Posted on 02/01/2017 4:52:50 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Northerners have been taking note of that since the Compromise of 1850 and Fugitive Slave Act.
Of course. The North won so they were right. The North was right so they won. The South lost so they were wrong. The South was wrong so they lost. That's the usual line. I haven't found it very common to actually look at the constitutional issues without bias in a discussion.
This thread should be interesting in seeing these details unfold.
What is the required number of abuses to reach independence?
God forbid that anyone should be lawyerly regarding the law.
Whatever way they "understood it" is irrelevant. Courts have ruled over and over again that "intent" is less relevant than the text of a law. Who can say what was the intent of the ratifying conventions in Virginia or South Carolina when they approved the law?
Perhaps they understood it to mean exactly what it says; That no state law can interfere with returning a laborer to the person to whom the labor is due in accordance with the laws of his home state.
Perhaps you are the one trying to do the clever lawyering by asserting a meaning that cannot be discerned from the text itself? You put conditions on the law that are not apparent from the text of the law.
Not really a good-faith question is it? You get the point. How many grievances of unconstitutional federal acts did the South list?
Well, see there, now you've provoked a debate as to what constitutes "permanently." Obviously "six months" is not permanently, as Washington so shrewdly exploited.
But where in article IV do you see a time limit? I don't see a time limit in there. It seems to me like you are doing the "living constitution" thing where it means whatever you want it to mean instead of what the plain text says.
Your argument wasn't a good faith argument. You asserted that 27 grievances was adequate justification. My argument is that grievances are completely irrelevant to the point. My further argument is "who gets to decide what grievances are "intolerable"?
Are not "grievances" in the eye of the beholder? Isn't it the sufferer who decides when they've had enough, not the tormenter?
King George III would have said we had no legitimate grievances.
I want to know how you decide which grievances are valid, and how many valid grievances it takes to reach the threshold necessary for independence.
You have put a number and a scale on grievances, so I'm just asking you to clarify both the number and the scale, so we can discuss this thing with objectivity.
My argument is that it is entirely up to the people who feel aggrieved, not the people whom they feel is oppressing them.
I am expressing what I understand to be the "Natural Law right of self determination."
Wrong.
I am awestruck by the sheer intellectual brilliance of your rebuttal.
Well, I think the Founders, as well as I, would disagree with you.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes...To prove [Tyranny over these States], let Facts be submitted to a candid world. D of I.
According to you, this is a waste of time and effort. But not according to the Founders with whom I agree.
And for what it's worth, I also think the founders agree with me.
DL:"If the slaveowner has a right to go to a different state, and if he has a right to take his "property" with him, than like it or not, the state is obligated to abide by the requirements specified in the Federal Charter. They don't get to modify it with conditions."
This statement is just, without qualifiers or conditions, wrong.
You repeatedly mention that Art IV, sec2, clause 3 does not mention conditions and qualifiers. GW was acutely aware of these "unmentioned " conditions and qualifiers. That is because his Attorney General (the very first US Attorney General) made the mistake of "not understanding" the laws regarding a slave owner bringing his slaves into the State of Pennsylvania. His slaves were taken from him by the State due to the very qualifiers and conditions that are not expressed in Art IV Sec 2 Clause 3. It was not by any particular shrewdness on the part of GW that he used the loophole. He was strongly advised by his good friend the US Attorney General to not temp fate and make the same mistake of losing his slaves.
Believe me, I would have been first in line to ROTFLMAO to watch you, back in 1790 march into Pennsylvania with your slaves and declare you were taking up permanent residence because you were protected by the Federal Charter. (First off, the good citizens of Pennsylvania would have asked you, "what the h*ll is a "Federal Charter".)
Sorry, FRiend, but respect for Founders' Original Intent is what marks the difference between Free Republic-type conservatives and liberal/progressive activists.
If you come down on the liberal/progressive side of that then you have no business pretending to be conservative.
Respect for Founders' Original Intent is what made the late Justice Antonin Scalia a model for what we expect from President Trumps' nominee to replace him, Neil Gorsuch.
And your failure to grasp the significance of Original Intent, DiogenesLamp, could be what's been driving you politically insane.
The reason is simple & obvious: over time, words taken out of context can be twisted to mean just about anything, and that describes DiogenesLamp's interpretations of both Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.
Once you cast-off the anchor of Original Intent, then your boat-load of interpretations can be blown wherever the winds of current fashion may take them.
