Massachusetts, which boasts a history of abolitionism, is considering legislation to determine how much the state and local institutions profited from the African slave trade.

A bill before the Legislature would require some of Massachusetts’ oldest banking, financial and insurance companies to look deep into their history – and the histories of subsidiaries and predecessor companies – to uncover links to the slave trade, as a condition of doing business with the state.

It also would authorize the secretary of state to produce a book documenting to what extent the state, since the times of the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies, benefited from slavery, whether through taxes or economic growth.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Byron Rushing, D-Boston, said understanding that difficult history is key to any future discussion of apologies or reparation claims tied to slavery. He said most people underestimate the economic significance of slavery to the growth of the country and the state.

“Part of the problem is that people are ignorant of what slavery actually was,” he said. “Most people’s views of slavery are attached to abolition – not the ongoing horror of slavery, but the end of slavery.”

We appreciate Rep. Byron’s deeply-felt angst over the historical wrongs of slavery. But while it may be prudent from an academic perspective to understand and catalog the economics of this social evil, it is unjust to flagellate institutions now for actions that occurred centuries ago.

The impetus for such legislation is not new or unique to Massachusetts. Indeed, the last few years have seen a fledgling movement for “reparations” to the country’s black community. If the United States government won’t provide such payments – and it won’t – the tack has been to go after individual institutions for cash payments.

But the assault on financial firms misfires when it tries to paint these institutions as predators that owe a debt for their heinous crimes. There were many businesses across this country which benefited from the salve trade. But those transactions were done in a legal environment. What we know now to be wrong, and what we now abhor, was not then generally viewed – either morally or legally – as unacceptable.

If we are to applaud the advancement of society, we must make allowances that we will learn from past mistakes, and must judge those past mistakes in context. Actions that grossly flouted the conscience of the public or either the letter or spirit of law – as were the Nazi’s efforts at genocide – are deserving of special condemnation and retribution. But where organizations have followed conventional norms – even if, in hindsight those norms have been unmasked as horrors – there is an unjustness in singling them out for special reprobation.

Rep. Rushing, one of only a few black lawmakers in the commonwealth, told reporters last week that, “it’s very important that we tell the truth about our history. Slavery gave this country a major economic advantage and we should talk about it.”

We don’t argue with that. But Rushing isn’t looking to just talk about it. He wants to embarrass, to coerce, to extort. His objective isn’t to foster dialogue in order to advance understanding, but to humble and penalize institutions for activity long past.

That’s a dodgy undertaking, and one that can’t be lauded. If companies are going to be punished, let it be for possible activities they might now be engaged in, not for their legal, yet unsavory, actions of decades dead and buried.