Dred Scott v. Sandford [Similarities to Obergefell vs. Hodges?]

wikipedia.org ^ | 9 September 2015‎ | wikipedia.org

[daniel1212]

The Supreme Court's decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford is unanimously denounced by scholars....

Opponents of slavery fiercely attacked the Dred Scott decision. The Evening Journal of Albany, New York, combined two themes and denounced the decision as both an offense to the principles of liberty on which the nation was founded, and a victory for slave states over the free states:[32]..

That editorial ended on a martial note:

All who love Republican institutions and who hate Aristocracy, compact yourselves together for the struggle which threatens your liberty and will test your manhood!

Many abolitionists and some supporters of slavery believed that Taney was prepared to rule, as soon as the issue was presented in a subsequent case, as for instance, Lemmon v. New York, that the states had no power to prohibit slavery within their borders and that state laws providing for the emancipation of slaves brought into their territory or forbidding the institution of slavery were likewise unconstitutional. Abraham Lincoln stressed this danger during his famous "House Divided" speech at Springfield, Illinois, on June 16, 1858:

Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. ...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.

That fear of the next Dred Scott decision shocked many in the North who had been content to accept slavery as long as it was confined within its present borders. It also put the Northern Democrats, such as Stephen A. Douglas, in a difficult position. The Northern wing of the Democratic Party had supported the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 under the banner of popular sovereignty. They argued that even if Congress did not bar the expansion of slavery into those territories, the residents of those territories could prohibit it by territorial legislation. The Dred Scott decision squarely stated that they could not exercise such prohibition, even though, strictly speaking, that issue was not before the Court...

Democrats characterized Republicans as lawless rebels, provoking disunion by their unwillingness to accept the Supreme Court's decision as the law of the land. Many Northern opponents of slavery offered a legalistic argument for refusing to recognize the Dred Scott decision as binding...

Douglas attacked this position in the Lincoln–Douglas debates:

Mr. Lincoln goes for a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States, because of their judicial decision in the Dred Scott case. I yield obedience to the decisions in that court—to the final determination of the highest judicial tribunal known to our constitution.

Democrats had previously refused to accept the Court's interpretation of the Constitution as permanently binding. During the Jackson Administration, the Attorney General had written:

Whatever may be the force of the decision of the Supreme Court in binding the parties and settling their rights in the particular case before them, I am not prepared to admit that a construction given to the constitution by the Supreme Court in deciding any one or more cases fixes of itself irrevokably [sic] and permanently its constuction in that particular and binds the states and the Legislative and executive branches of the General government, forever afterwards to conform to it and adopt it in every other case as the true reading of the instrument although all of them may unite in believing it erroneous.[33]

That Attorney General was Roger B. Taney [later Chief Justice in this case]

Southern supporters of slavery claimed that the Dred Scott decision was essential to the preservation of the union. As the Richmond Enquirer stated:

Thus has a politico-legal question, involving others of deep import, been decided emphatically in favor of the advocates and supporters of the Constitution and the Union, the equality of the States and the rights of the South, in contradistinction to and in repudiation of the diabolical doctrines inculcated by factionists and fanatics; and that too by a tribunal of jurists, as learned, impartial and unprejudiced as perhaps the world has ever seen. A prize, for which the athletes of the nation have often wrestled in the halls of Congress, has been awarded at last, by the proper umpire, to those who have justly won it. The "nation" has achieved a triumph, "sectionalism" has been rebuked, and abolitionism has been staggered and stunned. Another supporting pillar has been added to our institutions; the assailants of the South and enemies of the Union have been driven from their point d'appui; a patriotic principle has been pronounced; a great, national, conservative, union saving sentiment has been proclaimed.

While some supporters of slavery treated the decision as a vindication of their rights within the union, others treated it as merely a step to spreading slavery throughout the nation, as the Republicans claimed. Convinced that any restrictions on their right to own slaves and to take them anywhere they chose were unlawful, they boasted that the coming decade would see slave auctions on Boston Common. These Southern radicals were ready to split the Democratic Party and — as events showed — the nation on that principle.

Frederick Douglass, a prominent African-American abolitionist who thought the decision unconstitutional and the Chief Justice's reasoning inapposite to the founders' vision, prophesied that political conflict could not be avoided:

The highest authority has spoken. The voice of the Supreme Court has gone out over the troubled waves of the National Conscience ... [But] my hopes were never brighter than now. I have no fear that the National Conscience will be put to sleep by such an open, glaring, and scandalous tissue of lies ...[34] .

