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Why couldn't Washington out law slavery at the state level?

Posted on 12/03/2017 6:25:07 AM PST by Jonty30

I'm just trying to understand the relationship between the United States and the individual states on the issue of the legality of slavery at the state level. I know after the Civil War, the federal federal law trumped state law, but what about prior to the Civil War? Somebody told me the federal government was always the primary government when federal laws and state laws conflicted.

So, why couldn't the federal government just outlaw slavery at the state level instead of launching a civil war against the states?


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To: stanne

> I tend to compare slavery to abortion. <

That is a very good comparison. In each case, one person has absolute, life-or-death power over another. And in each case, the weaker person isn’t even considered a person.


41 posted on 12/03/2017 7:31:49 AM PST by Leaning Right
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To: Da Coyote

I think, Da Coyote, you suffer from the same ailment as all snowflakes. That is, you feel so enlightened that all 17th and 18th people were stupid. You try to put 21st mores on them, rather than remember that they were a product of their time, not ours.


42 posted on 12/03/2017 7:42:56 AM PST by Big Mack (I love this country.It's the government that scares the crap out of me)
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To: Jonty30

ping


43 posted on 12/03/2017 7:44:14 AM PST by happytrumper
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To: Jonty30

Seems like it was a majority issue. As more and more states joined the Union, the question was always: “is the state going to be a slave state or a free state.”


44 posted on 12/03/2017 7:49:20 AM PST by dhs12345
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To: Jonty30
The major owners of slaves were sort of a cartel like the Chamber of Commerce open borders boys are today. Politicians were bought and paid for, just like today. Slavery was "good for business" the country be damned. We are still paying the price for the owners' "easy life" back in the day.

The issue kept getting kicked down the road, until it could no longer be contained. The results were disaterous and America has paid the price many times over, and we are still paying.

We are facing a similar problem with third-world illegals today. Because "it's good for business". The spineless open borders Senate is akin to the slave merchant politicians of the 19th century — here in the 21st century, country be damned, open broders is "good for business".

45 posted on 12/03/2017 8:01:27 AM PST by Governor Dinwiddie
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To: aynrandfreak

Lincoln, nor any other President has the Constitutional power to pass laws. Only the Legislature, i.e. Congress can make laws and back then Federal Laws only applied to things that the Constitution said the Federal Government was responsible for. Either way the Congress would have had to pass a law banning slavery and the southern democrats would never had allowed that to happen. Remember, in those days it took 67 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster so as long as one person was able to talk for 24 hours and the legislation could not garner 67 votes to break the filibuster that legislation was dead and could not be taken up again until the next Congress was seated. This was how the dems, during Jim Crow, were able to stop the R’s from passing anti-Jim Crow legislation, its also how the dems stopped the R’s from passing the Voting Rights Act, and the Civil Rights act from the end of reconstruction till the 1960’s.


46 posted on 12/03/2017 8:07:00 AM PST by fatman6502002 ((The Team The Team The Team - Bo Schembechler circa 1969))
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To: Original Lurker

It wasn’t until I had family members move to the south that I heard the expression, “The War on Northern Aggression”

http://www.marottaonmoney.com/protective-tariffs-the-primary-cause-of-the-civil-war/


47 posted on 12/03/2017 8:32:20 AM PST by lizma2
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To: Mollypitcher1
Slavery wasn’t the real reason for the war.

Shhh. Don't tell the Southern leaders of the time. They all thought they were acting to protect slavery and God knows what they'd do if you told them they were really rebelling over taxes.

48 posted on 12/03/2017 8:33:30 AM PST by DoodleDawg
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To: lizma2

Hopeless political revisionism.


49 posted on 12/03/2017 8:42:05 AM PST by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: Leaning Right
So true, so very true. But it would have had to be phased out gradually. Something like that, or some other type of compromise. Of course, that was highly unlikely, but I think given the eventual outcome, with foresight, those guys would have figured SOMETHING out....
50 posted on 12/03/2017 9:09:21 AM PST by Paradox (Don't call them mainstream, there is nothing mainstream about the MSM.)
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To: lizma2

Actually we call it “The War OF Northern Aggression”.


51 posted on 12/03/2017 9:34:33 AM PST by chaosagent (Remember, no matter how you slice it, forbidden fruit still tastes the sweetest!)
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To: stanne
I tend to compare slavery to abortion.

I think of abortion as more like the Aztec's practice of human sacrifice. I expect that future generations will look back on it in much the same way.

