It was *NOT* an activist decision. It interpreted the law just as it existed and just as the Founders had written it. It would have been an activist decision if they had freed Scott.
And the South was antistates rights in that they wanted the federal enforcing runaway slave laws free states
This is also wrong. The South wanted the constitutional law enforced regarding fugitive slaves. This was a "right" that all states had given up when they ratified the US Constitution. It was therefore no longer a "state's rights" issue, because all states had signed away that particular right.
Actually it is a good example of an”Activist Decision” on the part of the Supreme Court.
The only issue before the Court in Scott V. Sanford was whether Scott could sue in Federal Court for his freedom.
This could have been answered in a one page opinion, i.e.,
Dred Scott was not a citizen of the United States and therefore had no standing to sue in Federal Court for his freedom. Instead we got copious pages of opinion including that The Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, that was not an issue presented in the suit to the court. The Federal Government has no Constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in any state where slavery is legal. That was also an issue that was not in the suit. The Federal Government must enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. Again that was not an issue in the suit. And finally, there is no way that a slave can become a citizen of the United States. That per se was not in the suit. Only Dred Scott’s status as a slave and citizenship was the question to be interpreted per the Constitution. That seem to be pretty activist jurisprudence to me.
It’s not very often one sees someone speaking well of the Scott v. Sanford decision, but then again you never cease to amaze me.
how do you figure it interpreted law exactly as Founders had written
you clearly don’t seem to believe in the concept of “original intent” in the Constitution seeing how the founders behave before and after they wrote the Constitution
Since the founders have been banning slavery in the territories with Northwest ordinances before The Constitution
they prohibited the import of slaves in the Constitution
and the same founders were prohibiting slavery in some territories and States after the Constitution
the founders regulating slavery all over the place
the Founders demonstrated over and over and over again before during and after the writing of the Constitution that they thought it was inside their rights to regulate and restrict slavery wherever they saw fit
the only place they didn’t think they had the right to do was touch slavery inside a state that already had it
It was the Supreme Court that all of a sudden steps in and says no you can’t
Dred Scott was the Roe v Wade of his day a completely invented right
a slave owner had no more right to expect this slave claim to be honored in a free state let alone expect the federal to enforce his claim in a free state....
Then a gay marriage in a gay marriage state should be forced to be honored in a non gay marriage States
that is until then Supreme Court stepped in and impose gay marriage on all of us that was another Dred Scott like activist decision
it’s a total joke to say The South was for states rights when they’re expecting the federal to go around imposing slave states will on free states
speaking of states rights.. if a slave state lets say Virginia decided for whatever reason it wanted to end slavery... under Dred Scott they couldn’t do it ... so much for states rights and freedoms
you seem to adopt this attitude that if one state wanted slavery the other all the other free states had to respect and enforce it inside their and the federal had to enforce it inside all federal territories.... it that’s not state rights
The so-called “Fire Eaters” of the South were the first advocates of secession in the early 1850s. They too violated the intent of the Constitution by seeking to reopen the transatlantic slave trade, which had been ended by the Founding Fathers.