Prepare to be bombarded with excremental nonsense about how the United States Constitution “enshrined” the practice and legitimacy of slavery.
> nonsense about how the United States Constitution “enshrined” the practice and legitimacy of slavery <
The Constitution certainly did not enshrine slavery. There is no clause anywhere in the Constitution explicitly protecting the practice.
But I must gently disagree with you in that, as I see it, the Constitution legitimized slavery by allowing slaves to be counted as 3/5 of a person . True, the word “slave” is not mentioned. But the phrase “all other people” can only refer to slaves, and was it meant to refer to slaves.
By the way, some liberals take the above as an excuse to vilify the Founders, and to vilify the Constitution itself. I reject the approach completely. A man can only be judged in the context of his times.
Here’s the 3/5 clause:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
Not long at all.
For one day - the anniversary of our nation's birth - could you please constrain your appetite for scatological ideation.
“Prepare to be bombarded with . . . nonsense about how the United States Constitution “enshrined” the practice and legitimacy of slavery.”
That is an interesting comment. “Enshrined” is another word for “included.”
You should be aware that there are those on this board that believe that slavery was included in the United States constitution through the use of euphemisms. The word “euphemism” is another word for “substitute.”
For example, in post 29 one expert that I respect wrote: “George Orwell would be proud of the torturous machinations required to find a suitable euphemism because they were too timid to say the word aloud: Slavery.”
So, critic answers critic.
Absolutely. I just saw some writing from this one guy who thought that. I'm glad you are here to set him straight. This is what he wrote.
There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
No person held to service or labor 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 labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution—to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up" their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority, but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should anyone in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?
Again: In any law upon this subject ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not in any case surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"?
He goes on and on with more of the same sort of drivel about the constitution and the law protecting slavery, but you know more about this stuff than he does i'm sure.