I was pointing out to one of the other posters that his posts indulged in sectionalist prejudice and general condemnation that had more to do with who was being condemned, than with what they actually did.
The flashpoint is the question of whether Southerners had any Fourth/Fifth Amendment property rights in slaves they held, that other people in the United States were bound to respect.
If the other poster doesn't respect those rights, howbeit that he disagrees with them, then my argument proceeds along the line that by denying Southerners their property rights, he's doing the same thing that Chief Justice Taney said about black slaves in Dred Scott, that they possessed no rights that a white man needed respect. Taney justified his judgment on the fact that slaves were bound to service and were property, whose service and bondage were recognized by the Constitution. The other poster has no such legal and intellectual supports, in his abrogation of Southerners' rights just because he doesn't like them.
Absolutely not --whetever the Constitution says. The Declaration of Independence is our founding document and as sure as it declares the existence of our Nation it declares Americans are endowed by their Creator with the right to live our own lives.
And no human, not even ourselves, "owns" our lives, unlike the Libertarian credo; we merely "are" our lives. Any idea that humans are property is without base in the America of the Declaration, no matter where anyone writes it. There is law for America that is even higher than the Constitution. I have just referred to it.
Defending the South about slavery is harldy a winning prospect. Not in the 19th Century. Not in the 20th Century. Not in the 21th Century.
That isn't an epaulet on your shoulders. Knock it off, yourselves.