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To: DiogenesLamp; HandyDandy; rockrr
DiogenesLamp: "I'm asking you if that is what it means.
Unless my English is faulty, I read it as a rendering null any state law designed to free a slave.
If you do not think that is what it means, why don't you explain to me what you think it means?"

But the truth of this matter has already been explained to you several times, by myself and others.
You simply refuse to acknowledge it.

The Constitution in those days provided for the return of Fugitive Slaves.
It also contemplated the eventual abolition of slavery, beginning with stopping imports from abroad.
But no Founder contemplated slave-holders taking their slaves to Free States without being subject to the abolition laws of that state.

So, if you decide -- using your own vast imagination and Roger Tanney's Dred-Scott decision -- that the Constitution made slavery lawful in every state, regardless of the state's own laws, then your interpretation is simply not historical, or logical, Tanney notwithstanding.

If you further decide, in support of Tanney's Dred Scott, that not just slaves but all African Americans could never be US citizens, then I'd say you truly are ready for commitment to an institution for nut-cases, FRiend.

738 posted on 08/28/2015 5:22:25 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
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To: BroJoeK
But the truth of this matter has already been explained to you several times, by myself and others. You simply refuse to acknowledge it.

Assertions only. That is not the same thing as an explanation.

I can see why you are tiptoeing gingerly around this point. This is a real conundrum for your position.

If you take the words of the US Constitution at face value, they seem to say that any law freeing a slave is null and void.

Now you tell me it is only intended to be used in the narrow scope of fugitive slaves, but that is not what the words say. (Doesn't matter anyway, the Northern States routinely disobeyed it regarding fugitive slaves.)

Your problem is not with me... it is with the words chosen by the framers of the Constitution. They left the meaning open to a much broader interpretation than what you claim was their intent.

But no Founder contemplated slave-holders taking their slaves to Free States without being subject to the abolition laws of that state.

And how do you know this? In 1787, I think only Massachusetts had abolished slavery. The bulk of the nation was still slave holding states.

You cannot say with any degree of intellectual honesty that the founders only intended what you claim. I know you wish it to be true, but where is your proof that this was their intention? It certainly cannot be discerned from the words they chose.

then I'd say you truly are ready for commitment to an institution for nut-cases, FRiend.

How about you give up the childish tactic of asserting that disagreement with you is equivalent to a mental illness? You don't seem to have a temperament for actual debate, you simply want people to agree with you.

As I mentioned before, I never spent much time contemplating that clause in the US Constitution until this discussion focused my attention on it. Now that I read it closely, I'm having a hard time seeing it by even the most Liberal Interpretation as corresponding to what you claim it means.

739 posted on 08/28/2015 6:12:22 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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