My reference to 1869 was a shorthand way of providing the Radical Republican context to “Texas v. White.” After Lincoln's optional war which cost 600,000 dead, Lincoln's imprisonment of northern civilians without trial, suppression of the free press, and experimentation of total warfare against civilians, there was simply no way the U.S. Supreme Court could rule in T v. W that Lincoln's war was wrong and that the South did, indeed, have the right to secede.
Had the Supreme Court ruled secession legal, court members would have been impeached. The Radical Republicans just a year earlier impeached President Johnson for far less. One of the stated reasons Johnson was impeached was because he gave three speeches with the “intent to show disrespect for the Congress.”
Yes, Supreme Court members would have been impeached and convicted. They knew it . . . they read the newspapers you might say. Everyone knew the Radical Republicans were . . . well, radical. Those were kangaroo court and kangaroo congress times.
What is your dislike for Taney?
Was it Taney who said “Slavery is the naturally intended condition for the black African’’?
President Johnson was impeached for good cause.