Posted on 02/01/2016 5:09:00 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
Chapter 8 continued from January 1856 reply #137.
Chapter 8 to be continued. "The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass," by Frederick Douglass, (1892 edition)
Just more examples of how the Democrats used to power of government, both federal and local, for their own evil wills.
It’s quite a Faustian bargain the Democrats have made.
They actually use atrocities and evils of the past that they caused and carried out to curry favor and power in the present, as of someone else did it and they are protecting today’s potential victims from what they, in fact, did.
In Texas in 1856:
City of Dallas was granted a charter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Dallas,_Texas_%281856%E2%80%931873%29
On 2 February 1856, Dallas was granted a town charter during the Regular session of the Sixth Texas Legislature. Samuel Pryor was elected the first mayor along with a Marshal, a treasurer-recorder, and six aldermen.
That’s what I’m talkin’ about. I must tweet this to some Texans tomorrow.
thanks
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I may be a little early, but the American Party, also known as the Know Nothing Party, nominated it’s first and only candidate for President on February 22, 1856 at it’s convention in Philadelphia. Former President Millard Fillmore was nominated for President and his running mate was Andrew J. Donelson. In the general election Fillmore only carried Maryland. Divisions within the party over slavery and the violence in Kansas doomed the party.
http://www2.hsp.org/exhibits/convention/1856_main.html
"The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass," by Frederick Douglass, (1892 edition)
That is the final excerpt to get up to date with Douglass. We will hear from him again but not for quite a while. I hope the posting of these chapters inspires a few people to buy the book for their own collections. It is well worth the price. Also, almost half the book involves the time after the Civil War, so we won't be covering it here.
You may remember, in 1852 the old Whigs (former Federalists) nominated their last presidential candidate, General Winfield Scott.
After his defeat, Whigs dissolved over the issue of slavery, with most Northern Whigs soon finding a home in the new anti-slavery Republican party.
In 1856 Southern Whigs largely voted for Know-Nothings.
In 1860 they voted for John Bell's Constitutional Union party.
The old Southern Whigs were the last of pro-Union, pro-slavery voters, on whom, as a former Whig himself President Lincoln placed a lot of confidence in the months before Civil War broke out.
Turns out, those voters had no effect in the Deep South, but did narrowly manage to prevent secession in Border States.
Spoiler alert, here is the 1856 election, by county, with former Southern Whig-Know-Nothings in yellow:
Don E. Fehrenbacher, "The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics" (1978)
We finally get to Dred Scott v. Sanford, the single worst case of all time from the United States Supreme Court. It’s the only one that required a Civil War and three amendments to the Constitution to overturn.
It finally got to the oral argument point, but it will stall until December. One of the Justices has presidential ambitions and doesn’t want to have to opine on this red hot issue until after the election in November.
One of the few cases to go through two rounds of oral argument.
A friend loaned me a book, “Arguing About Slavery,” which goes though the historical debates in Congress, the Courts and the newspapers regarding slavery up to and including the 13th Amendment. It’s in my reading stack; I may not get to it until sometime this spring.
However, he told me that an interesting way to read the book and place it in a modern context is to substitute the word “abortion” for the word “slavery” in the debate, and see how it resonates. My friend says the arguments are pretty much the same.
I have found the parallels to be remarkable. The major difference is the sectional nature of slavery as opposed to the left-right division on abortion. The political parties and even religious denominations were divided on slavery depending on region. But both sides claim to stand for fundamental rights and both sides claim Constitutional authority for their positions.
If I ever get to that book, I’ll be looking for parallels like that, as well as differences. The biggest difference that sticks out is abortion wasn’t an issue until the Supreme Court botched a decision and made it one. Slavery was already an issue, when the Supreme Court botched a decision and made it into a civil war.
But both issues clearly polarized America.
Even Lawrence Tribe once admitted Roe was wrongly decided - but still doesn’t think it should be overruled.
From what I’ve seen few courts pay much attention to stare decisis if they don’t like the result.
I recently did an analysis of the 85 page 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Texas v. United States (the immigration deferral of removal case which is on cert to the SCOTUS). The analysis was presented to our high school’s We The People team as they prepare for National Competition in April. Yes, I made their heads explode. But going through the opinion made my head explode.
The Federal case law is so contradictory and convoluted that the SCOTUS can rule any way they want and they don’t have to overrule anything to do it.
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