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To: DoodleDawg
So by all means please tell us how an existing Confederate state could outlaw slavery within its borders or how a non-slave state could be created from any territory the Confederacy acquired.

You assert such, but George Washington begs to differ. I've noticed a bunch of people on your side *CLAIM* something that cannot be read from any text on the Constitution.

Clearly slaves must always be returned to their masters. It says so quite explicitly. Clearly their masters have the right to go into non slave states.

Where does a state get the authority to free slaves? Their own laws cannot do it, because this is expressly prohibited by Article IV, section 2.

So what do they do? They *CLAIM* they have the right to ban slavery in their state, but nothing in the Constitution can be actually understood to mean this thing they claim.

Looks like you suspect wrong.

No, I suspected precisely right. I knew you would try to make up some phoney reason why Article IV, Section 2 doesn't mean what it says, and I knew you would try to pretend this is somehow different from what the Confederate constitution did.

Constitution says they must be returned. How then do you free them? How do you override a constitutional requirement that requires they be returned?

Can't be done through state law. Requires a constitutional amendment.

491 posted on 03/27/2019 10:40:16 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp
You assert such, but George Washington begs to differ. I've noticed a bunch of people on your side *CLAIM* something that cannot be read from any text on the Constitution.

Yes, I've noticed that as well.

Clearly slaves must always be returned to their masters. It says so quite explicitly. Clearly their masters have the right to go into non slave states.

Complete nonsense. Article IV says, "A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime." So a slave who illegally runs away from his master in a slave state has committed a crime in that state and must be returned to that state from punishment. Nothing in that could be confused with a state's right to outlaw slavery within it's borders. Nothing in that says a slave owner has the right to take his slaves wherever he wants. And as part of all that prohibiting a slave owner from bringing his property into that state.

Where does a state get the authority to free slaves? Their own laws cannot do it, because this is expressly prohibited by Article IV, section 2.

Article IV Section 2 does not say that.

So what do they do? They *CLAIM* they have the right to ban slavery in their state, but nothing in the Constitution can be actually understood to mean this thing they claim.

Nothing under the Constitution reserves that right to the government so it's a right reserved to the states under the 10th Amendment.

No, I suspected precisely right. I knew you would try to make up some phoney reason why Article IV, Section 2 doesn't mean what it says, and I knew you would try to pretend this is somehow different from what the Confederate constitution did.

LOL! Only if one adopts the same idiotic interpretation of Article IV as you do.

492 posted on 03/27/2019 11:03:45 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
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To: DiogenesLamp; DoodleDawg
DoodleDawg: "So by all means please tell us how an existing Confederate state could outlaw slavery within its borders..."

DiogenesLamp: "You assert such, but George Washington begs to differ....
Where does a state get the authority to free slaves?
Their own laws cannot do it, because this is expressly prohibited by Article IV, section 2. "

I think DiogenesLamp well knows George Washington is a great argument against his own ludicrous constitutional law interpretation.
One key fact about Washington is that he not only wanted to abolish slavery, as President he willingly obeyed Pennsylvania's abolition law by cycling his slaves back to Virginia after the specified time.

Washington, you might remember, was President of the 1787 Constitution Convention in Philadelphia and would know better than anyone just what the Constitution says & means.
George Washington had no problems with Pennsylvania & other states abolishing slavery, he only wished the whole country would too.

Neither did other recognized Constitution experts like James Madison & Alexander Hamilton object to states abolition.
Nor did anyone of that time, even 1860 era Fire Eaters never claimed states' abolition was somehow unconstitutional.

It took a 21st Century genius like DiogenesLamp to "figure out" what nobody back in the day ever realized.

Pretty amazing, isn't it?

507 posted on 03/27/2019 3:52:28 PM PDT by BroJoeK ((a little historical perspective...))
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