-=> Quoting Dennis Martin to Jim Casto <=-
 JC>  Uh, you want to be a little more specific as to where in the 
Constitution 
 JC>  find that slavery was ever _legal_ under U.S. Constitutional law? The 
firs
 JC>  time I even _find_ the word "slavery" is in the Thirteenth Amendment 
that
 JC>  specifically states that slavery is _illegal_.
 JC>  
 JC>  Perhaps it was considered by some to be "legal" simply because there 
was N
 JC>  federal law saying that it was _illegal_.
 DM> Jim, Article IV, Sec. 2 provides some insight into the leagality of
 DM> slavery.   Paragraph two states: 
 DM> "No person held ins ervice or labout in one state under the laws
 DM> thereof,  escaping into another, shall be in consequence of anytlaw or
 DM> reguliation  therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but
 DM> shall be delivered up  on claim of the party to whome such service or
 DM> labour may be due.   
 DM> (Please excuse the typos, but I was typing while reading my
 DM> encyclopedia.   
 DM> This is printed in my 1952 edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica.  
 That Constitutional statement could apply to indentured servants or 
nvicts.
 DM> The term "held in service or labour" means that a person is no
 DM> voluntarily in  service, (held).  This may apply to criminals fleeing
 DM> the state, but the law  is written in such a way that it's unclear as
 DM> to whether the "party to whom  such service or labour" is a legal
 DM> jurisdiction, (as in an escaped prisoner)  or a wealthy landowner. 
 DM> This law is what made the Underground Subway into  Canada necessary. 
 DM> Otherwise, and escaped slave could have been protected by  escaping
 DM> into a nearby "free state." 
 Again, you make _my_ point when you say the "law is unclear". BTW, if you
 do some careful research other than encyclopedias, I think you might find
 that the Underground Railroad has been overrated. Shenkman covers this myth
 pretty well in "Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History".
 DM> Also, Article I, Sec. 9 covers the "migration or importation" question
 DM> quite  extensively.  By importation, don't they mean "for slavery"? 
 DM> This too, from  the Encyclopedia Brittanica.  You may have to find an
 DM> old one, as the new ones may have been edited, especially those on
 DM> disk.   
 DM> The use of terms such as slave and slavery are not used, but the
 DM> similer, more "PC" terms are easy to understand.
 Note that Article 1, Section 9 reads: "The Migration or Importation of
 such Persons as the _States_ now exisitng shall think proper to admit,
 shall _not_ be prohibited by the _Congress_ prior to the Year one
 thousand eight hundred and eight..." 
 (emphasis is mine)
 So _who_ could be Migrated or Imported whether it be slave, indentured
 servant, convict, indigent person, etc. was decided by the _state_ NOT
 the federal government.
 You and Sondra have pretty much stated the pro-slavery arguments that
 were made in the 1830-50s forty to fifty years after the Constitution was
 written. 
 
 DM> I'm not a supporter of slavery, just one who's a stickler for accuracy
 DM> when  discussing this dark episode of this nation's history.
 So, in the interest of "accuracy", let me reiterate the original statement.
 The _original_ statement made in this echo was that "slavery was
 Constitutional". That implies _Federal_ law. _Not_ state law. I didn't say
 that slavery was (or was not) legal (or illegal) in some states. At the time
 of the Constitutional Convention(s) in some states it was and in some it
 wasn't. And it might depend on the exact moment in time. For example, the
 importation of blacks was declared illegal in Georgia in 1735. Within
 fifteen years, the practice was declared legal again.
 
