Federalism and state's rights

[Tyrannical]

US Federalism died when through Judicial fiat the bill of rights was applied to the States, something that was never intended. It's application almost totally gutted the protections State's enjoyed from Federal encroachment guaranteed by the tenth amendment that separated Federal and State power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporat ... _of_Rights

The bill of rights was purposely incorporated against the states in the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th amendment. The Supreme Court has just been slow in recognizing the clause.

Yes, it's amazing how it takes decades after all the original authors have died to recognize what they really meant when they wrote it

[Seth]

You're wrong Seth. The Bill of Rights were limits placed on the Federal Government PERIOD. The various State Constitutions placed limits on State and local governments. It was a blatant power gran by the Federal judiciary

Some people do feel that way. I don't, and the Civil War pretty much resolved that ambiguity forever. The reason slavery persisted until then was that at the formation of the Union, the slave-holding states would not join the Union if slavery was flatly outlawed in the Constitution. The "Three-fifths" compromise, which counted slaves as 3/5ths of a "person" was not put in place as a racist declaration that black slaves were not full humans, it was a compromise put in place in order to keep the slave-holding states from counting slaves as full "persons" for the purposes of allocating seats in the House of Representatives. The intent was to LIMIT the political power of the slave-holding states in Congress, and the reason for doing so was that it was always hoped that slavery could be abolished eventually, but an attempt to do so at the founding would result in the slave-holding states refusing to ratify the Constitution, which would have ended up with the United States becoming two separate and distinct nations.

One must remember that slavery in the United States did not begin with the citizens of the United States, it began more than a hundred years earlier and was begun by the English aristocracy with the consent of the English King(s).

Slaves were first brought to Virginia to work in the tobacco plantations because English landowners could not get bond-servants to stay on the job in the brutal conditions of the swampland that is Virginia, which was rife with diseases like malaria, and where working in the fields in the heat and humidity simply was not to the taste of the English, Irish and Scottish bond-servants who were sent to America to work off debts, after which they would ostensibly become freemen.

In the wilds of America in the 15 and 1600s, bond-servants could simply abscond and disappear into the wild and make their own way and there was little the plantation owners could do about it. And those who stuck it out through their bond left for more salubrious climes the instant their bonds were paid off and could not be persuaded to stay, so English plantation owners started importing slaves, whom they could forcibly keep "down on the farm" forever to provide a captive workforce.

So blaming the United States for slavery in America is simply ignorant. The United States worked to end slavery as quickly as it could and ended up fighting a war with slave-holders to enforce that intent...slavery that was begun and ratified by the English.

[Seth]

US Federalism died when through Judicial fiat the bill of rights was applied to the States, something that was never intended. It's application almost totally gutted the protections State's enjoyed from Federal encroachment guaranteed by the tenth amendment that separated Federal and State power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporat ... _of_Rights

The bill of rights was purposely incorporated against the states in the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th amendment. The Supreme Court has just been slow in recognizing the clause.

Yes, it's amazing how it takes decades after all the original authors have died to recognize what they really meant when they wrote it

Actually, it was the intent of most of the Founders to eventually eliminate slavery from the beginning, but in order to get the Constitution ratified, they had to compromise and allow slave-holders to continue to hold slaves while working on a peaceful political solution to abolish it. When that attempt failed, Lincoln went to war with the slave-states and the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 as part of the Reconstruction to make sure that slavery never again would be lawful in the United States.

The criticism that the United States didn't immediately eliminate slavery at its formation is merely a red herring argument that fails to take into account the political necessities of creating a union of the states, and it utterly ignores the actual origin of slavery in America, which was begun and perpetrated by Englishmen.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

The criticism that the United States didn't immediately eliminate slavery at its formation is merely a red herring argument that fails to take into account the political necessities of creating a union of the states, and it utterly ignores the actual origin of slavery in America, which was begun and perpetrated by Englishmen.

