EVIDENCE THAT PRE-CIVIL WAR U.S. SLAVERY WAS ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL: Evidence from the English Common Law Court Precedents The Declaration of Independence , The U.S. Constitution The Bill of Rights , and The Many Anti-Kidnaping Precedents In Context of Who Did It Why States' Rights Expansionism ... Reparations , and Current Impact Bibliography Below First, Read The Law, Don't Assume That Practice (Tradition, What People Do) Is Legal It may be "practice" or "tradition" for people to jaywalk or rob or kidnap or enslave, for example, as pro-slavers argued. That is what people do they said, therefore, that is what the law and Constitution allow! But theirs is wrong reasoning. What people do is not the standard of what is lawful, constitutional. The standard is what the law says, defines as within legal and constitutional limits. To find out what laws say, what the Constitution requires, do not compare with tradition, with practice, with what people do. Read the law, the Constitution. Here is why: "what ought to be done is fixed by a standard . . . whether it usually is complied with or not." v Behymer , 189 US 468, 470; 23 S Ct 622, 623; 47 L Ed 903 (1903). | |
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