Re:Justin Amash Introduces Bill to End Civil Asset Forfeitur...
by jfengel on Friday December 18, 2020 @01:49PM
(#25470460)
It was explicitly constitutional. They managed to avoid the word "slave", but Article 1, Section 2, clause 3 explicitly distinguishes "free Persons" from "all other persons" (who only count for 3/5 when it comes to computing representatives).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_Compromise
It also explicitly said that you can't escape "service or labor" just by going to a state that didn't allow it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Four_of_the_United_Sta...
They called it the Fugitive Slave Clause, even though the word doesn't appear in the Constitution. So yeah, that really wasn't just a matter of judges thinking about the "spirit" of the constitution. It was very clear that this was a slave nation.
Bonus: it still is, even with the 13th amendment. It does use the word slavery, and then provides an exception for people convicted of a crime.
Well, the US courts had affirmed slavery as constitutional at some point too, time and again, until the 13th amendment. And then you had e.g. the declaration of independence and its "unalienable rights". What a farse.
It makes sense to think about the spirit of a constitution, not just what some judges has historically or thus far accepted as such.