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To: BroJoeK
Before Dred Scot no slave-holder and no slave-state considered it a "right" to take slaves into free-states permanently without freeing them.

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.

145 posted on 02/20/2017 5:40:27 PM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp; Jim 0216; HandyDandy
DiogenesLamp: "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. "

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.

153 posted on 02/21/2017 7:39:08 AM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
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