[joebuck]

"Suppose the state decides that all men named Joe can be owned by somebody else and must do only what they're told. And any Joe leaving his owner's residence without said owner's permission would be considered a runaway that could legally be apprehended up to and incuding the use of deadly force?"

Then another State could (and probably would) decide that Joe can come to their state and they will not recognise the other state's law because it is unconstitutional. Further, this other state could prosecute anyone from the repressive state who came into its jurisdiction to enforce this unconstitutional law. If the Fed enacts a law such as you suggest then Joe is just screwed. I don't see how you can argue that the Federal govt. doesn't have much more power to abuse people than states do. That was the entire concept the founding fathers relied on when they came up with the concept of Federalism and limited Federal govt.

[Alas Babylon!]

Joe has to make it to another state before he can have the laws of that state supersede the laws that made him a felon and outlaw in his own state. When the bloodhounds are hot on his scent and the posse close behind them, how's Joe supposed to get to the state where he is legally free? It's legal for his pursuers to kill him if need be. His unalienable rights are being assaulted then and there.

The Dred Scott decision, laid down by the Supreme Court before the Civil War, stated that a fugitive slave (from a slave state) now residing in a free state that recognized Scott as free, that this law was null and void and only the law of the state Scott fled would be recognized--and enforced--throughout the entire Union of states. The Dred Scott decision was the first comprehensive overreach of the federal government against the states.