Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: bvw
Then you’ll have to explain what you mean carefully and simply because I am so dang stupid.

I don't think you're stupid at all.

What details about the Fugitive Slave Laws did my extract from Wikipedia get wrong in your esteemed, knowing and wise opinion?

It really isn't a matter of opinion. The full text of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is readily available and it's only about three pages long.

Wikipedia says "the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 made any Federal marshal or other official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave liable to a fine of $1,000" and this is simply not correct.

According to the actual law as written, the fine applies solely to federal marshals and deputy federal marshals, not to "any . . . other official" - which would imply that the Act imposed this obligation on state as well as federal officials, which it carefully avoided doing specifically because of the constitutional issues involved.

in what ways did I display my utter mental deficiency in the form of confusions as to what is law and how it works now.

Confusion and "utter mental deficiency" are two different things. Don't conflate them.

I think you are confused because you made reference to "precedent law" (by which I think you may mean "legal precedent" which is not in itself law) and use this to assert that the Fugitive Slave Act is still operative federal law.

Since the Act deals solely and specifically with property claims in human beings, and since the Constitution has since been amended to outlaw the holding of any property in human beings, the Act is no longer operative law.

No amount of legal precedent can make any law operative, and even less so if that law has been superseded by a constitutional amendment.

Legal precedents are not themselves laws and cannot be by their very nature.

35 posted on 11/18/2010 7:55:37 AM PST by wideawake
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies ]


To: wideawake
The 13th says this:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
It does NOT refer to property, nor to person, except indirectly through the understandings of what slavery, servitude and party means. Nor does it revoke the precedents in law (aka "legal precedent") established by which men may be treated like property.
39 posted on 11/18/2010 8:10:13 AM PST by bvw
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson