All my "assertions" are based on facts, yours are based on overheated fantasies.
DiogenesLamp: "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."
Seem to say? They don't seem so to me, nor did they seem so to any Founder who left a record of it.
DiogenesLamp: "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."
Of course they do -- the operative phrase is "escaping into another" state, in other words, a fugitive slave.
That much was always fully acknowledged.
What was never asserted before Dred-Scott is that slave-holders could take their slaves to abolition states without being subject to the laws of that state.
DiogenesLamp: "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."
No, Founders left nothing about this "open to interpretation" by anyone who read & understood their original intent.
Of course, Tanney and you are not concerned with Founders' intent, but only with how their words can be twisted to support insane ideas.
DiogenesLamp: "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."
No, by the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 all Northern states except New York and New Jersey had already passed laws to gradually abolish slavery.
Founders assumed that slavery was, by nature, wicked and evil, a "necessary evil" perhaps, but evil nonetheless, which should be abolished "someday".
They began the process nationally by allowing for abolition of importing slaves from abroad.
Under President Jefferson, they also banned slavery from the Northwest Territories.
The best records of Founders' Original Intent can be found in the Federalist Papers, none of which say that slave-holders can bring their slaves to Free States without obeying the laws of those states.
DiogenesLamp: "How about you give up the childish tactic of asserting that disagreement with you is equivalent to a mental illness?"
Whenever you assert what is patently insane, that must only be a function of some mental malfunction, doubtless driven by a malicious hatred of what is good and right in the US -- in this case our Founders' original intent in their Constitution.
DiogenesLamp: "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."
It's because your brain is seriously malfunctioning, and you need help for that. Go get it, FRiend.
Give over with the Childish assertions. You saying "your opinions are based on facts" is a waste of both our times. You are substituting subjectivity for objectivity. I begin to think you don't understand the distinction.
Seem to say? They don't seem so to me, nor did they seem so to any Founder who left a record of it.
Another subjective statement. Let me show you how this works.
No the founders don't agree with you! They agree with ME!
Now did that impress you? It didn't? Well it doesn't impress me either, so stop doing it.
Show me in the words, and only in the words of that clause of the constitution how the founders agree with you. Don't assert it, Demonstrate it.
Of course they do -- the operative phrase is "escaping into another" state, in other words, a fugitive slave.
Now see there? That's actually a valid point. Usage of the word "escaping" does indeed imply that it is intended to apply to fugitives rather than in general. But does this mean that the clause only applies if a border is crossed? What if the escaping slave happens to be in a free state at the same time that he escapes? (Ala Dred Scott.)
I think the operative point is that he is held to service by the laws of another state, and the usage of the word "escape" in this context encompasses "escape" by legal means of state laws freeing him.
I don't see it as allowing one state to ignore the laws of another state, regardless of where someone escapes from. I can see a state passing a law that says no one born in their state can be a slave, but I don't see how they can apply such a law to people born in states where that is not the law.
What was never asserted before Dred-Scott is that slave-holders could take their slaves to abolition states without being subject to the laws of that state.
State laws in conflict with the US Constitution are rendered Null and Void. What good does it do you to pass a law that the constitution will instantly defeat?
No, by the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 all Northern states except New York and New Jersey had already passed laws to gradually abolish slavery.
Yet they still had it, and it was still legal. Presumably at this time Slave Owners could still travel those states without concern of those states freeing their slaves.
If this was accepted and acknowledged in 1787, then you can't very well argue that such activities can be banned by some future reading of the same Constitution that protected it in 1787.