[daniel1212]

This was an excerpt.

Anyone see any similarities to Obergefell vs. Hodges? SCOTUS basically defines blacks as subhuman in one case, and defines marriage as consisting of the union of same genders in another. And every state and employee is expected to follow it.

Kim Davis is like an employee who was told blacks are now considered animals and must sign licenses to enslave them, contrary to what her state constitution said when she was elected, and must face employment or jail if she refuses to accept this radical change in her job description made on the federal level.

Yet many "conservatives" hold that she needs to just "do her job."

[daniel1212]

Chief Justice John Roberts compared Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) to the Dred Scott case, as another example of trying to settle a contentious issue through a ruling that went beyond the scope of the Constitution.[41]

[VitacoreVision]

Dred Scott's Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America

Andrew P. Napolitano, 2009


Racial hatred is one of the ugliest of human emotions. And the United States not only once condoned it, it also mandated it?wove it right into the fabric of American jurisprudence. Federal and state governments legally suspended the free will of blacks for 150 years and then denied blacks equal protection of the law for another 150.

How did such crimes happen in America? How were the laws of the land, even the Constitution itself, twisted into repressive and oppressive legislation that denied people their inalienable rights?

Taking the Dred Scott case of 1957 as his shocking center, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano tells the story of how it happened and, through it, builds a damning case against American statesmen from Lincoln to Wilson, from FDR to JFK.

Born a slave in Virginia, Dred Scott sued for freedom based on the fact that he had lived in states and territories where slavery was illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Scott, denied citizenship to blacks, and spawned more than a century of government-sponsored maltreatment that destroyed lives, suppressed freedom, and scarred our culture.

Dred Scott's Revenge is the story of America's long struggle to provide a new context?one in which "All men are created equal," and government really treats them so.

[Fungi]

FU John Roberts. Remember Obamacare? You have no moral clarity and no morals at all. Go to hell you sterile epileptic buffoon.

[daniel1212]

Thanks. And see this excellent article: Kim Davis taught us how bad liberals really are

[libertylover]

The 3 worst decisions in legal history that I can think of:
Dred Scott,
Roe v. Wade,
and Obergefell vs. Hodges.

All of these result from judges PRETENDING things to be true that aren’t true.

In Dred Scott they pretended that black people aren’t people.
In Roe v. Wade they pretend that people in the womb aren’t people.
In Obergefell vs. Hodges they pretend that homosexuality is normal.
(And btw, the Nazis pretended that Jews aren’t people.)

These issues will never go away as long as people continue to pretend.

[Amendment10]

Comparing Dred Scott v. Sandford to Obergefell v. Hodges (Obergefell) is like comparing apples and oranges imo. More specifically, by deciding Obergefell against the state, Obama’s pro-gay activist justices wrongly ignored that the states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect the so-called right to gay “marriage.” In other words, pro-gay activist justices actually had no constitutionally enumerated gay “marriage” right to throw at the states via the 14th Amendment.

In fact, the congressional record shows that John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, had clarified that the 14th Amendment applies only those rights expressly amended to the Constitution by the states to the states.

“Mr. Speaker, this House may safely follow the example of the makers of the Constitution and the builders of the Republic, by passing laws for enforcing all the privileges and immunities of the United States as guaranteed by the amended Constitution and expressly enumerated in the Constitution [emphasis added].” —John Bingham, Congressional Globe, House of Representatives, 42nd Congress, 1st Session. (See lower half of third column.)

And more importantly, although the 14th Amendment has problems imo, the states effectively overturned the Court’s decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford within the framework of the Constitution by ratifying the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.

But as previously mentioned, it remains that the states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect gay “marriage.” Activist justices wrongly established the so-called right to gay “marriage” outside the framework of the Constitution. They did so by breaching the Founding States' division of federal and state government powers, stealing 10th Amendment-protected state power to prohibit constitutionally unprotected gay “marriage” to legalize the so-called right to gay “marriage” from the bench.

And what’s arguably worse then the Court’s PC decision in Obergefell is that regardless that the Founding States gave Congress the specific power to remove Constitution-ignoring justices from the bench, the post-17th Amendment ratification has refused to work with the House to impeach and remove activist justices from the bench against the will of many states.

