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To: Mojave
One interesting part of the Dred Scott decision, is that the Supreme Court made explicit what the rights of US citizens were, in its reasoning on why it was absurd to assume those rights applied to Blacks. See the part below, especially the red highlighted part:
More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State
Right here we have explicit language in a Supreme Court decision, that the right of free citizens in the United States includes the right " to keep and carry arms wherever they went"
127 posted on 06/04/2009 9:19:10 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money -- Thatcher)
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To: PapaBear3625
"...its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.

It's "own citizens" being the citizens of the state in question, protected by their state constitutions.

130 posted on 06/04/2009 9:22:00 AM PDT by Mojave (Don't blame me. I voted for McClintock.)
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To: PapaBear3625
Right here we have explicit language in a Supreme Court decision, that the right of free citizens in the United States includes the right " to keep and carry arms wherever they went"

Sanity has entered the argument, what ever shall we do now?


411 posted on 06/04/2009 3:51:04 PM PDT by itsahoot (Each generation takes to excess, what the previous generation accepted in moderation.)
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