In the absolute hey-day of slavery in the south, Britain had outlawed slavery, and the Royal Navy was prosecuting a determined campaign to capture slave ships bound to the south from Africa.

Spurred onwards by the payment of head money to successful naval vessels, akin to the prize money of the Napoleonic war era...

[Brian Peacock]

That's right. Shifting the responsibility for the systematic economic exploitation Aftrican's in the New World to the English can only take one so far. The English had a part to play, but they did not found a whole economic and social system on person theft and transportation - instead the economic driver of the English industrial revolution, both at hope and in The Empire, was the exploitation of the indigenous poor!

[piscator]

Seth wrote:

The criticism that the United States didn't immediately eliminate slavery at its formation is merely a red herring argument that fails to take into account the political necessities of creating a union of the states, and it utterly ignores the actual origin of slavery in America, which was begun and perpetrated by Englishmen.

In the absolute hey-day of slavery in the south, Britain had outlawed slavery, and the Royal Navy was prosecuting a determined campaign to capture slave ships bound to the south from Africa.

Spurred onwards by the payment of head money to successful naval vessels, akin to the prize money of the Napoleonic war era...

Ummm...The US banned the import of slaves in 1807, the first year it legally could under Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution. Britain didn't outlaw slavery until 1833 (and that act expressly excluded India and Ceylon). And so, by simple arithmetic, we see that the noble Britons weren't interdicting much of the American South's slave trade, and what they did stop was against American law as well.
Moreover, the Royal Navy was apparently at a loss to even locate most of the infamous "Cape Castles", fortified ports where newly-captured slaves were yarded while awaiting their Middle Passage to the New World (Brazil, Cuba, Hati, etc), for another 40 years after the Slavery Abolition Act.

[Blind groper]

1865 was the year the 13th amendment was made, outlawing slavery in the USA. The fact that slave imports were prohibited earlier hardly even slowed the trade.

Britain outlawed slavery in 1833, and closed the last loopholes in 1843, making slavery totally illegal anywhere in the British Empire.

In my country (NZ), the native people, the Maori, kept slaves, and their slavery was of the worst kind, with slaves used for anything and everything, including food.

Slavery among Maori did not become illegal until the treaty with the British in 1840, and even then, slaves were kept for several more decades, though this was of dubious legality.

Slavery is an insitution that goes back as far as recorded history goes, and further. The large scale aboliton of slavery in today's world (with exceptions. India is the country today with the most slaves) is one of the clear signs that we have made social progress.

[piscator]

1865 was the year the 13th amendment was made, outlawing slavery in the USA. The fact that slave imports were prohibited earlier hardly even slowed the trade.

It did in America. You must be thinking of your British Empire?

[Blind groper]

Piscator

The trade continued, even though imports of slaves were reduced, since slaves had children and those children were still slaves.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

The criticism that the United States didn't immediately eliminate slavery at its formation is merely a red herring argument that fails to take into account the political necessities of creating a union of the states, and it utterly ignores the actual origin of slavery in America, which was begun and perpetrated by Englishmen.

In the absolute hey-day of slavery in the south, Britain had outlawed slavery, and the Royal Navy was prosecuting a determined campaign to capture slave ships bound to the south from Africa.

Spurred onwards by the payment of head money to successful naval vessels, akin to the prize money of the Napoleonic war era...

Ummm...The US banned the import of slaves in 1807, the first year it legally could under Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution. Britain didn't outlaw slavery until 1833 (and that act expressly excluded India and Ceylon). And so, by simple arithmetic, we see that the noble Britons weren't interdicting much of the American South's slave trade, and what they did stop was against American law as well.
Moreover, the Royal Navy was apparently at a loss to even locate most of the infamous "Cape Castles", fortified ports where newly-captured slaves were yarded while awaiting their Middle Passage to the New World (Brazil, Cuba, Hati, etc), for another 40 years after the Slavery Abolition Act.

