Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not really. The legislature had to pass a law creating slavery, the executive had to sign it, the courts had to uphold it Um, no. They didn't have to do that under the system established by the US Constitution . Because slavery predated that system, and was protected by it. What would have taken positive action under the Constitution was abolishing slavery. But not only were there explicit protections for slavery i…
> Um, no. They didn't have to do that under the system established by the US Constitution . Because slavery predated that system, and was protected by it. Predating the constitution doesn't preclude violating it. Lese majeste laws predate the constitution but have been clearly unconstitutional since at least the Bill of Rights, arguably even before (since enacting them was not an enumerated power of the government).…
No he didn't; The Emancipation Proclamation did not abolish slavery.
> Because now you're talking about racism rather than slavery,
No, I'm talking about the distorted structures I listed that are features of the design of our political system that were placed in the Constitution to protect slavery. The ones that directly dealt with slavery were removed; the ones which were put in to tilt the balance of political power to resistance abolition were not, even after abolition, which is why our federal political system is still heavily tilted toward voters in less populated slates and still heavily rewards the remaining voters in states which effectively disenfranchise other citizens (though, to be fair, the last part was in theory directly addressed by provisions in the 14th Amendment directly calling for loss of representation for doing that, which would counteract that effect, but those provisions have never been enforced even against the most blatant systematic disenfranchisement, leaving the old imbalance fully in effect.)
Racism is a different problem (though one that frequently is involved in leveraging those systematic imbalances.)