Posted on 12/03/2017 6:25:07 AM PST by Jonty30
I'm just trying to understand the relationship between the United States and the individual states on the issue of the legality of slavery at the state level. I know after the Civil War, the federal federal law trumped state law, but what about prior to the Civil War? Somebody told me the federal government was always the primary government when federal laws and state laws conflicted.
So, why couldn't the federal government just outlaw slavery at the state level instead of launching a civil war against the states?
I believe that at least part of the reason for secession, was that the election of Lincoln had many in the south believe that he was going to pass laws outlawing slavery in all states.
The 10th Amendment, because the Constitution was silent on the issue until subsequent Amendments were passed and adopted.
let me finish my coffee first
Their belief was well founded. That's exactly what he did.
Nothing in the Constitution gave the United States authority over slavery until passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.
Prior to that it was a state issue.
The Emancipation Proclamation was legal because the slaves in the Rebel Confederacy were contraband of war, aiding in the unlawful rebellion.
The Thirteenth Amendment gave the Congress the power to ban it nationwide.
A bill to prohibit slavery might have passed the House. But it certainly would have been filibustered to death in the Senate. Therefore, zero chance of being passed.
Let’s start here:
States have rights, feds have enumerated powers.
Because the federal government operates under the principle of delegated / reserved powers. States do the delegating / reserving. This isn’t a “federal law trumps state law” question at all. The Civil War did not end slavery in the US. All during and after the war slavery remained legal in Missouri, Maryland and Kentucky because they sided with the Union. Specifically, the US Constitution did not grant slaves full “person-hood” . The Constitution had to be amended to grant full status to former slaves. Additionally, slavery was economically beneficial to many northern states since the “slave” states generated about 63% of the federal government’s income through excise taxes so prior to the war there was no enthusiasm for an amendment. Finally, Lincoln was prepared to assure slavery’s continuation prior to Fort Sumter if the seceded states rejoined the Union. Does that help?
Slavery should have been abolished when the Constitution was drafted. And abortion too.
How about the Preamble?
Abolition would have been a deal breaker.
“A bill to prohibit slavery might have passed the House. But it certainly would have been filibustered to death in the Senate.”
Ah, further proof that the word “Senate” is Latin for loathsome low IQ pieces of excrement who could not hold any other job.
Nothing in the Constitution gave the United States authority over slavery until passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Prior to that it was a state issue. -GreenLanternCorps
You are both correct, since the Constitution reserves to the States all powers that are not specifically enumerated to the federal government which the States established. States also had the right to secede under the same principle, but Lincoln chose to settle that issue on the battlefield where the Constitution yielded to force.
And it may have happened anyway, but Lincoln implied it may not have in his letter about saving the Union even if it meant freeing no slaves.
Excerpts
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people..." To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."
"Nor are they within either of the general phrases, which are the two following:
"1. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, "to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare." For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.
"It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please."
ML/NJ
Back then the federal government was held to the enumerated powers, not like today. The federal government had no authority over slavery in the constitution.
Even after the Civil War, the 13th Amendment needed to be passed to allow the federal government that authority. It wasn’t “federal laws” that stopped slavery, nor Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, it was the 13th Amendment.
The point of the Missouri compromise was to ensure that abolitionist parties would never have a majority in the Senate.
Slaves were private property. If Congress wanted to abolish slavery before the 13th amendment, it would have to have compensated the owners under the 5th amendment. The Dred Scott decision even limited the states’ powers on slavery when it ruled that slaves did not become free when on ‘free soil’.
Before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (which only applied to areas NOT under US control) Union generals were ordered to return runaway slaves to their owners (but many did resist).
As far as the House possibly passing an antislavery bill, the House was operating under ‘the Gag Rule’ which pretty much prohibited any discussion of slavery. John Quincy Adams spent much of his House career railing against the Gag Rule.
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