From: mykes@shell.portal.com (mike myke schwartz)
Subject: Re: What is the 14th Amendment?
Organization: Portal Communications Company
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 19:11:13 GMT

Steve Shapiro (shapiro@cfsctc.enet.dec.com) wrote:
: 
: In article <93006.28932.J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM>,
: J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM writes...
: 
: >   I've seen too many people here who claim to understand the Constitution
: >also state that Colorado's Amendment 2 violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S.
: >Constitution.  Well, it doesn't.
: 
: >   Back in the Civil War era (Civil War?  There's an oxymoron), rights were
: >being systematically denied to blacks by state and local governments. 
: 
: Which part of this era are you referring to?
: 
: As I recall, prior to the war blacks were considered chattle, not people, and
: as such not subject to any rights under the constitution. 
: 

Methinks you are wrong about blacks given right under the constitution. 
Certainly not equal rights, but rights all the same.  As in 3/5ths of
a person's worth of representation in the census and in congress..

As I recall, there were free states and slave states.  In free states, there
were no slaves.  And many southerners today have a valid claim that northerners
never treated blacks any better than the southerners.

: What the results of the war were was that the chattle designation was removed.

Question:  The civil war started in 1860, yet the emancipation proclamation
was made in 1863.  If the purpose of the war was to eliminate slavery, why
weren't the slaves freed BEFORE the war?  When the war started, there was
no intention by Lincoln to free the slaves (at least during his term).

Slavery was a hot issue, but the rights of the states to seceed was the
real reason the war was fought.  Lincoln certainly was against slavery,
but there were many slave owners who were also against it (Henry Clay,
for example).  Lincoln's vision of the "new world order" for the nation
after the war was ended did finally include freeing the slaves.

But most people who were against slavery also believed in a plan to deal
with the blacks after they achieved freedom.  Clay, for example, believed
that the prudent means to end slavery was to allow current slaves to remain
slaves until the age of 27 (25 for females).  During the last 4 years of
slavery, the blacks would be paid for their work and would also be given
education.  Upon becoming free, the blacks would be taken back to africa
or to the nearby slave-trade islands, along with their educations and 
"fortunes" and be allowed to make their own nations there.  

Not that I agree 100% with Clay, but he did refuse to free his own slaves
because of the mistreatment that blacks were sure to get as freemen.
Considering that it is 130 years later and blacks are mistreated, he did
have a valid point.  I also see nothing wrong with at least offering
the blacks a ride home, considering they were forced to leave their home
in the first place...

: 
: Regards,
: Steve.
: 
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