In this example, Founders' Original Intent is utterly clear and contrary to the generations-later interpretations of Chief Justice Taney or our own DiogenesLamp.
DiogenesLamp: "Perhaps they understood it to mean exactly what it says;
That no state law can interfere with returning a laborer to the person to whom the labor is due in accordance with the laws of his home state."
But the Constitution's word you keep avoiding, like Count Dracula shrinking from the Cross, is "escaping".
The Constitution here clearly refers to Fugitive Slaves, not to those taken by their "owners" into free states.
This interpretation was clearly understood at the time and no Founder challenged states-rights to abolish slavery within their own borders.
Washington obeyed the abolition laws of Pennsylvania, pure & simple.
Nothing in the new Constitution abrogated such laws and Founder Washington never challenged them.
So Original Intent is certain in this case.
Further, the time periods of Dred Scott were most of the 1830s decade, when he was taken by his "owner" into the free state or territory of Illinois and Wisconsin.
Clearly that was not "temporary" and would have been recognized by Southern courts at the time.
DiogenesLamp: "But where in article IV do you see a time limit?
I don't see a time limit in there.
It seems to me like you are doing the "living constitution" thing where it means whatever you want it to mean instead of what the plain text says."
Well... as our designated "Devil's Advocate" you certainly provide devilishly clever obfuscations & misdirections.
Of course there's no time limit in the Constitution of Fugitive Slaves, but it does not discuss or restrict laws about slaves taken by their "owners" into free-states.
That is Original Intent, not your progressive/liberal "living constitution" interpretations.
Latest exchange:
Jim0216: How many grievances of unconstitutional federal acts did the South list?
DL answer: My argument is that it [secession] is entirely up to the people who feel aggrieved, not the people whom they feel is oppressing them.
Jim0216 reply:
- - Well, I think the Founders, as well as I, would disagree with you.
- - Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes...To prove [Tyranny over these States], let Facts be submitted to a candid world. Declaration of Independence.
- - According to you, this is a waste of time and effort. But not according to the Founders with whom I agree.
DL answer: I don't think you are attempting to address my point in an objective manner. And for what it's worth, I also think the founders agree with me.
Basically a non-sequitur answer void of reason. I think I'm done. Have a good day DL.
The problem with you is as Reagan said of his opposition. It is not that you are ignorant it's that you "know so much which isn't so. "
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court (Court of Errors and Appeals) ruled in 1802 that Slavery was permissible by the Pennsylvania constitution. This was a Unanimous decision.
Since George Washington died in 1799, I don't think his slaves were in any jeopardy of being taken away from him. Slavery persisted in Pennsylvania until at least 1840 when the census registered "64" slaves living in the state.
That George Washington didn't want to antagonize people, even though he had a legal right to do so if he wished, is a testament to the sort of character he possessed. He was trying to bring the nation together rather than rend it with needless animosities.
And that is exactly how I feel about you. You refuse to address the central issue which I have clearly identified, (Natural Law rights) preferring to instead throw out this word cloud of irrelevant points that do not speak to foundational principles involved. You have made no attempt to address the "Natural Law" foundation of the Declaration, preferring instead to simply say "Because they did it this way, this is the only valid way to do it." (appeal to common practice fallacy.)
When I point out that the document itself explains that the listing of "grievances" was simply a courtesy, (...a decent respect to the opinions of mankind...) and not a necessity, you patently ignore that point, and continue on as if you weren't shown to be wrong by the clear text of the document. You then go on to say the founders agree with you, which is nothing more than an unsupported assertion, and you become incensed when I repeat your own claim back at you.
It is clear that you simply want to believe what you want to believe, and you find it annoying when people present facts that contradict your preferred world view.
I was mistaken in my assessment of you. I took you for something other than a knee jerk thinker who follows the herd. I thought you had the capability of being objective and independent, regardless of what is popular.
It has become apparent to me that reassessing your assumptions is simply too tedious of a task with which to bother you. I now wish I hadn't wasted my time.
I shall now proceed to look for someone who wishes to have an actual debate rather than participate in an echo chamber.
Look DL, the secession thing is not codified, it is a matter of opinion. I couldn’t care less if you agree with me that the South was not justified in seceding. But I backed my assertion that the Founders would disagree with your open-ended right to secede for any reason at any time. YOU have ignored the documented support I provided.
Couldn’t care less.
Bye.
You did not. What galls me even more is that you think you did. What I saw was utter crap arguments, and which at the time I was too polite to point this out.
