Replies

Northern states ignored the Constitution in refusing to return escaped slaves. Those who argued for states rights before the WBTS argued that Northern actions were unconstitutional and that the Constitution should be followed.

In many situations before the war, blacks were legally treated as property. It was legal at that point in time to restrict slaves from having guns, from voting, etc.

After the the war and the 13th and 14th Amendments blacks were given the same rights as whites, in theory at least. In practice, they were still denied rights for a long time.

Today, the 13th and 14th Amendments are accepted as parts of the Constitution. If they are part of the Constitution, they should be followed, Justice O'Connor not withstanding.

What you are probably objecting to are the actions of bigots who didn't follow the law. A lot of these bigots went to church too. Would you discard Christianity simply because some bigot believed it?

BTW, in your post above to 4CJ, the spelling is Sumter and the ship was Star of the West. The ship was loaded with troops to reinforce Fort Sumter in violation of an agreement between Buchanan and South Carolinians.

Thanks for the correction on Star of the West. I worked for a truck company and conflated a truck company name, Western Star with the Star of the West. Oops!

I was refering to post civil war rights. In many cases States will deny rights, or provide special favors that would not be granted by the US as a whole. For example, the California law granting driver's licences to illegal aliens is surely flouting US immigration law. It is common for local police to protect illegals here from federal INS. Why? Why should an illegal not have to have insurance, and not have payroll tax, not have mandatory car insurance, when citizens are in a relatively disadvantageous position? Darned if I know.

I am glad I moved to CA, because, though I pay my child support, the Texas attorney general's office lost 6 months of it. Based on that, I could be put into debtor's prison! Of course then I would not be able to earn money, but after all, it is for the children, right?

Guns Guns Guns. In the Dred Scott decision, Taney said words to the effect that if negroes were citizens, then they could not be denied the right to arm themselves. That was before the 13th and 14th amendment.

Certainly after the 13th amendment, southern laws prohibiting persons of color from arming were surely illegal, though I know of no court cases to cite. Despite these laws, persons of color were well enough armed that George Wallace threatened to burn the negro sections of a city, but he surely could not have carried it out.