52 posted on 12/03/2017 9:38:41 AM PST by calenel (The Democratic Party is a Criminal Enterprise. It is the Progressive Mafia.)
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To: calenel

I agree. It’s mass murder. Of innocents. History won’t be kind to it

So far as getting rid of legislatively it’s entrenched. Can’t have birth control without abortion. Birth control has to go. It will go with even a lot more difficulty than it’s appointed queen, Hilary

But it’s against natural law


53 posted on 12/03/2017 9:42:14 AM PST by stanne
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To: Jonty30

State militias in the succeeding states surrounded Federal installations, unarmed them and made them march on foot home. The Federal government wanted their arms, horses,wagons, and other equipment back. The WAR started when an installation refused to leave without their equipment. Not over slaves.


54 posted on 12/03/2017 9:42:59 AM PST by Retgearjammer
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To: Jonty30

Read the text of the Supreme Court Decision Scott V. Sanford (AKA the Dred Scott Decision). It is very explicit in that the Federal Government cannot interfere with Slavery in any state where it is legal. It declares the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional and it mandates the Federal Government enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. It is because of this court decision, that the 13th Amendment was passed. Changing the Constitution was the only way around the Dred Scott Decision.


55 posted on 12/03/2017 11:30:41 AM PST by Bull Snipe
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To: Jonty30

It was a state’s business and there was no federal law against it until the 13th Amendment.


56 posted on 12/03/2017 11:44:47 AM PST by jch10 (I STAND FOR MY COUNTRY, MY FLAG, AND THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist
The reasoning had always been throughout the nations history that the Southern states would not have ratified the Constitution if slavery had been abolished. So in effect the can was kicked down the road. Abortion was not an issue in the eighteenth century. Childbirth was fraught with peril as it was. In a manifestly Christian culture the idea that a woman would kill a child in the womb was simply unheard of.
57 posted on 12/03/2017 12:09:11 PM PST by jmacusa ("Made it Ma, top of the world!'')
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To: Jonty30
Somebody told me the federal government was always the primary government when federal laws and state laws conflicted.
They said wrong. For example, a federal law was passed which purported to make possession of a firearm within 500 ft. of a school illegal. It was overturned in federal court because that was not an issue over which the federal government has authority.

A lot more things than that should be off limits to the federal government, but the Seventeenth Amendment converted the Senators from representatives of the governments of the states to representatives of the people of the states. Consequently, federal judges (confirmed and possibly impeached in the Senate) have no fear of crossing the state governments. And accordingly give them less respect than the Constitution as designed did.


58 posted on 12/03/2017 12:33:50 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (Presses can be 'associated,' or presses can be independent. Demand independent presses.)
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To: Jonty30
Why can't the federal government outlaw cigarette smoking in all the states?

Because that's considered a state responsibility.

Why could the federal government ban alcohol throughout the country?

Because we passed a constitutional amendment allowing them to do so (big mistake).

Okay, so why can the federal government ban marijuana in all the states?

That's a tough one. It started by taxing hemp -- the federal government is allowed to impose excise taxes by the Constitution -- but the tax was replaced by a complete ban.

Today, I think the mandate for marijuana prohibition is the power to regulate interstate commerce, though it's a funny thing: there are a lot of websites dedicated to proving that Congress can't ban pot and not many devoted to the opposite proposition, even though it's the law of the land.

The tricky question is whether current federal bans on drugs could be extended to alcohol and tobacco.

It could happen I guess (so start stockpiling now).

What does all this have to do with slavery?

Congress could have created a voluntary compensated emancipation plan (if there had been enough votes for it), but it couldn't just emancipate the slaves against the will of the masters, because that would mean confiscating property without due process and interfering in a state's internal affairs.

Practically, though, almost all anti-slavery measures were defeated in the years leading up to the Civil War (the exceptions: the ban on international slave trade in 1807 and the ban on slave trading in the District of Columbia in 1850).

The slave states had too much power in Congress.

59 posted on 12/03/2017 1:20:06 PM PST by x
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To: Jonty30

Unless the feds planned on replacing cotton pickers in Mississippi, the crop which had made Mississippi one of the wealthiest states, with federal troops, then some kind of conflict was inevitable.


60 posted on 12/03/2017 1:30:52 PM PST by sparklite2 (I hereby designate the ongoing kerfuffle Diddle-Gate.)
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