> Are you claiming that slavery is constitutional?
It was until the Thirteenth Amendment was passed, yes.
I think you have some serious learning to do about the Constitution.
As for how the Bill of Rights was interpreted to be consistent with the fugitive slave provision of the Constitution, that's simple: the jurisprudence of the time did not apply the Bill of Rights to slaves. I'm sure this will seem very shocking to you, but it's quite clear from the historical documents (see, for example, my reference to the Dred Scott decision upthread).
> you cannot reasonably argue that the fugitive slave acts do not violate the bill of rights
Perhaps you can't, but the judges and juries of the time had no problem doing so at all. See above. Even abolitionists did not make this claim. They claimed that slavery was wrong and that laws such as the fugitive slave law were unjust, but they never claimed they were unconstitutional. Their response to provisions like that in the Constitution was to say that the Constitution itself was unjust; for example, William Lloyd Garrison called it "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell". And they were perfectly ok with violating the Constitution in the name of what they believed to be the greater good of abolishing slavery. But they never argued that the Constitution's fugitive slave provision was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights, because nobody believed that to be the case.
> You are ignoring the facts.
No, I'm not. I just appear to have a much better understanding of their historical context than you do.
It was until the Thirteenth Amendment was passed, yes.
I think you have some serious learning to do about the Constitution.
As for how the Bill of Rights was interpreted to be consistent with the fugitive slave provision of the Constitution, that's simple: the jurisprudence of the time did not apply the Bill of Rights to slaves. I'm sure this will seem very shocking to you, but it's quite clear from the historical documents (see, for example, my reference to the Dred Scott decision upthread).
> you cannot reasonably argue that the fugitive slave acts do not violate the bill of rights
Perhaps you can't, but the judges and juries of the time had no problem doing so at all. See above. Even abolitionists did not make this claim. They claimed that slavery was wrong and that laws such as the fugitive slave law were unjust, but they never claimed they were unconstitutional. Their response to provisions like that in the Constitution was to say that the Constitution itself was unjust; for example, William Lloyd Garrison called it "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell". And they were perfectly ok with violating the Constitution in the name of what they believed to be the greater good of abolishing slavery. But they never argued that the Constitution's fugitive slave provision was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights, because nobody believed that to be the case.
> You are ignoring the facts.
No, I'm not. I just appear to have a much better understanding of their historical context than you do.