 The point _I_ am _trying_ to make is that at the time of the Constitutional
 Conventions, the authors of the _Constitution_ were creating a _Federal_
 document, not a _state_ document. They were _clearly_ trying to keep the
 rights of the states to make their own laws _separate_ from the federal law.
 The authors of the Constitution were "operating" under the theory of 
natural
 law" (as opposed to "positive law") as far as the _federal_ government was
 concerned.
 To clarify "natural" and "positive" law.
 " LAW.
 All the rules requiring or prohibiting certain actions are known as law.
 In the most general sense, there are two kinds of law _natural_ law and
 _positive_ law. _Natural_ law has been recognized since the ancient world to
 be a general body of rules of right conduct and justice common to all
 mankind. This concept grew from the observation of the operation of the
 laws of nature and their uniformity. _Positive_ law, on the other hand,
 consists of regulations formulated by the heads of a country or society.
 In many cases, _natural_ laws have been written into _positive_ laws by
 governments. The prohibition against killing, for example, is common to
 virtually all of mankind, and most nations have enacted laws against it."
 Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia.
 Copyright 1994, 1995 Compton's NewMedia, Inc.
 The emphasis is mine. Notice that nowhere in the Constitution is "killing"
 (the crime of murder) _specifically_ made illegal. I suspect, however, that
 at the time of the Constitution, several of the colonies/states had laws
 related to "murder". Therefore, at the federal level it was "natural" law,
 at the colonial/state level, "positive" law.
-=-=-=-=-
 And to quote an abolitionist point of view from the pre-Civil War era:
 From: "Not So!" by Paul F. Boller, Jr. 
 "The word 'slave' he [Frederick Douglass] noted, appeared nowhere in the
 _Constitution_, and if the document were to fall from the sky onto a land
 unfamiliar with slavery, the people there would never dream there was
 anything in it _sanctioning_ human bondage. He also pointed out that there
 were numerous phrases in the Constitution which were clearly _incompatible_
 with slavery." 
 (The [] and emphasis is mine.)
 The text by Boller goes on to cite the Preamble and several clauses Douglass
 referred to such as 'prohibition of bills of attainder', 'trial by jury',
 'right of habeas corpus', 'due process of law', 'rights of security', etc.
 And also from: "Not So!"
 
 "The Constitution , in short, was a charter of freedom, not a slaveholder's
 document."
 So you and Sondra can argue the pro-slavery position if you like (I am
 fully aware that neither of you are advocates of slavery) but I guess I
 have to take the abolitionist viewpoint that slavery was _neither_ legal
 OR illegal under the _federal_ Constitution until the passage and
 ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. At that time (1865) it had
 apparently become clear to the _federal_ government that the states were
 NOT able to adequately resolve this issue at the _state_ level, so a
 _Constitutional_ amendment was required.
 
 Hence, another of the Civil War issues: "state's rights".
 Note that to this day, slavery is one of the few "natural" laws that the
 U.S. government has seen fit to turn into a "positive" law at the federal
 level. There is _still_ NO _federal_ _Constitutional_ law _specifically_
 addressing "murder", for example.
 
 So, were the authors of the Constitution _deliberately_ avoiding the issue
 of slavery? Were they _deliberately_ avoiding the issue of other "natural"
 laws? Was there some sort of a compromise made to get the Constitution
 approved at all? IF the authors of the Constitution HAD put a SPECIFIC
 Article in the Constitution outlawing slavery from the very beginning would
 it have been ratified? (It required nine states to ratify.) Note that
 according to "The World Almanac" the basis for the Bill of Rights was based
 on the Declaration of Rights of Virginia, written by George Mason in 1776.
 "Mason, a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention, did not sign
 the Constitution and opposed its ratification on the grounds that it did
 not sufficiently oppose slavery or safeguard individual rights."
 quote from "The World Almanac - 1997"
 It's been interesting in my U.S. Constitution class to actually read some
 of the opinions set down by the Supreme Court and just _exactly_ what was
 being argued. We had one just the other day about a contraceptive law in 
 Connecticut from the 1960s. The case, when it got to the Supreme Court, was
 NOT whether the accused were guilty or innocent. It was about the 
onnecticut
 law. And what was the issue? "Did it violate 'Constitutionally' protected
 privacy?" You would probably be amazed at the conclusions drawn by some of
 those learned men on the Supreme Court. (I like Justice Stewart's comment
 that the CT law was "an uncommonly silly law", but that doesn't make it 
 un-Constitutional. )
 But it is always clear in class as to what is _Constitutionally_ being
 argued and what the _actual_ crime might have been.
 BTW, in the CT case, the conviction _was_ reversed by the Supreme Court, but
 the CT law remained in effect as far as I know and it could still be in
 effect for all I know. As the Justices basically said... it's up to the 
 _state_ to change a _state_ law.
 Jim
--- Blue Wave v2.12
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