That part was overreach. The salient aspect of the decision; that traveling through a "Free State" did not emancipate a slave, was accurate so far as the Constitution of that time period said.
While slaveowners were allowed to bring their slaves to free states for short periods, if they moved for a longer period to a free state or territory they became residents and citizens of that or territory and subject to the laws of that free state or territory. Nobody questioned that until Taney and his court stuck their oar in.
Just because people had become accustomed to this methodology didn't make it constitutionally accurate. Article IV section 2 doesn't mention any such exceptions to it's requirements. You may say people believed that residency in a free state nullified Article IV, section 2, but what is the legal basis for believing this? I see no provision for suspending the requirements of this clause.
Angry, angry Diogenes. We've been talking about slavery. I cited documents largely about slavery. You've been talking about law cases that deal with slavery. Now you're saying we weren't talking about that at all.
You took what I said and replied "so it was about slavery." My point was that it was about money. Specifically the money that would be lost to the North if the South no longer had to obey the tariff and shipping laws of the US.
You just said "they were afraid of anything that questioned the legitimacy of their wealth, the bulk of which was tied up in slaves." Slavery was about the money and the money was about slavery. You can't easily separate the two.
In the South, the two things were connected, but they were not the same thing. However, you keep trying to steer the conversation back to the motivation of the South, instead of properly focusing it on the intentions of those people in the North who wanted and needed a war for economic reasons, and who did not at first give two sh*ts about the slaves in the South. (Or in the Union slave states.)
Without the North wanting, needing, and triggering a war, there would have been no War.
And you also admitted that "losing face" -- more a mental/ideological thing than something crudely material -- was a factor. Cultural power, remaining an elite: these are things that aren't simply reduced to dollars and cents.
I agreed with you that "face" was likely a large component of their decision making process. The presence of Union troops in a fort at the entrance of one of their primary harbors was also an affront as well as a real economic threat to their trade. That the existing conditions offended them does not repudiate the probability that it also cost them trade and therefore money.
Plus, caring about slavery can mean many different things. It could mean caring about the blot on the nation's conscience or fearing for the loss of liberty or worrying about competition from a slave economy.
That last was the primary motivation for the majority of people in the North who opposed slavery. They hated blacks, and didn't want them anywhere near them, but they most strongly objected to the possibility that they would have to compete with them for wages.
Opposing slavery for economic reasons and then later claiming you did it for moral reasons is disingenuous.
It wasn't. It was departure from precedent. That's why Dred Scott was such a powder keg.
Just because people had become accustomed to this methodology didn't make it constitutionally accurate. Article IV section 2 doesn't mention any such exceptions to it's requirements.
If you are referring to clause 3, the fugitive slave clause, that only applies to runaways, which Dred Scott wasn't. If you are referring to clause 1, the privileges and immunities clause, that says that "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States."
There is no explicit federal "right" to own slaves in the Constitution, so there is no "right" to own slaves in states that have forbidden slavery. If there were, it doesn't say much for federalism and "state's rights," does it?
There is no requirement, say, that Connecticut extend to its citizens the "rights" that Alabama extends to its citizens, only that Connecticut extend to visiting Alabamans the same rights that its own citizens have, and the rights that the Constitution guarantees to US citizens.
And there certainly is no requirement that Alabamans can move to Connecticut for a period of time that would make them Connecticut residents and continue to be slave owners and keep slaves in bondage in Connecticut.
My point was that it was about money. Specifically the money that would be lost to the North if the South no longer had to obey the tariff and shipping laws of the US.
BS. We were talking about slavery. You saw the documents about slavery. You referred to cases about slavery. You appeared to grasp what we were talking about. Now you're trying to weasel out of the implications of all that.
Opposing slavery for economic reasons and then later claiming you did it for moral reasons is disingenuous.
Of course, if that's true, it cuts both ways. Supporting secession for materialistic reasons and turning your movement into some kind of moral fight is hypocritical in the extreme.
But I wonder if one can really separate out the moral and the economic so easily. Did we oppose Britain's taxing us for moral or for economic reasons?
And even if we put a wholly economic interpretation on Northern opposition to slavery was it really less moral than colonial opposition to British taxation? Or somehow less moral than secession to preserve slavery -- or avoid taxes (which it wasn't).
You are applying a double standard here. Demanding some kind of high moral altruism from opponents of slavery while hallowing and enshrining sheer self-interest from slave owners and secessionists.
You are one of those people who justifies everything so long as it isn't "hypocritical." In that way, people justify and glorify some really bad stuff. But you know all that, as we've been talking about it for a very long time.
My, my, my, weakening on your admiration for the Scott decision? Who would have thunk it?
The salient aspect of the decision; that traveling through a "Free State" did not emancipate a slave, was accurate so far as the Constitution of that time period said.
And having ruled that at the beginning then the case was settled. Everything after that was not relevant to the underlying decision and formed obiter dictum. Not valid precedent.
Curious why DiogenesLamp distorts this, since the issue was not whether "traveling through a 'Free State' " emancipated slaves, but rather permanently settling in a free state, as Dred Scott was.
From Day One the distinction was made & honored between temporary and permanent residence, where slaves could be held in the former, but not the latter.
Dred Scott v. Sanford first erased this distinction and now DiogenesLamp wishes to argue it was never, in fact, there.
But it was, recognized & respected by all, including President Washington, regardless of later novel interpretations.