Mississippi forgot to outlaw slavery...seriously.

[inklewert]

There are dated laws on the books in all states, counties, and cities. Even the federal codes aren't updated as often as they should. Why this is news worthy I don't understand. In New Mexico its still legal to shoot Indians so long as you do so in protection of your covered wagon.

Living in Mississippi (and having lived most regions of the US) I can tell you that it is not that different. People are assholes everywhere. Sure the bible belt is weird, and some of the politics are a little backward, but if you only look at the vocal minority of any state your faith in humanity will be very shaken.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Ooops, 'forgot' to ban slavery.
Guess I'll have to get rid of my slaves now

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Woah, wait, seriously?

...That only makes me want to get out of here even more than I already did.

Our state has always been stupidly backwards politically...

It's still disappointing to see that people still believe obviously ridiculous stereotypes about us though. Then again, I've always lived on the coast...which has a lot more commercial and residential development than many other parts of the state. Maybe my views are pretty skewed themselves.

 

[kickyourass]

You know, I really do try hard eliminate stereotypes from my thinking, but sometimes it's just so hard. I mean Jesus H Christ more then 150 years you can't really blame bureaucratic oversight you know?

 

[MorganL4]

Does it even matter if they ratified it or not? I thought the Constitution was the law of the land

Yeah, the 10th amendment basically says that if there is not a federal law determining the legal grounds for issue x then states can write laws about it and enforce/not enforce whatever they want. As the 13th amendment is a federal document it really doesn't matter, it just would have been smart to do it before 2013.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

They don't have to ratify it for it to be outlawed. And they did not forget to do so, like a lot of the southern states(9 of them) they refused to ratify it in the aftermath of the Civil War. Also Mississippi ratified it in 1995; over 15 years ago.

OP is full of misinformation.

The Constitution, like the Canadian Charter of Rights, is really just a feel good document at this point. There's only really 3 things on it that will never EVER be changed (Free Speech, Seperation of Church and State, Ban on Slavery) and the rest will either see revisions or outright removal within the next 200 years.

You think that the US is going to take away the right of women to vote, and start forcibly quartering soldiers in peoples houses?

 

[LetalisK]

Does it even matter if they ratified it or not? I thought the Constitution was the law of the land

The state still has power, but it can be overruled by the national law. This was obviously just a local oversight, happens everyday.

Any power not guaranteed the federal government by the Constitution is guaranteed to the states. Amendments to the Constitution are included, of course. Therefore, the states have no say in slavery whatsoever, and have not since ratification. The state's doing so now is pointless and being done just so they can say "we're not racist anymore, see?"

So to your statement, federal law does NOT supersede state law... except for where the Constitution says so. That's why medical marijuana laws stand in the face of a federal ban: to put it bluntly (ha!), the feds can't do shit.

The battle between the supremacy clause and the 10th Amendment is as old as the country itself. The 10th Amendment has lost almost every single time too[footnote]Or maybe it's every time?[/footnote], so it's basically only for show at this point. The reason the feds don't do anything is because they don't have the resources/infrastructure/motivation to impact it in a significant way, at least at this point. If they wanted to, they could legally do it and there would be nothing the states could do about it.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Yeah, that's pretty damn poor of them. So much for "The Civil War wasn't about slavery!"

Anyone who says it wasn't about slavery is an idiot, but anyone who says it was solely about slavery is also stupid. Pretty much every war is a lot more complicated than the year one college student thinks.

Not correctly, they didn't. And one would think if the state was sincere about mending its past wrongs, they would have given a damn about going through the process correctly.

They ratified it correctly. It's not a difficult process. They just didn't turn in the paperwork. And considering its already part of the constitution and it was a symbolic gesture anyways, who gives a shit? It's not like the US government was sitting there awaiting the proper number of states to ratify it and there's was a huge need for them to hand in the paperwork to the OFR. It's symbolic. They ratified it in 1995. And it doesn't help anything at all for them to have done so.

 

[dyre]

They did not forget to ratify the 13th amendment. You see, they tried to ratify it back in 1995 (something that is still just symbolic at this point, since it's already law) but filed the paperwork incorrectly. They only recently found out that they did it wrong and decided it was necessary to fix it. This sort of thing happens all the time, like how in Alaska necrophilia is still legal.

Any reason why they had to until 1995 in the first place? Oh right, they're sore losers. The city of Vicksburg surrendered to General Grant on July 4th, 1863. Our national holiday was not celebrated in that city again until after World War 2!

I hate to say it, but I'm inclined to agree. When so many apologists for the south try to claim that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, but then when it takes almost 130 years for a southern state to actually agree that slavery should be illegal, and then forgets to file the paperwork for another 18 years, it's hard to believe their heart is really in turning their back on slavery.

Yes, it is a purely symbolic gesture. But sometimes a willingness to follow through on a gesture is how you measure someone's sincerity.

While I too find "Lost Cause" supporters to be annoying (though, I understand it might be tough for them to acknowledge that they fought such a costly war for such an unjust cause), I don't really think this is a fair point to bring against Mississippi. It's not like their state assembly had a 130 year filibuster against ratifying the 13th amendment. And I'm sure you don't really think the denizens of Mississippi are actually still pro-slavery. They may be backwards and racist, but I'm willing to believe the delay in ratifying the amendment was simply because no one cared enough to push the issue, not because they still harbor grudges against Abraham Lincoln.

