hey can someone help me out with this please. I'm kind of confused on the issue?

Okay.

You're talking about what is called the supremacy clause.

(deleted text. I was wrong it was 6. been a while)

What it says is that the Constitution, federal laws and what ever treaties we agree to are higher than state laws. But it doesn't invalidate state laws and the Constitution did not really address slavery when it was written.

Now I am going to get a bit complex. The Constitution was written to limit government. Many people misunderstand that. They think the Constitution gives them a freedom of speech for instance. The Constitution does NOT do that. The people who wrote it assumed you already had a freedom of speech and they wrote the first amendment to make sure the government could never take it away. That is a subtle thing. The government cannot infringe on your freedom of speech but anyone else can. We often don't stop to think about it but you know if you chew out your boss or divulge a trade secret you will lose your job. Isn't that being punished for what you said? Isn't that infringing on your freedom of speech? That's just one example but the truth is all of the freedoms are the same. The Constitution doesn't give you any freedoms. You already have them. It simply prevents your government from taking them. The Constitution was written to limit government not the people. It was written to establish how government would be formed and what would be it's limits. Over the years that changed. The start of that change was the 14th amendment. Before that amendment the Constitution was to limit government. After that it became something to empower government. What the 14th amendment did was give government power over individual citizens which up until then, was very limited. The reason your confused about it is you have lived your whole life under a government that had the power to pass laws that affect you personally. That wasn't always the case.

Ever hear of the commerce clause? Or, the necessary and Proper clause? Those used to be pretty much the extent of what congress could pass laws about. They primarily had the power to pass laws concerning trade and money. There were other things such as a postal service and regulations for the military but nothing like the power they wield today. Things have changed and whether they are always strictly Constitutional is debatable. Whether they are what the founders intended is even more doubtful. We have a Federal Government now and no longer a Union of semi-sovereign states.

added: First off I am impressed that you know the Constitution as well as you do. Most people do not. So, find the part that says the government had any responsibility to protect the rights of the people from any entity other than itself or another government.

Your original argument was that the 14th amendment was redundant in some respects. I take it you mean that Congress had the power all along to free the slaves. I presume you mean under the commerce clause. Historically Congress did outlaw the importation of slaves. They could not free the slaves already here because they were not defined as persons. They were defined as property. The commerce clause in those days had little to do with what went on within a state. It could only regulate trade between them and trade with other countries or tribes. Of course there is also a human factor. The lawmakers were not in agreement about freeing slaves or defining them as persons. The 13th amendment ended slavery and the courts defined the freed slaves as people. The 14th amendment gave them the rights of citizens and took the defining of citizenship away from the states.

I do feel a need to apologize though if I implied that you do not understand the Constitution. You obviously understand it better than many but I am not used to people who do. Am I right that the Constitution does not grant rights? Some very highly placed Judges would say no. Others would agree with me. It is a document that was written in simple terms for a very good reason. But those simple terms also make it a document that people can interpret different ways. The commerce clause is just one example of that. So is the "Right" of privacy. Even today Presidents and Supreme Court Justices still argue over what it says. I think I am right but I must respect the fact that your opinion is just as valid as mine is. Of course both of our opinions matter less than the 9 justices who get to decide what it says officially.