[inquest]

Didn't the Constitution say to count a black as 3/5s a person?

No, it counted a slave as 3/5 of a person. That's where Taney went wrong.

[Huck]

The slaves were negroes. Your making a semantic point. Dred Scott was a negro slave owned by someone. The Constitution clearly protects property rights, clearly rates slaves (such as Dred Scott) as less than a full person, and clearly protects the slave owners' right to own slaves. Isn't all that much obvious? Didn't it take an amendment to ban slavery? Nowawadays, we'd just have a court decide that slavery was unconstitutional all along, even though that's clearly untrue.

Isn't it strange that a woman's right to vote required amendment, but her right to abortion was discovered to exist already?

[Theodore R.]

The Constitution does not use the word "slavery" until Amendment 13. In the original body euphemisms are used to refer to "slavery" or "slaves," such as "one bound to service or labor."