I happen to have been researching the Declaration of Independence for several years now. I understand it's philosophical roots. I understand how the various philosophers of "Natural Law" read and cited by the founders came to be the inspiration for the document.
The Dispute between the Founders and the King of England was a dispute regarding which "Natural Law" path was correct. The "rule by divine right" was the "Natural Law" of Kings, and the rule by the will of the people was something new and different which had just came into it's own among the philosophical men of that era. It was a new principle of natural law, which rested upon the works of Rutherford, Burlamaqui, Grotius, Puffendorf, Wolf, & Vattel.
This idea that a people could leave a King was the assertion that men had a right to rule themselves, and not because the King was mean to them, but because they had a natural law right to do so! (This is why I say grievances are completely irrelevant.)
Your arguments squarely contradict the philosophical foundation of the Declaration. You would have us believe that some offense must occur before men have a right to rule themselves. The presumption of this argument is that if the King doesn't offend them, then they must remain his subjects.
This is absolutely wrong. People may rule themselves because they want to do so. No other reason is necessary. The founders listed reasons in an effort to curry support among the English Lords and Intellectuals of the period, and among the State of Europe. Not because they felt it was a requirement to gain independence. They had a right to independence regardless.
You just haven't delved into the philosophical background that created the foundation upon which the Declaration is based.
And how do you construe To prove [Tyranny over these States], let Facts be submitted to a candid world. D of I.
HD: If your words actually had any meaning behind them, you'd have stopped right there.
DL: I consider you an obsessive child who shoots of her mouth when she should shut up and listen to the grown ups. The problem with you is as Reagan said of his opposition. It is not that you are ignorant it's that you "know so much which isn't so. "
HD: I am awestruck by the sheer intellectual brilliance of your rebuttal. You are a bloviating pigeon on a chessboard. You are a snowflake melting. You duck and dodge. You play with words to twist and distort them until they bend to your preconceived notions. I predict that if you continue to play with semantics the way you do that you will end up playing with yourself.
DL: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court (Court of Errors and Appeals) ruled in 1802 that Slavery was permissible by the Pennsylvania constitution. This was a Unanimous decision.
HD: Here you are being most disingenuous. The Court of Errors And Appeals merely argued that the Pennsylvania State Constitution did not prohibit slavery. That is the extent of the argument. In historical perspective, the abolitionists were seeking an immediate end to slavery in Pennsylvania and thought to find an interpretation of their state constitution that might bring that about. The unanimous decision in this so called "mockery of justice" (so called by the piece you cite) had zero effect on The Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, passed by the Pennsylvania legislature on 1 March 1780. Your statement is reduced to pedantry (dust). Likewise, your link, http://slavenorth.com/pennsylvania.html, should have been read and understood by you in its entirety before you shared it. From the link:
The act that abolished slavery in Pennsylvania freed no slaves outright, and relics of slavery may have lingered in the state almost until the Civil War. There were 795 slaves in Pennsylvania in 1810, 211 in 1820, 403 or 386 (the count was disputed) in 1830, and 64 in 1840, the last year census worksheets in the northern states included a line for "slaves." The definition of slavery seems to have blurred in the later counts. The two "slaves" counted in 1840 in Lancaster County turned out to have been freed years before, though they were still living on the properties of their former masters.
The abolition bill was made more restrictive during the debates over it -- it originally freed daughters of slave women at 18, sons at 21. By the time it passed, it was upped to a flat 28. That meant it was possible for a Pennsylvania slave's daughter born in February 1780 to live her life in bondage, and if she had a child at 40, the child would remain a slave until 1848. There's no record of this happening, but the "emancipation" law allowed it."
DL: Since George Washington died in 1799, I don't think his slaves were in any jeopardy of being taken away from him.
HD: Please see my post #96 for a complete explanation and see why your thinking is wrong here.
DL:Slavery persisted in Pennsylvania until at least 1840 when the census registered "64" slaves living in the state.
HD: Here you cherry pick to misrepresent the state of affairs in Pennsylvania. Please see your own link for full context.
DL: That George Washington didn't want to antagonize people, even though he had a legal right to do so if he wished, is a testament to the sort of character he possessed. He was trying to bring the nation together rather than rend it with needless animosities.
HD: Who is sounding like an obsessed little girl now?
Please read the following so that you will have a little better understanding of what you are talking about. https://archive.org/stream/jstor-20085586/20085586#page/n1/mode/1up
And so ends our discussion.
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