On 07/10/2015 09:06 PM, Muggles wrote:
I understand the text you quoted. It's obvious that both free and those
bound in service existed, but that text still doesn't make slavery
legal. Slavery was already legal at the time the document was written.
How can the Constitution make something legal that was already legal at
the time? It does acknowledge both existed, which, isn't the same thing.

Then there is the question of how the Constitution makes it illegal. Or
makes alcohol distribution illegal and then makes it legal again.
Positive law is a wondrous thing; whatever the powers that be say is
legal is legal and vice versa.