10th July 2004, 10:29 AM
Quote:Wait wait wait, you think aboloshing slavery was stepping over state rights? How so? How exactly is it that stating you can't enslave other humans for no good reason, and stating this nation-wide, stepping over state rights? The national government SHOULD be able to step in and tell other states what they can and can't do in some extreme cases, because that's what it is THERE for (otherwise we might as well just exist as 50 allied nations and a couple outlands), and this was CERTAINLY one of those times.
It was a very different time back then. Slavery was viewed by many to be just the way things were. It was just something that people did.
Actually it was stepping on the rights of the states as there was nothing in the Constitution that made slavery of Africans illegal, if there had been it never would have been ratified. The southern states felt that the northern states' [and the federal goverment's] action of abolishing slavery were stepping over the rights of the states since there was, as I mentioned, nothing in the Constitution that outlawed it.
Sometimes you get the scorpion.