Replies

FLT-bird: "The Confederate Constitution adopted on March 11, 9 days after the Corwin Amendment..."

February 7, 1861, secessionists in Montgomery, Alabama
began work on their new Confederate constitution.

February 7, and since for 90% of it, all they did was copy and paste the 1787 US Constitution, we have to believe that most of the serious work was completed in a day or two.
Then, it took a few weeks to discuss and print the final version for adoption on March 11.

Since December 1860, the US Congress had been dealing with many different proposals for "compromise" laws & amendments, hoping to stop further secessions.
On February 28, long after the new Confederate constitution was all but completed, Congressman Corwin proposed an amendment to the US Constitution which matched rather well the Confederate:

CSA Article I Section 9(4) "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

FLT-bird: "...does explicitly use the word "slavery" while the US constitution tap dances around it while referring to it several times.
So what?"

It well illustrates my point, since even in 1861 the US Congress' proposed Corwin Amendment simply repeated a circumlocution from our 1787 Constitution:

proposed Corwin: "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

Our Founders in 1787 well understood that slavery was wrong and disgraceful, should not be mentioned directly in their Constitution and so must be addressed through circumlocutions and euphemisms.
Such squeamishness was completely gone in secessionists' 1861 Montgomery constitution.

FLT-bird: "The US Constitution allowed for the importation of slaves for another 20 years after ratification.
The Confederate Constitution was stricter in its ban on the slave trade."

The 1861 Confederate Constitution allowed for a major exception, which is not found in the 1787 US Constitution.
I would not call that "stricter".

FLT-bird quoting BJK: "Unlike the 1861 Confederate constitution, the US 1787 Constitution does not prohibit outlawing slavery."

FLT-bird: "This only applied to the Confederate Government not to the state governments.
Once again, this was an explicit spelling out of the situation that existed in the US prior to secession.
The US Federal government also had no power provided to it in the US Constitution to force a state to abolish slavery."

So you claim here, but the Corwin Amendment was intended to directly address your point, thus rather strongly implying the absence of such a guarantee in our Founders' original 1787 Constitution -- at least as perceived by Southern slaveholders.

FLT-bird quoting BJK: "Now, to a normal person reading this, it seems pretty clear that the Confederate constitution outlaws abolishing slavery..."

FLT-bird: "Oh that seems far from clear.
The Confederate Constitution applied to the central government, not to the states.
That was the same understanding everyone had about the US Constitution.
It only contained restrictions on the power of the federal government."

There are several more points to be made here:

You are unwilling to draw this same distinction between Federal and state authority regarding the proposed Corwin Amendment, which you insist would have ended abolition forever in the USA.
This suggests the distinction between Federal and state authorities was not so well established in Confederate minds as you'd have us believe here.
But more important, the CSA constitution itself directly restricts states authority over slavery in Article IV -- Sections 2(1) and 3(3), such that, using Crazy Roger Taney's logic, it would be impossible for any Confederate state to pass laws even restricting slavery, much less abolishing it.
This means your implied claims, that the 1861 CSA Constitution was effectively "slavery neutral" for states, are pure undiluted hogwash.

FLT-bird: "Here are some other facts: Republicans introduced the Corwin Amendment to each house of Congress.
Plenty of Republicans voted for the passage of it - which it did pass with the necessary 2/3rds supermajority.
It could not have passed without substantial Republican support."

The key fact which you refuse to acknowledge, is that a majority of Republicans in Congress opposed Corwin, while 100% of Democrats supported it, and Democrat Pres. Buchanan signed it!
That should cause you to pause and reflect, but since it doesn't comply with your Lost Cause propaganda, you simply ignore the most important fact.

FLT-bird on Dred Scott: "The fact remains that this was the majority opinion of the SCOTUS, not just the opinion of Chief Justice Taney."

Sure, and as we've reviewed before, 100% of the seven concurrences (including Crazy Roger himself) were Democrats, and five of those seven were Southern Democrats, while the other two concurrences were Northern Doughfaced Democrats -- Nelson from NY and Grier from PA.
The two dissenters were Republicans -- Curtis from MA and McLean from Ohio.

So Dred Scott's concurrences in no way prove that Crazy Roger was sane, rather they prove that all Democrats were (and many remain) equally insane.

