Is the 13th Amendment Illegal?

That would have to be the conclusion of the band of nitwits running loose, on the eve of the Scottish separatist vote, in declaring that the U.S. Civil War “settled” the secession question once-and-for-all. In 1857, the United States Supreme Court ruled – in the Dred Scott case – that blacks – and particularly slaves – were not “citizens” and, thus, had no standing to sue in the federal courts. Didn’t the Supreme Court thus “settle” the slavery issue “once-and-for-all”, and weren’t the consequences of the Civil War – including the 13th Amendment – thus rendered invalid? And didn’t the Revolutionary War – fired by the Declaration of Independence – declare “once-and-for-all” that the right of people “to alter or abolish” the government was inalienable?

The people who babble this kind of nonsense haven’t even thought through the implications of what they say. They are doubtless defenders of “democracy” which, to their minds, means that men and women have the right to establish a government by some imagined “social contract” – even though history provides no evidence of this ever occurring – but then, in some mysterious fashion, lose their “right” to alter or abolish” it. Intelligent minds [i.e., people outside academia or the mainstream media] can see through the illogic of such reasoning.

People who think this way always seem to turn out being rampant statists, seeking legislative or judicial acts that support some program or policy of theirs. If there is a failure to achieve their desired result, they simply try again at the next session, and the next, until they get the result they want. Once they get what they want from the state they announce that the question as been “settled, once-and-for-all,” making dissenters “reactionaries” who want to “turn back the clock.”

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11:20 am on September 17, 2014