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To: BroJoeK; HandyDandy; DiogenesLamp; jmacusa
As best I can tell, and to his credit, at least woodpusher does not argue, as does DiogenesLamp, that Crazy Roger Taney's Dred Scott opinions were correct!

He "merely" argues they were unimportant.

Taney's opinion is historically important. Legally, almost the entirety of said garnered no majority support, making it dicta, not holding of the Court, not an opinion of the court. The dicta of Chief Justice Taney establish only his own opinion on some matter.

Etheldred "Dred" Scott was clearly a slave, having been so held by the Missouri Supreme Court. Traveling to a free state, and returning to a slave state, did not change his status as a slave. See R v. Knowles, ex parte Somersett, 20 State Tr 1 (1772) (aka Somersett's Case, British); The Slave Grace, 2 Hagg Admin 94 (GB) 1827, The Lemmon Case 20 NY 562 (1860), and Strader v. Graham 10 U.S. 82 (1850).

In Somersett and The Lemmon Case, a slave was in a free country or state and there petitioned for freedom. Somersett established that in GB, the slave could not be forced by master to leave GB and return to slave territory. In Lemmon, similar slaves in transit by ship from a slave state to a slave state stopped in NY. While in NY, they petitioned for freedom. They won in the New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in that state). In Grace, the slave had returned to a slave colony before petitioning for freedom for having been in a free country. Court found the slave law prevailed upon her return to the slave jurisdiction in Antigua. Strader held the status of fugitive slaves found in the North was governed by Article 4, Sec 2 of the Constitution and not by state law.

But one result of Dred Scott was to bring a country lawyer in Illinois back into the public arena because, as he said at the time:

"We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."

House Divided, June 16, 1858

One problem with quoting Lincoln is that there is always an equal and opposite quote of Lincoln. Especially while he was in Illinois, he said one thing in Northern Illinois and another in Southern Illinois.

As for the Lincoln divisive fear mongering here, what free state ever woke up as a slave state? Could they wake up to find someone surreptitously changed their state constitution? If the Court could turn free states into slave states, why, under Lincoln, was the Court not used to turn the Union slave states into free states? That awaited a constitutional amendment, even though Lincoln had appointed five of the ten justices.

In the Lincoln-Douglas Debate #4 at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858, Douglas informed Lincoln about the quitclaim deed executed by Massachusetts abolitionist congressman Calvin Chaffee. The quitclaim deed did not emancipate Scott as claimed by Douglas, but enabled Taylor Blow to manumit (free) Dred Scott. Manumission of Scott in Missouri could only be done by a citizen of Missouri.

[Stephen Douglas] Dred Scott was owned at that time by the Rev. Dr. Chaffee, an Abolition member of Congress from Springfield, Massachusetts, and his wife, (immense laughter and applause,) and Mr. Lincoln ought to have known that Dred Scott was so owned, for the reason that as soon as the decision was announced by the court, Dr. Chaffee and his wife executed a deed emancipating him, and put that deed on record. (Cheers.) It was a matter of public record, therefore, that at the time the case was taken to the Supreme Court, Dred Scott was owned by an Abolition member of Congress, a friend of Lincoln's, and a leading man of his party, while the defence was conducted by Abolition lawyers—and thus the Abolitionists managed both sides of the case.

Also from the same debate,

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen to my knowledge a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men.

This last is what Lerone Bennett, Jr., editor of Ebony magazine for about a half century, called Lincoln's Charleston confession.

415 posted on 06/20/2021 12:27:04 AM PDT by woodpusher
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To: woodpusher; HandyDandy; DiogenesLamp; jmacusa; x
woodpusher: "Taney's opinion is historically important.
Legally, almost the entirety of said garnered no majority support, making it dicta, not holding of the Court, not an opinion of the court.
The dicta of Chief Justice Taney establish only his own opinion on some matter."

And today Crazy Roger Taney's opinions are supported by almost nobody except, curiously, our own DiogenesLamp who claims, amazingly, that the US Constitution made abolition by states illegal!
So DiogenesLamp tells us that Lincoln was correct in saying the Supreme Court could make Illinois a slave state.
DiogenesLamp claims Crazy Roger's SCOTUS was on the verge of correctly declaring abolition unconstitutional.