FLT-bird: "The fact also remains that there is no way you can show that no Founding Father would have agreed with the SCOTUS' opinion in Dred Scott.
None of the Founders said anything about the issue - unless you can provide us a quote from each of the Founding Fathers showing otherwise."

Of course we do have many quotes from Founders on related subjects, beginning with this one from Jefferson, Franklin and Adams:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

And there are many similar quotes from virtually every Founder, all of them strongly suggesting that Crazy Roger Taney, and all Southern Democrats, if not all Democrats, had, by 1857 turned into stark raving lunatics.

FLT-bird: "And as the SCOTUS ruled in Dred Scott, the US Federal government could not outlaw slavery in US territories either.
So, any such law was in fact unconstitutional in the US.
You are free to disagree with the SCOTUS but that was the law of the land.
Furthermore, there is no way you can prove that was not the Founding Fathers' intent."

No Northerner accepted Crazy Roger's Dred Scott opinions as legitimate, for one reason, as Lincoln said in 1858:

"We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."

It's a major factor in turning previously Democrat states of Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois to Republicans in 1860.

As for proving our Founders' intentions, I have proved those with one quote from the DOI above, and could add many more similar, if you still don't "get" it.

FLT-bird: "The Confederate Constitution did not treat slavery differently than how the US Constitution did prior to secession."

Only if you agree with the US 1787 Constitution, as grossly distorted by Crazy Roger Taney's 1857 lunatic opinions.

BroJoeK:February 7, and since for 90% of it, all they did was copy and paste the 1787 US Constitution, we have to believe that most of the serious work was completed in a day or two. Then, it took a few weeks to discuss and print the final version for adoption on March 11.

There is no evidence that the drafters of the Corwin Amendment were influenced by the Confederate Constitution. The Corwin Amendment came first after all.

BroJoeK: Since December 1860, the US Congress had been dealing with many different proposals for "compromise" laws & amendments, hoping to stop further secessions. On February 28, long after the new Confederate constitution was all but completed, Congressman Corwin proposed an amendment to the US Constitution which matched rather well the Confederate: CSA Article I Section 9(4) "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

You claim the Confederate Constitution was "all but completed" yet you have no evidence for this. The Corwin Amendment came out first. That article you cite in the Confederate Constitution was just the Corwin Amendment...and as you have said before, the Corwin Amendment was just an explicit spelling out of what already existed. The US Federal government could not bad slavery in a state. Nothing in the US Constitution gave it the power to do so.

BroJoeK: It well illustrates my point, since even in 1861 the US Congress' proposed Corwin Amendment simply repeated a circumlocution from our 1787 Constitution:

The Confederate Constitution was honest in saying "slave/slavery" while the US Constitution provided all the same protections, it just didn't use the word.

BroJoeK:Our Founders in 1787 well understood that slavery was wrong and disgraceful, should not be mentioned directly in their Constitution and so must be addressed through circumlocutions and euphemisms. Such squeamishness was completely gone in secessionists' 1861 Montgomery constitution.

The Founding Fathers were certainly embarrassed by how hypocritical it was in light of the rhetoric in the Declaration of Independence. Yet they were perfectly willing to protect slavery in the US Constitution. The only difference in the Confederate Constitution was it was more honest. They actually said the word "slave". They otherwise protected it no more than the Founding Fathers had in the US Constitution.

BroJoeK: "The 1861 Confederate Constitution allowed for a major exception, which is not found in the 1787 US Constitution. I would not call that "stricter".

What was that exception? OH! I see. It was that slaves could still be traded between those US States that still allowed slavery and Confederate states. In other words, they left the situation exactly as it had been prior to secession. They did not allow the importation of vast quantities of slaves from Africa like the US Constitution allowed for 20 more years. I would call that stricter.

BroJoeK: "So you claim here, but the Corwin Amendment was intended to directly address your point, thus rather strongly implying the absence of such a guarantee in our Founders' original 1787 Constitution -- at least as perceived by Southern slaveholders.

If anyone thought the federal government could force a state to abolish slavery, Lincoln sure answered that one. He expressly said the federal government had no such power and he said it repeatedly.