 

[emeraldrafael]

http://news.yahoo.com/thanks-lincoln-mississippi-finally-definitely-ratified-thirteenth-amendment-024920825.html

The title says it all. Mississippi...FORGOT to ratify the 13th amendment and they just recently did it....there are no words.

I saw this last night and had the same reaction. Its a good thing there's a supremecy clause in the constitution. To be fair though they did actually do it almost 20 years ago. seems someone was just asleep at the wheel.

though i saw it in another article where it said

... Several states, including Kentucky and Delaware, waited decades to ratify the amendment, ...
<url=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/mississippi-finally-ratifies-slavery-ban-article-1.1267133>source

which in looking found this out:
...
Delaware (February 12, 1901, after having rejected it on February 8, 1865)
Kentucky (March 18, 1976, after having rejected it on February 24, 1865)
...
<url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Proposal_and_ratification>source

Delaware, Kentucky, explains yourself, what the shit!

EDIT:

Does it even matter if they ratified it or not? I thought the Constitution was the
law of the land

The Constitution, like the Canadian Charter of Rights, is really just a feel good document at this point. There's only really 3 things on it that will never EVER be changed (Free Speech, Seperation of Church and State, Ban on Slavery) and the rest will either see revisions or outright removal within the next 200 years.

I dont think the US is going to take away state sovereignty (Amend. 11) redefine citizenship (Amend. 14), take away the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude (Amend. 15), go back on its right to collect an income tax (Amend. 16), reprohibit Alcohol (Amend. 21), unlimit the term length (Amend. 22) or take away DC's electoral college votes (Amend. 23). Maybe raise the voting age (I doubt we'll lower it unless we make you legal adult at 16, and theres already so much you cant do at 18 like drinking, renting certain property, etc.

besides, that, there's too much in there like the commerce clause (root of all business in the US and all business law in the US) for it to go away

 

[chadachada123]

The Constitution, like the Canadian Charter of Rights, is really just a feel good document at this point. There's only really 3 things on it that will never EVER be changed (Free Speech, Seperation of Church and State, Ban on Slavery) and the rest will either see revisions or outright removal within the next 200 years.

You think that the US is going to take away the right of women to vote, and start forcibly quartering soldiers in peoples houses?

I think that the US will, in all practicality, take away the right to vote in general, and instead of forcibly quartering soldiers will instead forcibly invade the privacy of anyone that the government deems "suspect," without any evidence, without any ability to seek counsel, without any right to a speedy public trial by a jury of his peers...

Oh, hey, wait, that last part (everything but the voting) is already happening. The US government CAN imprison anyone, for anything, with zero evidence, zero trials, zero contact with a lawyer, solely by claiming that you are a "suspected" terrorist.

 

[Nathan Josephs]

godaamnit big government gonna take away my slaves !

 

[Eddie the head]

Well, lessee...

Mississippi was rated as the MOST religious state in the USA recently.

It's also foremost in coming up with contrived excuses to outlaw abortion state wide which is why it leads the nation in teenage pregnancies.

Jackpot juries have resulted in ANY doctor being sued being hit with humongous punitive punishments which led to medical insurance companies all but pulling out of the state. This has lead to a major medical problem in that the state is hurting for M.D.'s more than any other--doctors who live there have often quit practicing medicine because they literally cannot afford to pay the take-it-or-leave-it bloated price of insurance necessary to practice medicine.

So the fact that the state is this far behind one something like the 13th Amendment...well, let's just say that a lot of my fellow Alabamians like Mississippi because it keeps us from being on the VERY bottom of the US in so many categories.

Yeah well Idaho is number one in child abuse! Take that Mississippi! You just teach your kids backwards shit form the bronze age, we beat the shit out of ours. Although we do have the doctors to fix all the broken arms from them "Falling down the stairs."

 

[Lilani]

I hate to say it, but I'm inclined to agree. When so many apologists for the south try to claim that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, but then when it takes almost 130 years for a southern state to actually agree that slavery should be illegal, and then forgets to file the paperwork for another 18 years, it's hard to believe their heart is really in turning their back on slavery.

Yes, it is a purely symbolic gesture. But sometimes a willingness to follow through on a gesture is how you measure someone's sincerity.

It sort of reminds me of how the Catholic church gave Galileo a letter of pardon for his crimes against the church in 1992. Like yeah, they're admitting they were wrong for punishing the guy who publicly claimed the earth was not the center of the universe...after we're like 30 years into space travel and the news of the announcement was broadcasted over man-made satellites that were put in orbit around the earth. It's a strange mix of relief they even bothered after so long, but credulousness as to why it took them so long in the first place and why they bothered at all.

In other news, I'll be right on the Gulf coast in Mississippi in about three weeks, and it will be the farthest south I've been for any significant period of time (except Florida, but I wouldn't exactly consider working at Disney World an experience in the deep south). So needless to say I'm ready for about anything. I remember last year when I made a similar trip to North Carolina we started in Missouri, and our first night we stayed at a Baptist church in Tennessee. I slept in a Sunday school room in the church, and was right under a chalk board with a poster on it that was titled something like "A History of the World according to the Bible." It was a timeline that started with Adam in roughly 4000 BC. In other words, it was a church that adopted the young earth theory.

Then when we got to North Carolina, there was a fossil museum in the town we stayed at which had lots of dinosaur bones and teeth dating back to 100,000,000 and 300,000,000 BC. Needless to say, we saw a broad spectrum of opinions in the short span of 10 days.