General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Thom Hartmann spanked a couple of DU'ers today on his show - [View all]joshcryer
(62,270 posts)In fact there was a constitutional amendment proposed that legalized slavery (Corwin Amendment). If we were to go by Jefferson's view that a convention is what is necessary to resolve these issues and that amendment passed, we'd have a slave class by the constitution itself, in direct contradiction to the Bill of Rights! The Anti-Federalists were indeed those who built the philosophical underpinnings of the Confederacy. The Confederacy is, at its heart, anti-Federalism.
Thomas Jefferson did not think that Federalism was bad, he simply thought a convention was the answer. Of course, that too is wrong because jurisprudence requires law to be self-consistent with as few contradictions as possible. If a convention leads to a contradiction, then it doesn't solve the underlying issue of justice for all.