“There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that— I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them.” Abraham Lincoln

BroJoeK: You are unwilling to draw this same distinction between Federal and state authority regarding the proposed Corwin Amendment, which you insist would have ended abolition forever in the USA. This suggests the distinction between Federal and state authorities was not so well established in Confederate minds as you'd have us believe here.

Again, if that distinction were not so clear, Lincoln certainly cleared that up. See above quote.

BroJoeK: But more important, the CSA constitution itself directly restricts states authority over slavery in Article IV -- Sections 2(1) and 3(3), such that, using Crazy Roger Taney's logic, it would be impossible for any Confederate state to pass laws even restricting slavery, much less abolishing it.

No. This only pertained to a right of transit as existed in the US prior to secession. A Confederate state could not bar transit. It could certainly abolish slavery if it wished. A proposal that states that had already banned slavery not be admitted to the CSA was voted down in Montgomery during the Confederate constitutional convention.

BroJoeK: This means your implied claims, that the 1861 CSA Constitution was effectively "slavery neutral" for states, are pure undiluted hogwash.

No it doesn't. It proves that your claims are pure undiluted hogwash.

BroJoeK; The key fact which you refuse to acknowledge, is that a majority of Republicans in Congress opposed Corwin, while 100% of Democrats supported it, and Democrat Pres. Buchanan signed it! That should cause you to pause and reflect, but since it doesn't comply with your Lost Cause propaganda, you simply ignore the most important fact.

That's great. What you refuse to acknowledge is that Republicans introduced it to each house of Congress. It could only have passed Congress with the necessary 2/3rds supermajority with substantial Republican support, and that the Republican leadership lobbied for state ratification and got several states to in fact ratify it. Of course admitting that would contradict your PC Revisionist propaganda so you refuse to admit those inconvenient facts.

BroJoeK: Sure, and as we've reviewed before, 100% of the seven concurrences (including Crazy Roger himself) were Democrats, and five of those seven were Southern Democrats, while the other two concurrences were Northern Doughfaced Democrats -- Nelson from NY and Grier from PA. The two dissenters were Republicans -- Curtis from MA and McLean from Ohio. So Dred Scott's concurrences in no way prove that Crazy Roger was sane, rather they prove that all Democrats were (and many remain) equally insane.

Your constant namecalling aside, what this decision proves is that it was a majority opinion of the SCOTUS and as such was binding law in the US. Full Stop.

BroJoeK; None of the Founders said anything about the issue - unless you can provide us a quote from each of the Founding Fathers showing otherwise."

You said none would agree to the ruling. It is incumbent upon you to provide evidence - not incumbent upon me to provide counter evidence. You made the claim after all.

BroJoeK: Of course we do have many quotes from Founders on related subjects, beginning with this one from Jefferson, Franklin and Adams: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..." And there are many similar quotes from virtually every Founder, all of them strongly suggesting that Crazy Roger Taney, and all Southern Democrats, if not all Democrats, had, by 1857 turned into stark raving lunatics.

Yet many of those same Founding Fathers were themselves slaveowner and they incorporated protections for slavery in the US Constitution. That strongly suggests they would have agreed with the majority opinion of the SCOTUS in Dred Scott.

BroJoeK: No Northerner accepted Crazy Roger's Dred Scott opinions as legitimate, for one reason, as Lincoln said in 1858: "We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State." It's a major factor in turning previously Democrat states of Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois to Republicans in 1860.

Not all Northerners were Abolitionists. In fact, Abolitionists were a tiny minority prior to the war. Their candidates could not get more than single digit percentages of the vote. I have no doubt many were pissed because "the other team" won that round in the Supreme Court and that burned their asses just like it does today when the SCOTUS comes down on one side or the other of a political issue. I suspect Northerners were far more pissed about that than they were committed to abolition. All the evidence is, they overwhelmingly were not abolitionists.

BroJoeK: As for proving our Founders' intentions, I have proved those with one quote from the DOI above, and could add many more similar, if you still don't "get" it.

And I have proven that many of them were slave owners or as in Franklin's case were perfectly happy to profit from slavery and that they included protections of slavery in the US Constitution....if you still don't "get" it.

BroJoeK: Only if you agree with the US 1787 Constitution, as grossly distorted by Crazy Roger Taney's 1857 lunatic opinions.

No matter how much you splutter and spew venom at Taney, that was the majority opinion of the SCOTUS and as such was the supreme law of the land.