This is an extremely serious situation here in Texas. Previously the power of the sheriff was under state law in Southern states. In South Carolina, the sheriff had a right to used posse comitatus to remove anyone entering the state and attempting to overtly disturb the Acts and laws of the State in regards to slaves, meaning educate them to read or be free, shall be escorted out of the state. If this usual posse comitatus and the civil authorities under the Act of 1835 could not make this outsider from the state leave the state who is disturbing the laws in regards to slavery leave, then the Governor had a right at the point to call in the state militia “meet the sixpence of the case.” In this regard, by law, the South Carolina state laws of the Act of 1835 or 1844 were Superior to federal laws. These laws were made more strict each year because of the “threat” of northern abolitionists, both black Americans and whites, bringing in pamphlets, teaching slaves to read, or even trying to smuggle them out.
But after 1878 posse comitatus took on a new meaning from federal law, and allowed the federal government to call up police to act as military to bring under control chaos, whereby police officers are removed from regular duties. Posse Comitatus Act bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement except when expressly authorized by law. That entered a new era of this meaning federally, which before was used by Southern states. It was part of the State law that it was superior to federal law, which is an essential idea of “state’s rights.”
The State of South Carolina also made into law in 1844 the ability for a sheriff to take a “freed negro, mulatto of mestizo” acting in employ as a cook, steward or mariner on board a ship, who enters disembark a ship past the port in such a manner as described in section 2d of the Act of 1835, and put that freed person into a jail **without** a writ of Habeas Corpus. In other words, the state was overriding the centuries-old legal process that protect a state official like a sheriff against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment. The white male legislature of the state was make a law that strip away any legal protections for US citizens in that state who were “colored” but free and entitle to this very basic human, civil rights. This means the “great writ” so fundamental to the Constitution was suspended in this state, making it more powerful that then constitution. Such a treacherous power seems insurrectionist to many “Northerners” or “liberals”, but the complied with other continuously revised laws of the state that explicitly announced the Superiority of the state over the federal constitution. The idea of superiority isn’t new to them, and in their tradition. Abbott and DeSantis are escalating their central idea to challenge Biden, to show he is weak. But it could bring more conflict. Let’s see what happens.