Exactly. The Constitution is a legal document, not a moral, ‘living’ one.So, if in the ‘original intent’, slaves were not people, but property, why is the South so demonized for defending the Constitution?
More importantly, why is the North so idolized for breaking it?
A) The Civil War does not occupy a place of parallel significance in Northern culture/mythology/history as it does in the South.
B)The end of slavery and the bloodshed it entailed is seen as a conflict or struggle for America to live up to its best potential in a way that has nothing to do with the Constitution.
LOL! No, it has everything to do with the Constitution. The Federal government used the moral issue of slavery to alter a legal document. Once altered, the document became inverted, and the original intent that the States relinquished only specific and limited powers to the newly created federal government was destroyed, as the Founders never intended the federal government to have direct interaction over any of the People.(The exception, of course, being those People inside the federal enclave.)
That a law limited to such objects as may be authorised by the constitution, would, under the true construction of this clause, be the suprerme law of the land; but a law not limited to those objects, or not made pursuant to the constitution, would not be the supreme law of the land, but an act of usurpation, and consequently void.
St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries
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The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
The Federalist No. 35, James Madison
Once unleashed, the power created to operate in ONLY certain areas began to operate in ALL areas, and became supreme over the very entities that created it....which is contrary to the original intent.
Do you believe the Constitution is a 'living document'?