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To: DiogenesLamp
You keep referring to Article IV of the Constitution, and I can only assume you mean the following clause;

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

As I pointed out to you earlier, the Dred Scott case, and the other cases I cited did not have any relation to the fugitive slave clause. Dred Scott was not a fugitive slave!

Prior to the Scott decision State courts in Slave States did in fact award freedom to slaves in cases identical to Scott's. Taney ignored that president and then went even further overturning the Northwest Ordinance and the Missouri Compromise, and then somewhere divining that the Framers did not intend people of African descent to become citizens even though those framers themselves recognized such people as citizens.

840 posted on 09/01/2015 6:24:24 PM PDT by Ditto
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To: Ditto
Dred Scott was not a fugitive slave!

He was when he tried to leave. The Laws of the State in which he was held in bondage recognize him as such I am sure. That brings into effect the above provision from Article IV.

Prior to the Scott decision State courts in Slave States did in fact award freedom to slaves in cases identical to Scott's. Taney ignored that president

The "precedents" set by state courts are not binding on the Federal Courts, which I would say have jurisdiction in the case of Dred Scott and a dispute between states.

and then went even further overturning the Northwest Ordinance and the Missouri Compromise,

Nothing but a constitutional Amendment can nullify the effect of article IV. No "ordinance" and No "compromise" can render inoperative that clause.

and then somewhere divining that the Framers did not intend people of African descent to become citizens even though those framers themselves recognized such people as citizens.

And I agree with you that he erred there. I know of about a dozen Black Citizens from the revolutionary war period. Yes they were recognized as citizens, and therefore Tanney was simply projecting his own incorrect opinion.

But the larger holding was legally correct for the time. It wasn't overturned with a subsequent Supreme Court ruling, it was overturned by the passage of constitutional amendments that rendered that decision moot.

845 posted on 09/01/2015 7:36:52 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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