The ill-conceived 17th Amendment needs to disappear, and corrupt senators and the activist justices that they confirm and then refuse to remove from the bench as well.

[daniel1212]

Thank you for your learned reply exposing the problem of an essentially autocratic entity which has arrogated powers to itself, and judged (5 our of 9) contrary to the mind of the Founders, and above all, to God.

But there are the similarities of reaction with Dred, such as "Democrats characterized Republicans as lawless rebels, provoking disunion by their unwillingness to accept the Supreme Court's decision as the law of the land."

And the cry of Douglas that "I yield obedience to the decisions in that court—to the final determination of the highest judicial tribunal known to our constitution."

And the presumption that Dred would result in states having "no power to prohibit slavery within their borders and that state laws providing for the emancipation of slaves brought into their territory or forbidding the institution of slavery were likewise unconstitutional."

And the argument for the the Dred Scott decision as being "essential to the preservation of the union," rejoicing that The "nation" has achieved a triumph, "sectionalism" has been rebuked, and abolitionism has been staggered and stunned.

Likewise, Dred "shocked many in the North who had been content to accept slavery as long as it was confined within its present borders," so likewise Obergefell shocked many who had been content to allow same sex unions as long as it was confined within states that voted it in, and as civil unions.

Thus the editorial which words are fit to be applied to Obergefell,

All who love Republican institutions and who hate Aristocracy, compact yourselves together for the struggle which threatens your liberty and will test your manhood!

And those of Frederick Douglass,

I have no fear that the National Conscience will be put to sleep by such an open, glaring, and scandalous tissue of lies ...[34] .

And what Taney had before stated is argued today in the light of Obergefell

Whatever may be the force of the decision of the Supreme Court in binding the parties and settling their rights in the particular case before them, I am not prepared to admit that a construction given to the constitution by the Supreme Court in deciding any one or more cases fixes of itself irrevokably [sic] and permanently its construction in that particular and binds the states and the Legislative and executive branches of the General government, forever afterwards to conform to it and adopt it in every other case as the true reading of the instrument although all of them may unite in believing it erroneous.[33]

[daniel1212]

Born a slave in Virginia, Dred Scott sued for freedom based on the fact that he had lived in states and territories where slavery was illegal. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Scott, denied citizenship to blacks, and spawned more than a century of government-sponsored maltreatment that destroyed lives, suppressed freedom, and scarred our culture.

And then white liberals, as proxy servants of Satan, enslaved the black culture fostering the demonic envious victim-entitlement mentality. Which sees as oppressors those who subscribe to and operate under the premise that benefits are to be earned, and that such have a right to higher standard of living than those who do not merit this.

And that such are to show mercy to the truly oppressed, and can bestow grace on the unworthy, not as such being their right but as a gift, with the expectation that the recipients of such will use such to become productive members of society, as able, and so help others themselves

Like the envious devil, who selfishly presumed he was worthy to sit on God's throne, (Is. 14:14) and worked to seduce Eve into seeing herself as a victim of a malevolent God who was selfishly keeping back her ability to be as a god - thus God was needed to share the wealth - the liberal elite appeals to those who have less than others as being their saviors from the oppression of the wage earners.

While in fact there sometimes is injustice and oppression, rather then encouraging overcoming such in the long term by hard work and diligence, as Booker T. Washington exhorted , what the liberal elite fostered was bitterness and resentment, as victims who were entitled to the same benefits as those they envied, even without meriting such, or as charity.

Instead, the idea that it was their right was sold to them, which the liberal saviors would procure at no cost except in response to their votes, thus fostering indolence and a welfare society which made the former dependent on the liberal saviors, which actually kept them in poverty.

And as these two classes grow and those who are required to share their wealth decrease, then more and more become dependent on the deified democrats, who will increasingly require homage in their alternative society, which increasingly reflects the will of the devil, and in which he receives obeisance thru his proxy servants.

Thus God's being done on earth as it is in Heaven is anathema to such liberal elites.

[StonyBurk]

Add Thomas M.Cooley General Principles of constitutional Law , Little Brown and CO ,1880 pp.227-230 on the “civil Right” of Marriage....In 1880 Cooley writes that the States which banned interracial marriage were not adversely affected by passage of the 14th Amendment—which in 1880 anyhow was not seen as affecting the States Right to regulate Marriage.And those States with the ban in place did not substantially harm the institution of marriage as a whole anyhow. (my fuzzy headed recollect o fwhat he published there)