Posted on 03/14/2009 9:18:11 AM PDT by Pharmboy
I guess all the allusions to Lincoln during the inauguration should've been the tip-off. This is re-Reconstruction.
I fear you have hit the nail on the head, sir.
As soon as mind stops spinning, I’ll give it a try... :-)
BTTT
However,if one accepts the idea of the Confederacy as no longer being covered by the U.S. constitution,then the slaves there could be treated as "spoils of war" or as persons held captive by the enemy and freed by the U.s. federals .
It would follow then the slaveowners of Maryland and any others not in the Confederacy were then the only ones who lost their property when the Constitution was actually amended post civil war.
I believe a lot of people had their property "taken" under the Prohibition Amendment,in that they lost the value of their businesses.Were any of the long time brewery owners compensated for that silly experiment in socialism?
What the Constitution says about your rights and what the government in power choose to do are often wildly different.
And if you subscribe to the original intent,then you may not arbitrarily redefine the words to suit social changes.The discussions of the Constitution must have been heated and precarious for freedom loving men to have compromised with slavery.
I believe "ex post facto" laws are prohibited under the Constitution,yet we have retroactive tax laws,and certain criminals being punished a second time for the same old offense.
One perspective that may be missing from our discussion is that "freedom" was a relatively rare commodity even among whites in the centuries leading up to our Revolution.
People were faced with feudalism, serfdom, indentureship, debtor's prison, apprenticeship, military impressment, lack of nobility, and many other circumstances which placed them in positions hardly different from the system of slavery in the South.
The Constitution contains the phrase, "three fifths of all other Persons" in describing the representation of the States. Already, the notion that any person could be considered "property" was weakening. The laws barring aspects of the slave trade in the U.S. were put in place between 1794 and 1820. That's really not that long after the Revolution and reflects a sizeable population unimpressed by the economic needs of the South.
I note an odd or interesting slant in reading a number of various post-catastrophe novels;most of the writers find a feudalistic society the natural result.This seems to be the case regardless of the writer’s current political leanings’if anything,some of the “social conscious,enviromentaly concerned” authors seem to delight in forcing civilization back to an agarian fuedalism.Oddly they or their main characters never are forced to stay in the menial positions of such society.Always there is a discovery of hidden talents, magic, or parentage that elevates them above the poor eking out an existence.
...the National Rifle Association received ammunition from an unlikely source: the Constitutional Accountability Center, a liberal litigation shop. In a brief filed with the federal appeals court in Chicago, the center not only argued that gun ownership is a constitutional right, it also employed the legal method popularized by such conservative icons as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. That method is originalism, which seeks to apply the law today according to the text's meaning at the time of its adoption. This new twist on originalism is gaining momentum, and its proponents hope it will lead courts to take a more expansive view of individual rights. Although nurtured by liberals -- including some with close ties to the Obama administration -- some conservatives are backing the broader application of the originalist method. In uniting some unusual allies, the Illinois gun-rights case could be the vehicle to correct what scholars on the left and right say is a 136-year-old constitutional wrong.
BUMP & some PINGS
ACK!!! What a mess. In the immortal words of Patrick Henry before he agitated for a won our Bill of Rights, “I smell a rat”. ANY time we find ourselves on the same side of an issue with Rats, better rethink our position - and cover our six.
Redistribution of property? What a stretch.
It's true that slave owners and the courts before the civil war saw slaves as property. It could also be argued that the Emancapapion Proclamation was technically a Property Seizure.
But to argue that the 13th was redistribution, is simply wrong. It made slavery illegal, and the slaves ceased being property. They were not redistributed to anyone.
An activist court finding "punembras" in the constitution in the Dred Scott decision reversed state laws and said certain people considered to be citizens by some states could no longer be citizens.
The 14th Amendment overturned that 'decision.'
That offer was made and rejected.
Direct hit, Jim!
(And if you own stocks, "hold on to your shorts" is exactly right!)
NO cheers, unfortunately.
Somehow all my teachers forgot to mention that.I know of the Missouri compromise but could you point out just when and how the "buyout" offer was made?
If factual,then the Southerners really made a serious misjudgment.
I'm sure there are a lot of things your teachers never mentioned, and yes, the South made some very serious misjudgements.
For information on Compensated Emancipapion proposals click here. http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=35&subjectID=3
I agree with your take. Especially that last paragraph. When it comes to lawyers both right and left try to warp the meaning of the Constitution with sophistic arguments to achieve their ends. The left has probably done it more often and to greater degrees. But sticking to original principles and restoring things on that basis is more sound for the long run than trying to outdo their sophistry with our sophistry.
Believe it or not, constitutional law - as I understand it - is not even a required course in most law schools today. Even when it's taught, most of the left-leaning law professors use it mainly to espouse their own political and social agendas. That's why the astute layman who takes the time and has the interest to study the Constitution on his own knows much more about it than the large majority of lawyers do.
Exactly. The slaves were not "redistributed" to anyone. They were no longer slaves.
I'm not exactly surprised that a leftist would make such an inane statement.
LOL. I agree. They will flip-flop however is necessary to serve the moment.
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