Posted on 09/01/2006 2:25:37 PM PDT by SuzyQ2
But northern states were in effect nullifying the Fugitive Slave Law through legislation. By passing laws that penalized people for obeying a constitutional national law, they were in effect nullifying the national law.
By your logic states can pass laws throwing their citizens in jail if they pay federal income tax. Hey, you may be onto something!
No, they passed laws to prevent any state officer from implementing those laws, and lawyers could be considered officers of the state.
By your logic states can pass laws throwing their citizens in jail if they pay federal income tax. Hey, you may be onto something!
Again, you are ignoring the Prigg v Pennsylvania decision. States cannont enact legislation nullifying Constitutional laws, so they cannot put people in jail for paying federal income tax.
And the SCOTUS also said it was up to the federal government to enforce it, not the states.
Right. Let's look at what else Story says in Prigg v. Pennsylvania:
The clause manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no state law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control or restrain. The slave is not to be discharged from service or labor, in consequence of any state law or regulation. Now certainly, without indulging in any nicety of criticism upon words, it may be fairly said, that any state law or state regulation which interrupts, limits, delays, or postpones the right of the owner of the slave to the immediate possession of the slave, and the immediate command of his service and labor, operates, pro tanto, a discharge of the slave therefrom.
Immediate? The last slave returned to its owner from Massachusetts was in 1854.
Looks like the federal government was falling down on the job then.
Detroit, Monday, April 8. About three hundred fugitive slaves, principally from Illinois, have passed into Canada at this point since Saturday, and large numbers more are reportedly on the way. Many are entirely destitute, and much suffering is anticipated, notwithstanding the efforts made for their relief.
It's interesting to look at the parallels between this and the current illegal immigration situation.
Both cases involve a strong desire for a better life. I don't blame them a bit for wanting that.
I wonder what the Northern attitude would have been had the number of fugitive slaves making it to the North started outnumbering the local population. Hispanics now outnumber white Anglos in the major city where I live, and soon they will be the majority in the city although the arrival of huge masses of Katrina refugees may have slowed that timing somewhat. I fear for the quality of future local and state governments since Hispanics and Katrina refuges both tend to vote Democrat.
This kind of stuff is being done for no reason other than to remind posters that the admin. moderator is accountable to no one. And depending upon which side of the bed they rolled off, they will behave as the hysterical MSM, if they want to...
Don't diminish a great general's accomplishments.
His job wasn't to take cities. It was to annihilate the enemy and bring about a rapid surrender.
But for Patton, General Marshall would likely have never had a "win the hearts and minds of the people" reconstruction plan named after him.
The point I was making was that Patton, who was a brilliant general may not be suited for what we need in Iraq right now.
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