Comments Elsewhere

Me: Again, substantial numbers of adults had absolutely no choice whatsoever about whether to stay or to leave.

Bithead: No choice? Nonsense. They could have left at any time.

The Constitution of the United States: ARTICLE IV. Section 2. . . . No person held to service or labor 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 labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

No, Bithead, they could not.

Bithead: For someone so loud about extolling the virtues of the individual, you seem to think them quite helpless.

Slaves typically were pretty helpless when it came to coming and going as they pleased. They were made helpless through the use of intimidation and brutal government-approved physical violence. That’s part of what being a slave means. It’s not their fault as individuals; it’s the fault of the individuals who enslaved them, and the state governments that enforced it, and (not to put too fine a point on it) the slave-catching federal government that backed it up, under the auspices of your bloody Constitution.

Of course you know this. So why are you hanging on to the non-existent freedom of movement in order to prop up your mythical majoritarian approval?