Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Corona Constitution Class: Article IV. and the Fugitive Slave Act

Join us tonight at 6:00 pm at the Corona Constitution Class, located at AllStar Collision, 522 Railroad Street, in Corona, California. Instructed by Douglas V. Gibbs, Constitutionalist, author of 25 Myths of the United States Constitution, Instructor of the Temecula Constitution Class, and local radio host on KCAA AM1050.  The United States Constitution is the solution, and Doug's goal is to inform the public of the original intent of the document.

The Corona Class meets every Tuesday Night at 6:00 pm at AllStar Collision in their upstairs classroom, 522 Railroad Street, Corona, California.

"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people." -- James Madison

All participants receive a free pocket constitution, and a handout for the lesson being discussed which includes commentary by Douglas V. Gibbs, terms and definitions, questions for discussion, and a list of the resources Doug used to develop the lesson.

Fugitive Slaves

Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 is obsolete because of the abolition of slavery, as per the 13th Amendment. During the era the Constitution was written, slavery remained in place, and slaves were seen as property by the States in which slavery was legal. The Constitution, as a compromise to assure that southern States ratified the document, included Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3, as a compromise, which demanded that escaped slaves be returned to their owners in the south, even if that slave was in a northern State.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 supported this clause of the Constitution, hoping to ensure under penalty of law that the slaves were in fact returned should they turn up in the north. Northern States were refusing to return escaped slaves, and the federal government refused to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act and the Constitution, creating, in the minds of the Southern States, a constitutional crisis.

Nullification is often blamed for its part in the onset of the American Civil War. Those that argue that nullification was a part of bringing about the War Between the States will argue that the Southern States were guilty of nullifying perfectly reasonable federal laws. In reality, the Southern States did not nullify any federal law. It was the northern States that actively nullified federal law. They nullified The Fugitive Slave Act by ignoring the legislation, and refusing to abide by it. However, since The Fugitive Slave Act was constitutional, the nullification of the law by the northern States was unlawful, and unconstitutional. Threatened by the fact that the northern States were ignoring constitutional law, the federal government was refusing to enforce the law, and anti-slave candidate Abraham Lincoln had won the presidential election without even being on the ballot in the South, eleven southern States withdrew from the union in 1860.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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