“But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.”
E.T. - it seems like just yesterday you were approvingly quoting Washington’s words. Knowing that you advocated a sacred obligation to the constitution made me feel warm all over.
Now I see you post references about an “illicit constitutional provision.” I am beginning to doubt your commitment to Washington’s words - or to the Constitution that Washington advocated.
E.T. you are conflicted - because the northern cause you advocate is, and always has been, conflicted.
The north fought to free the slaves. The north did not fight to free the slaves. Lincoln was opposed to secession; after he advocated rebellion. The north said states could never leave the union. The north insisted the states had to be readmitted to the union. The north “had to” destroy the South in order to save it.
E.T. you need to stop debating history and stop debating yourself. Whenever something comes up, the only thing you should say is “Lincoln freed the slaves.” You will look like a hero.
You’re the one who is confused, not me.
I understand the basic difference between right and wrong.
The natural law is the basis of our constitutional form of government.
If men screw up our constitutions by adding provisions that violate the natural law, the natural law rules.
These principles have been understood in Western Civilization since before the earthly life and ministry of Christ, all the way back to Cicero. Thomas Aquinas clearly stated it. So did Blackstone, and later Samuel Adams and Alexander Hamilton.
“True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrong-doing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, although neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal a part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by Senate or People, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly called punishment ...”
— Marcus Tullius Cicero, 59 - 47 B.C.
“Human law is law only by virtue of its accordance with right reason; and thus it is manifest that it flows from the eternal law. And in so far as it deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law; in such case it is no law at all, but rather a species of violence.”
— Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, Ia-Ilae, q. xciii, art. 3, ad 2m.
“Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as are life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no human legislation has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner himself commit some act that amounts to forfeiture.”
— William Blackstone
“If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave.”
— Samuel Adams, Rights of the Colonists, 1772
Notwithstanding the unjust provisions that allowed the practice of slavery to continue, the practice violated the stated purposes of the Constitution, and, with the immediate adoption of the Fifth Amendment, its explicit provisions protecting the right to life, liberty and property of every innocent person.
The only way you can argue that the Fifth Amendment’s protections did not apply to black men, is to deny the humanity of the black man. Are you going to do that?
The black man’s constitutional right to his own life, liberty and property vastly superseded the slaveholder’s illicit claimed “right” to commit a gross wrong.
Do you think a sodomite has a “right” to force a Christian to bake them a cake, or to perform a phony “marriage” ceremony for them?
No?
Why do you think slavers had a “right” to force liberty-loving men to participate in the enslavement of their fellow men?
Your post, deffersondem, is incomprehensible.
I gather you suppose it's funny, but it makes no sense.