Constitutional Fundamentalism, Minus Some of the Fundamentals
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
As the 112th Congress convened on Thursday, January 6, 2011, the first order of business was a religious ritual designed to underscore the import of a historic transition of power: a reading of the US Constitution. Or rather, a reading of it without some of its ickier original parts, such as the original fugitive slave provision quoted above. It was constitutional fundamentalism without some of the fundamentals.
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Glenn and Pat explained that the “three-fifths” compromise wasn’t an evil thing, but it was an effort by the Founders to eventually end slavery.
Pat explained, “It’s three-fifths in counting. It’s three-fifths in a census. It wasn’t assigning a word to a soul or a human being. It was so that they could limit the population of the south and, thus, limit the representation and one day get rid of slavery.”
Glenn explained that the slave owners wanted slaves to be counted as full people in the census, but the Founders were saying, “If they’re people, how can you enslave them?”
http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/01/07/glenn-to-congress-you-are-cowards/