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To: rustbucket
I thought the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

You are correct. The USSC overturned a Wisconsin State Supreme Court ruling stemming from an 1854 case against a newspaper editor charged with assisting a runaway slave. (Ableman v. Booth 1859). Booth was charged by the Federal slave catcher Abelman with inciting a mob to release the former slave from jail. Booth protested his innocence stating that he had merely advocated peaceful protest of the capture.

The Booth case seems to have been a precedent setting test of the Fugitive Slave Act, which was a political artifice designed to enable California to enter the Union as a free State. The particulars of the case were also troublesome, if all Booth did was editorialize against the capture. The Fugitive Slave Act represented a vast and unnecessary Federal intrusion into the sovereignty of States. How ironic that it was foisted upon the country by the same region which supposedly held State sovereignty in such high regard. I guess its ok to be a federalist as long as its the other guys ox getting gored huh?

362 posted on 12/16/2005 8:57:12 AM PST by mac_truck (Aide toi et dieu l’aidera)
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To: mac_truck
How ironic that it was foisted upon the country by the same region which supposedly held State sovereignty in such high regard.

Some states are "righter" than others, LOL.

363 posted on 12/16/2005 6:38:56 PM PST by rustbucket
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