western Hemisphere combined. Blacks who have embraced Islam in protest of slavery in the Americas are, among other things, lousy historians.

Blacks enslaved each other. A Dutchman visiting Guinea in the 16th century (before there were any English settlements in America) noted: "The kings of the towns have many slaves to buy and sell, and get much by them."

European slave traders rarely ventured from Africa's coast. Most slaves came from the interior. My guess is they didn't volunteer.

Moreover, what plainly was misfortune to the blacks who were enslaved has, in most instances, been a blessing to their descendants. If it weren't for slavery, most American blacks would be living in Africa, if they were living at all. Most of the people who do live in Africa would rather live here.

There are historical consequences for evil. As Abraham Lincoln said in his Second Inaugural Address: "If God wills that [the Civil War] continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' "

But the notion of historical guilt is noxious nonsense. No American living today was either ever master or slave. I am responsible for my own thoughts and actions, not for whatever my ancestors thought or did. Race relations must be based on equal rights and mutual respect, not liberal guilt or black anger. Remembrance of ancient wrongs is a safeguard against their repetition. Resentment over ancient wrongs is a recipe for social strife.

Jack Kelly is a member of The Blade's national bureau.

First Published August 6, 2000, 4:00 a.m.