However, in 1808, after Parliament passed an act to suppress the atlantic slave trade from Africa, the Royal Navy established a permanent squadron off West Arica to harass the slaving ships.
To quote from the Wiki article ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa_Squadron):
"Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans."

[Tyrannical]

1865 was the year the 13th amendment was made, outlawing slavery in the USA. The fact that slave imports were prohibited earlier hardly even slowed the trade.

Britain outlawed slavery in 1833, and closed the last loopholes in 1843, making slavery totally illegal anywhere in the British Empire.

In my country (NZ), the native people, the Maori, kept slaves, and their slavery was of the worst kind, with slaves used for anything and everything, including food.

Slavery among Maori did not become illegal until the treaty with the British in 1840, and even then, slaves were kept for several more decades, though this was of dubious legality.

Slavery is an insitution that goes back as far as recorded history goes, and further. The large scale aboliton of slavery in today's world (with exceptions. India is the country today with the most slaves) is one of the clear signs that we have made social progress.

Actually surprised you knew of how savages kept and treated slaves. But I'm willing to bet that Africans treated their black brothers even worse. The Muslim slave trade and later on the Western slave trade dramatically benefitted the slaves because they then had value as a trade good, which decreased the practice of canbabalism and human sacrifice. Imported slaves to the New World were generally cared for and even treated better still since they were a valuable commodity. Now I've never supported the importation of savages, but don't underestimate the value of not being eaten added to their quality of life.

[Tyrannical]

https://archive.org/details/revelationsasla00canogoog
Excellent book written in 1854 detailing the slave trade after it was outlawed.

[Blind groper]

Tyrannical

You are creating a false dichotomy.

It was not a choice between benign or vicious slavery. It was a choice between slavery or freedom. Most of the slaves sent to the USA (or other overseas destinations), were taken as free men and women in their home tribal setting to become slaves.

While it is true that the slave trade had been going on for a long time before that, it was not on the same scale. New markets for slaves result in more people being taken as slaves. All slavery is barbaric and wrong.

[piscator]

Seth wrote:

The criticism that the United States didn't immediately eliminate slavery at its formation is merely a red herring argument that fails to take into account the political necessities of creating a union of the states, and it utterly ignores the actual origin of slavery in America, which was begun and perpetrated by Englishmen.

In the absolute hey-day of slavery in the south, Britain had outlawed slavery, and the Royal Navy was prosecuting a determined campaign to capture slave ships bound to the south from Africa.

Spurred onwards by the payment of head money to successful naval vessels, akin to the prize money of the Napoleonic war era...

Ummm...The US banned the import of slaves in 1807, the first year it legally could under Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution. Britain didn't outlaw slavery until 1833 (and that act expressly excluded India and Ceylon). And so, by simple arithmetic, we see that the noble Britons weren't interdicting much of the American South's slave trade, and what they did stop was against American law as well.
Moreover, the Royal Navy was apparently at a loss to even locate most of the infamous "Cape Castles", fortified ports where newly-captured slaves were yarded while awaiting their Middle Passage to the New World (Brazil, Cuba, Hati, etc), for another 40 years after the Slavery Abolition Act.

However, in 1808, after Parliament passed an act to suppress the atlantic slave trade from Africa, the Royal Navy established a permanent squadron off West Arica to harass the slaving ships.
To quote from the Wiki article ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa_Squadron):
"Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans."

All slave ships weren't bound for the American south. In fact, none legally were between 1808 and 1860 (though plenty were legally bound for the BWIs, Guiana, and Bermuda between 1808 and 1833).

[laklak]

The mills in Britain had no problem using all that slave picked Southern cotton, until the Union's blockade forced them to Egypt and the East Indies. So there's the Royal Navy, being all humanitarian and stopping the barbaric slave trade, while the merchant ships carried millions of bales of Southern cotton to the mills. Can you say "hypocrisy"?