Quote Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good View Post
That's a really creepy analogy to try to draw, as that's exactly the attitude the slave owners had to their "possessions"
That is because they were possessions under the law.

but your analogy wouldn't even be close to correct unless the dog was sapient and provided the labor that amounted for half of your possessions.
Then make it your plowing horse. The type of animal is not really important to the point I was making. Slaves were animals... property... under the law. It's great that the law changed, but punishing those who acted within the old law is in itself illegal.

I'm aiming for precisely the analogy Beskar mentioned - the slavery situation was just a really cruel version of serfdom. The solution to serfdom is to grant full ownership to the land the serfs were already working. Why can't we do that for slaves?
I feel like I made my point earlier, but I'll take a stab at it from another angle.

The land legally belonged to the owners, not the slaves. Neither morality nor the ability of the slaves to succeed on their own has any real bearing on the situation. In owning slaves, the owners were not violating any laws. Retroactively punishing the owners for acting in a completely legal fashion violates Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution.

It is obvious that those who kept slaves should release them and be on the hook for providing for them, as the slaves provided for their masters previously.
Not really. While a perfect example of such a situation does not present itself, ex post facto case law suggests that the owners would not be oh the hook for providing for them, which is aligned with the historical outcome.


Care to elaborate, because I don't know what you are referring to.
Mexico.