[Magdalen] right to bear arms

[Sibyl Smirl]

Nope.  You have to go a long way to get "the Right to own people" out of 
that compromise.  At that time, the states determined who could vote (I 
could not have done)(maybe still do: I had to wait to turn 21 before I 
could, in Kansas, it didn't change to 18 until later), and the slave 
states wanted their non-voters to be counted as full people so they'd 
have more representation in Congress.  The Abolitionists knew that 
slavery existed, and were _not_ going to allow it in the Federal 
Constitution, but couldn't do anything about it without a Civil War, 
which the nation couldn't afford right then (couldn't afford it in 1861, 
either, but it happened).


On 12/11/15 4:46 PM, Scott Knitter wrote:
> The right was assumed in the Three-Fifths Compromise. Take away the
> free persons, "Indians," and those bound to Service for a Term of
> Years, and who's left? "three fifths of all other Persons." Art. 1,
> Sec. 2, Par. 3
>
> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 4:12 PM, Sibyl Smirl <polycarpa3 at ckt.net> wrote:
>> On 12/10/15 10:07 PM, James Oppenheimer-Crawford wrote:
>>>
>>> Just read a wonderful thought.
>>>
>>> Back when they wrote the Constitution,
>>> the Founding Fathers said you could own a gun.
>>> They also said you could own people.
>>>
>>> Dang. Why didn't *I* think of that?
>>
>>
>> Our brother Louie put around a photo with that quote on Facebook yesterday
>> (In very poor grammar (Ebonics?  the photo was of a young Black man of whom
>> I've never heard otherwise, but then I'm not up on a lot of "pop culture": I
>> find it hard to believe that an English teacher sent that around).
>>
>> Anyway, the big hole in the quote is that there isn't _anything_ in the
>> Constitution or the Bill of Rights (which is part of the Constitution) about
>> a Right to own people.  Whoever said it first ("Michael Che?" IIRC) knew as
>> little about the Constitution as he did about grammar.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sibyl Smirl
>> I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
>> mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net
>
>
>


-- 
Sibyl Smirl
I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net