3 ms·

Slavery should have been outlawed, but the gun bit isn’t so bad, I think. But I think, at the time, slavery was still legal in most of the world so while it wo

Slavery should have been outlawed, but the gun bit isn’t so bad, I think. But I think, at the time, slavery was still legal in most of the world so while it would have been right to outlaw it, it’s understandable how it was allowed. And the amendments outlawing it actually show how the constitution works as ideas change over time. If Americans change their opinion on guns then that could change as well. But I don’t think that will happen in 34 states.

threatofrain 5y ago
> And the amendments outlawing it actually show how the constitution works as ideas change over time. The amendment to end slavery happened on the backbone of killing several hundred thousand Americans. The compromise between two sides was to shoot people until one side agreed.
- markdown 5y ago
  > The amendment to end slavery This didn't happen, and the constitution still explicitly allows slavery.
- prepend 5y ago
  I think the civil war was independent of the constitution and it would have occurred regardless of whatever the legal structure was.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    The southern states were required to ratify the 14th Amendment as a condition of having any federal representation, and it nullified a prior Supreme Court ruling on the Constitution. The 15th Amendment was specifically designed to counter anticipation of tactics to dodge the 14th Amendment. You were just talking about how the 14th Amendment reflects how the Constitution adapts to the changing values of a nation. Yes, after one side shoots the other side into agreement, and after 750,000 lives ended. Then the victor decided the outcome of history. One can only imagine how the course of the Constitution would have been "independent" to the course of the Civil War if the northern states had lost.
    - prepend 5y ago
      What I meant was that slavery was a big divide in the US. This was not caused by the constitution. I think any founding documents would have had the same effect: massive bloodshed to force part of the country to stop slavery. When I say independent of the constitution, I mean that no matter what legal foundational framework, I think we would have had the civil war to end slavery. Even if we had the magma carta or whatever.
markdown 5y ago
The amendments didn't outlaw slavery, and the US constitution still explicitly allows slavery.
- prepend 5y ago
  I think they did based on my reading of the 13th amendment “ Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > I think they did based on my reading of the 13th amendment They didn't, and you quote the part that makes that clear: “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” A whole lot of current social issues can be traced back to things rooted in the way penal slavery, and targeted over-criminalization and policing to supply bodies for penal slavery, immediately replaced chattel slavery with the 13th Amendment.
    - prepend 5y ago
      When I mean slavery, I mean chattel slavery. I don’t think imprisonment is slavery. There are many problems with the US prison system and it needs a lot of work to reform and correct. But at least it’s not chattel slavery. Equating the two is not very helpful to the discussion because it distracts from a conversation about slavery by equating two different, but slightly similar topics.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > I don’t think imprisonment is slavery Imprisonment is not slavery. Penal slavery was very much a thing in much of the US for quite a while after the civil war (the federal government has since taken statutory and administrative steps to eliminate it, and may or may not have generally succeeded depending on exactly how you bound the term, but previously penal slavery in the US differed from chattel slavery only in that it had (often extremely corrupt) criminal conviction as an entry gate. And while penal slavery itself has been mitigated and arguably eliminated as a deliberate state practice (rather than an aberrant corruption of individual officials) subsequently (though still Constitutionally permitted) a whole lot of the over-criminalization and police and correctional culture built originally around the institution remains.

threatofrain 5y ago

> And the amendments outlawing it actually show how the constitution works as ideas change over time. The amendment to end slavery happened on the backbone of killing several hundred thousand Americans. The compromise between two sides was to shoot people until one side agreed.

markdown 5y ago
> The amendment to end slavery This didn't happen, and the constitution still explicitly allows slavery.
prepend 5y ago
I think the civil war was independent of the constitution and it would have occurred regardless of whatever the legal structure was.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  The southern states were required to ratify the 14th Amendment as a condition of having any federal representation, and it nullified a prior Supreme Court ruling on the Constitution. The 15th Amendment was specifically designed to counter anticipation of tactics to dodge the 14th Amendment. You were just talking about how the 14th Amendment reflects how the Constitution adapts to the changing values of a nation. Yes, after one side shoots the other side into agreement, and after 750,000 lives ended. Then the victor decided the outcome of history. One can only imagine how the course of the Constitution would have been "independent" to the course of the Civil War if the northern states had lost.
  - prepend 5y ago
    What I meant was that slavery was a big divide in the US. This was not caused by the constitution. I think any founding documents would have had the same effect: massive bloodshed to force part of the country to stop slavery. When I say independent of the constitution, I mean that no matter what legal foundational framework, I think we would have had the civil war to end slavery. Even if we had the magma carta or whatever.

markdown 5y ago

The amendments didn't outlaw slavery, and the US constitution still explicitly allows slavery.

prepend 5y ago
I think they did based on my reading of the 13th amendment “ Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I think they did based on my reading of the 13th amendment They didn't, and you quote the part that makes that clear: “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” A whole lot of current social issues can be traced back to things rooted in the way penal slavery, and targeted over-criminalization and policing to supply bodies for penal slavery, immediately replaced chattel slavery with the 13th Amendment.
  - prepend 5y ago
    When I mean slavery, I mean chattel slavery. I don’t think imprisonment is slavery. There are many problems with the US prison system and it needs a lot of work to reform and correct. But at least it’s not chattel slavery. Equating the two is not very helpful to the discussion because it distracts from a conversation about slavery by equating two different, but slightly similar topics.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > I don’t think imprisonment is slavery Imprisonment is not slavery. Penal slavery was very much a thing in much of the US for quite a while after the civil war (the federal government has since taken statutory and administrative steps to eliminate it, and may or may not have generally succeeded depending on exactly how you bound the term, but previously penal slavery in the US differed from chattel slavery only in that it had (often extremely corrupt) criminal conviction as an entry gate. And while penal slavery itself has been mitigated and arguably eliminated as a deliberate state practice (rather than an aberrant corruption of individual officials) subsequently (though still Constitutionally permitted) a whole lot of the over-criminalization and police and correctional culture built originally around the institution remains.