Replies

HandyDandy to DiogenesLamp: "Many times you have been told that Art IV sec 2 refers specifically to fugitive slaves (that would be 'runaway' slaves, escaped slaves, slaves who have left their master and run to a free state, looking for freedom)."

DiogenesLamp to HandyDandy: "Yes, many people keep calling it that.
Article IV Section 2 has no such verbiage in it...
the text says the slave will be returned per the laws of other states that require it.
Don't talk to me about being obtuse.
Intentions and assertions do not matter.
What matter are the text of the law."

But the text is totally clear, so you remind me of that "so-called judge" in Washington state who ruled against the President without even quoting the law!

Article 4, Section 2:

"No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour,
But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due."

Nothing, repeat nothing, in the Dred Scott case had anything to do with "escaping" slaves, but rather with one who wished to purchase his own freedom but was denied.
He then sued saying he should have been freed automatically when brought into Illinois and Wisconsin for many years.
Chief Justice Taney ruled that states had no right to abolish slavery for slaves brought by their holders into free states.

Taney's justification for that ruling was not the above Article 4 Section 2, but rather Taney's claim the Federal Government had no constitutional authority to outlaw slavery in the Territories.
The problem with Taney's ruling is that no recognized Founder -- none, zero, nada Founder -- ever claimed such a thing.

So the real question here is why do we now have two posters, DiogenesLamp and Jim 0216 concocting ludicrous legal sounding arguments out of thin air?

I think I know the answer, and it's why I think it important to resist strongly.

I seems relevant to this ongoing vigorous discussion to drop in the following excerpts from Fehrenbacher's book going back to 1846, when suit was first filed on behalf of the Scotts.

. . . [T]he central question raised in the suit - whether extended residence on free soil liberated a slave - was not an issue in American politics and had already been tested many times in the Missouri courts, with consistent results. . . . Once the subject of a suit for freedom was raised, anyone familiar with Missouri law could have told the Scotts that they had a very strong case. Again and again, the highest court of the state had ruled that a master who took his slave to reside in a state or territory where slavery was prohibited thereby emancipated him.

The Dred Scott Case, pages 251 & 252.

Since it was Missouri law that was cited in the suit and not Illinois law it appears to me that the full faith and credit clause is not in play.

"No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour,

So your point hinges on the various ways we can interpret the meaning of the word "escape."

As the Devil's advocate, I argue that a slave can "escape" just by being in a "free state" and claiming the right under those state laws.

Given that article IV is clear that it strikes down any state laws that interfere with what the home state laws require, I don't think your argument will hold much water if it was litigated in a court of the period. (Except in Massachusetts where they were kooky liberals even back then.)

As a matter of fact, the Dred Scott decision pretty much makes this exact point.