The moral foundation for slavery never existed. The legal foundation continued to crumble during the first century of our county's existence, not withstanding all the attempts to prop it up. It took time to build an abolitionist sentiment, but it was building as civil war approached. It scared the crap out of the racist southern leadership like Rhett and the other fire-eaters, and their apparatchik in the Supreme Court, Taney.
Taney and the other on the Court were not forced by precedent to rule they way they did. They chose to by presenting a "gross perversion of the facts." An intellectually honest evaluation of the case would have led to a decision that would have been, in retrospect, hailed by the world (outside of the deep south) as a classic statement of human rights, instead of being characterized as the worst Supreme Court decision ever made. By foisting the Dred Scott perversion on the country, they set the stage for increased sectional conflict.
Nothing ever did, and nothing ever will, justify the institution of human slavery. However, courts of law are required to follow the law as it is given, even if that law is contrary to their own sense of morality. The U.S. Constitution clearly recognized and protected the institution of slavery within those states who chose to have it. It was left to the individual states to determine whether they would, or would not, legalize slavery within their jurisdiction.
THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION ON SLAVERYArticle 1, Section 2. Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
Article 1, Section. 9, Clause 1. 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.
Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3. No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Article 5. ... Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
[cr #573] But there is no moral justification. The tenets of natural law, upon which this nation was founded, reject the institution.
Taney was interpreting the organic law of the USA, the Constitution, not that undefined, unwritten, something or nothing called the Natural Law. The USA has but one Constitution and probably about 300 million versions of that unwritten Natural Law. The law required to be used in Courts of Law is the Constitution and it is not superseded by some unwritten Natural Law, at least not in the courts of law of the USA.
It was not the Court's job to pass judgment on the morality of the Constitution, but to accurately interpret the law therein stated and apply the law to the facts. The Judge does not write the law.
[cr #573] Bledsoe and others attempted to provide the moral justification, with such rationalizations that slavery was a "positive good," and that "the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his own benefit." The moral foundation for slavery never existed. The legal foundation continued to crumble during the first century of our county's existence, not withstanding all the attempts to prop it up. It took time to build an abolitionist sentiment, but it was building as civil war approached.
There can be no legitimate moral justification for slavery, but this digression is wholly irrelevant to the job of the Court. They are required to uphold the law as it has been given. If the law is wrong, then the law should be changed. One should not expect judges to rule contrary to the written law.
[cr #573] It scared the crap out of the racist southern leadership like Rhett and the other fire-eaters, and their apparatchik in the Supreme Court, Taney.
The decision in Dred Scott was 7-2. It follows the same reasoning that was reached by the British High Court of Admiralty in 1827 when slavery did not exist in Great Britain. In The Slave, Grace, Lord Stowell ruled that residence in England only suspended slave status. When she returned to a slave jurisdiction, the law of England no longer applied to her, and her status would once again be determined by the law of the slave jurisdiction. Presumably Lord Stowell and the British High Court of Admiralty was under the vice-like grip of southern leadership and the other fire-eaters.
[cr #573] Taney and the other on the Court were not forced by precedent to rule they way they did. They chose to by presenting a "gross perversion of the facts."
The Agreed Statement of Facts was submitted by the parties, and restated by the Supreme Court at the beginning of the Opinion of the Court.
Scott was in Missouri. The law of Missouri applied. The highest court of Missouri held that Scott was still a slave. The courts of Missouri cannot be required to apply the law of any other jurisdiction. This follows the precedent in Strader v. Graham (U.S. Supreme Court 1850) and The Slave, Grace (British 1827).
Which of those facts (and not irrelevant b-s) do you allege is grossly perverted?
What is your legal argument, as opposed to harummmmph and a moral argument?
[cr #573] An intellectually honest evaluation of the case would have led to a decision that would have been, in retrospect, hailed by the world (outside of the deep south) as a classic statement of human rights, instead of being characterized as the worst Supreme Court decision ever made. By foisting the Dred Scott perversion on the country, they set the stage for increased sectional conflict.
An intellectually honest evaluation of the case was rendered by Mr. Justice Nelson, based on the precedent in Strader. Mr. Justice Curtis insisted on writing a dissent going into all nature of other things. Mr. Justice Curtis then released his opinion to the press before the case was officially published. A brother of Mr. Justice Curtis (George T. Curtis) argued the case before the Supreme Court on behalf of Scott.
An intellectually honest evaluation of the case, with facts now known, would have thrown the case out of court. The case involves the real owners, Congressman Chaffee and his wife, the former Mrs. Emerson. It involves a fictitious bill of sale to Mrs. Emerson's brother, John F.A. Sanford, a citizen of New York. Dred Scott asserted he was a citizen of Missouri, and sued Sanford, a citizen of New York, claiming Federal jurisdiction by way of state diversity. Sanford was in New York, outside the jurisdiction of the St. Louis Federal court, but he travelled to St. Louis to accept service of the summons against him.
Scott won in the lower Missouri court and "Sanford" appealed. Bear in mind that as soon as the case was over, the abolitionist Congressman Chaffee and his wife sold the Scott family to Taylor Blow of St. Louis.
In the Emerson case, Dred Scott and Henry T. Blow, under oath, named Peter Blow as the person who sold Dred Scott to Dr. Emerson. Taylor Blow and Henry T. Blow were brothers, both sons on Peter Blow, the owner of Dred Scott before Emerson.
Now that we have caught up with "All in the Family," we can return to the appeal. As Scott was to be freed in any case, the purpose of "Sanford" appealing the case can be little more than the desire to move the case along to the Supreme Court. A falsified Statement of Agreed Facts purported, among other things, that Sanford acquired Scott from Dr. Emerson ( d. 1843) who was most assuredly a corpse at the time of alleged acquirement. Upon submission to a jury, the same Federal Judge reversed his former ruling. And in such manner was the case manufactured for the Supreme Court.
As for a gross perversion of the facts, the Agreed Statement of Facts, submitted by the parties, constitutes precisely and provably that. They certainly kept the case from being called Scott v. Chaffee. The case of Scott v. Emerson failed when there was the fatal absence of any testimony that Scott had ever been owned by Mrs. Emerson. Sanford, on the other hand, who purportedly obtained Scott from a corpse, travelled all the way from New York to St. Louis just so he could accept service as the defendant in Scott v. Sandford.
When Dred Scott appealed to the Supreme Court, his appeal bond was signed by Taylor Blow for the purpose of their emancipation, it being so expressed in the bill of sale by which Taylor Blow acquired ownership of the Scott family from the Chaffee's after the litigation ended. Sanford could not have sold Scott after the decision was announced. Sanford was in an insane asylum where he died on May 5, 1857.
This was a moot case. A moot case occurs when ostensibly opposing parties collude together to manufacture a case for the purpose of obtaining the opinion of the court, for their own interests, where there is no actual controversy.