In general, this section is a good idea. Listing out what a legislature (if you must have one) cannot do is mandatory. If my idea listed in my comments on Section 8 are used, then you want to list explicitly those items not chosen for local OR Federal government in the Brundlestagg. I almost skipped this part, because it doesn't deal with my biggest issues with the constitution but there are some very VERY important things here, so I'm breaking the post into four parts; Migration, Habeus Corpus/Rebellion, Bills of Attainder/Ex Post Facto, and Titles of Nobility.
This post shall deal with Migration.
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
This little turdlet staining the shining gem that are the ideas behind our constitution is precisely why we need a new one. In the current constitution, you can 'amend' to your heart's content, but the old language is still in the original document. Forever, shall the nation of the United States of America bear the shame of being a haven for slavery...and quasi slavery after that in the form of Jim Crow and Sharecropping.
How can we ever move beyond the mistakes of the past if the very foundation of our country enshrines them? No one is talking about forgetting or white washing here. After all, does anyone seriously believe that humanity (except conservatives) would actually forget slavery? Hell, even conservatives wouldn't because they love to gripe about the civil war and the civil rights act so much.
But so MANY people were not in that room with the founding fathers when they put that document together. How many were not Christian? Not White? Not Men? Not Rich?
The list goes on and on. If a room full of proportionally representative population groups of every race, creed, region and religion were drafting a new constitution; how likely would you be to get a 2/3rd majority that says tiny little population specs like Wyoming get as many senators as California which has 1/6th of the population? Also, we're not a tiny nation anymore, which means things like the Conneticut Comprise, which we had to have to band together for protection against Britain just aren't necessary.
Rural areas of the country wield FAR AND VAST disproportionate representation in the senate. And there are many many other flaws, including the seeming inability for 3rd parties to get anywhere, the inability for the elite to be held accountable for crimes, etc etc etc. I'll be addressing them endlessly in posts to come, but HERE the point is that without the 50 year cycle of revising the constitution, the system can be (and is) rigged against those who weren't there to begin with.
A conservative would like to say that someone who ISN'T conservative has just as much of a vote as they do, but like so many things they say, that's a total lie. A citizen of Wyoming has just 30 times more influence in the senate, and even at a Presidential level, the population per member of the electoral college is vastly different, since Wyoming gets 3 representatives when it might not even normally merit a third of one in any rationally conceived system.
Slavery is one of the great abominations of human history. And yet even now, Christians in an effort to defend the bible, and conservative confederate neo confedeate apologists speak about how it wasn't 'that bad.' Very VERY few of the people making these kind of comments had ancestors that they relate personally to as slaves. Yet the efforts of conservatives to white wash history are essentially never ending.
This clause, this nasty disgusting little clause 'for the greater good' led to millions more still being sold into slavery, being born into captivity. You cannot tell me about how awesome and special the prelude of the document is "All Men are Created Equal" and "We the People" when this black mark of shame still stains the document. A barely passed amendment in a civil war does not undo the disgusting nature of this clause.
NO amendment will ever undo it. It tarnishes the entire document forever. THIS clause, Article 1, Section 9 Clause 1 BY ITSELF argues for a new constitution, much less all of the other reasons we have for starting over.
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