Now you, woodpusher, tell us: no, no, no... that's not what Crazy Roger said, it's not what Crazy Roger meant and anyway, nobody else at the time agreed with Crazy Roger.
But your problem is that a lot of people did agree, especially slaveholders, and a lot of Northerners like Lincoln took them seriously.

woodpusher: "As for the Lincoln divisive fear mongering here, what free state ever woke up as a slave state?
Could they wake up to find someone surreptitously changed their state constitution?
If the Court could turn free states into slave states, why, under Lincoln, was the Court not used to turn the Union slave states into free states? "

Our FRiend DiogenesLamp frequently informs us that the 1787 Constitution effectively outlawed abolition and so it needed only a ruling from the US Supreme Court to acknowledge what the Constitution already said!

woodpusher: "This last is what Lerone Bennett, Jr., editor of Ebony magazine for about a half century, called Lincoln's Charleston confession."

And our Lost Causers never cease delighting in requoting Lincoln's "confession" on FR CW threads... I've never understood why you people love that quote sooooo much, just guessing maybe it's because it makes Lincoln sound more like a white Southern Democrat, like yourselves really, like somebody you could even relate to, even though he had the horns & tail of the devil and is today burning in hell for what he did to the Garden of Eden which was the antebellum South.

416 posted on 06/20/2021 1:58:19 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
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To: woodpusher
One problem with quoting Lincoln is that there is always an equal and opposite quote of Lincoln. Especially while he was in Illinois, he said one thing in Northern Illinois and another in Southern Illinois.”

Shouldn’t you be attributing the above paraphrase to Stephen Douglas?

”In the Lincoln-Douglas Debate #4 at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858, Douglas informed Lincoln about the quitclaim deed executed by Massachusetts abolitionist congressman Calvin Chaffee. The quitclaim deed did not emancipate Scott as claimed by Douglas, but enabled Taylor Blow to manumit (free) Dred Scott. Manumission of Scott in Missouri could only be done by a citizen of Missouri. [Stephen Douglas] Dred Scott was owned at that time by the Rev. Dr. Chaffee, an Abolition member of Congress from Springfield, Massachusetts, and his wife, (immense laughter and applause,) and Mr. Lincoln ought to have known that Dred Scott was so owned, for the reason that as soon as the decision was announced by the court, Dr. Chaffee and his wife executed a deed emancipating him, and put that deed on record. (Cheers.) It was a matter of public record, therefore, that at the time the case was taken to the Supreme Court, Dred Scott was owned by an Abolition member of Congress, a friend of Lincoln's, and a leading man of his party, while the defence was conducted by Abolition lawyers—and thus the Abolitionists managed both sides of the case.

So here you admit that Douglas didn’t have the facts straight and yet you then post where he plays loosely-goosey with the facts. Kind of reminds me of Obama and the Cambridge Police. (He said, “I don’t have all the facts yet, ......but the Cambridge police acted stupidly”). Douglas is trying to lay guilt by association between Lincoln and Chaffee. I believe you told us earlier that Chaffee’s wife owned the Slave (through her previous husband) unbeknownst to Chaffee. And of course Chaffee immediately returned him to Taylor Blow upon learning of it.

”This last is what Lerone Bennett, Jr., editor of Ebony magazine for about a half century, called Lincoln's Charleston confession.

This last is carved out of a preamble to Lincoln’s debate #4. You are not giving it its proper context. Please remind your readers what prompted Lincoln to speak this off-the-cuff statement before moving on with his regularly scheduled debate speech. This has been discussed ad infinitum on these CW threads. And please leave in the “Great Laughter and Cheers.”

418 posted on 06/20/2021 5:13:13 PM PDT by HandyDandy
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To: woodpusher; BroJoeK
I generally skip BroJoeK. Talking to him is like arguing with a Moon Landing conspiracist.

By the time he has regurgitated something he claims you said, it is no longer recognizable. He does a lot of false equivalences.

Ask him about "Pearl Harbor." I always get a kick out of that one. :)

420 posted on 06/21/2021 5:02:46 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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