DiogenesLamp #186: "It could bar the creation of new slaves in Massachusetts.
It could do nothing about those that were already legal."
For a long time now, DiogenesLamp has absurdly argued the insane position that not only was the Taney Supreme Court's 1857 Dred-Scott decision correct, it also reflected Founders' Original Intent, regardless of what they may have said or done in 1788.
Dred-Scott effectively ruled that Southern slave-holders could take their slaves permanently to any state, North, West or South, regardless of that state's abolition laws.
It meant, for example, that slave gangs could be brought North to work in Northern factories, taking jobs from free men.
Now, so far as I know, no historian or constitutional scholar supports DiogenesLamp's ideas, but it is important to note that Northern fears, in 1858 & 1860, that the Tanney / DiogenesLamp's interpretation might prove true contributed to the Republican party resurgence.
Republican voters wanted to tell the Taney Court: not just "no", but "h*ll no!".
Indeed the power of Republican Resistance convinced many Southerners that Fire Eaters were correct in saying they must secede to protect their "peculiar institution".
Anyway, DiogenesLamp's arguments here and elsewhere identify him as something we've seldom encountered, but should take note of: a self-loathing Northerner.
You should read up on the law of contracts. "Intent" has not a D@mn thing to do with it. What you wrote down and to which you agreed in writing is all that is required to hold you to the letter.
The Founders agreed that all escaped slaves should be returned to their owners. They didn't say "Unless a state passes a law to the contrary." In fact, they deliberately said that no state law could change this requirement.
So you just stop talking about "intent", and start talking about the requirements of a contract.