Dred Scott decision still haunts country, professor says (Mega Barf Alert)

Analysis of an almost-150-year-old U.S. Supreme Court decision — the Dred Scott case — is important because it helps answer a contemporary question, said Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy: "Why are black people so angry?"

Part of the answer is the racism inherent in the foundation of our government, he said, and it's not a historical artifact.

"Do we still live in a pigmentocracy? Yeah, we live in a pigmentocracy," Kennedy said Thursday night. "Until it is a (case) that one can read and feel that it is repudiated, it will continue to have . . . a certain potency."

Kennedy's comments came in a public conversation with Duke law professor Walter Dellinger during the kickoff event for a symposium on the Dred Scott case at the University of Texas School of Law. The 1857 case denied Scott his freedom and said black people could never be American citizens.

The symposium continues today and Saturday with discussions by 11 law, history and political science professors from across the country.

The case matters today because of the issues it raises about the roles of the Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court, said UT law professor Sanford Levinson, the symposium's organizer.

Dellinger used the case to frame discussion of current immigration debates as Congress is considering denying citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants. The Dred Scott case was about deciding who got to be a U.S. citizen, he said, warning of the dangers of defining in laws and courts who is or is not American.

Both scholars agreed that the primary importance of the case is that it lays bare the prevailing attitudes about black people in early U.S. politics. "It makes us look at how race and racism are at the basis of the Constitution," Dellinger said.

A Virginia-born slave, Dred Scott was suing only for his own freedom, based on the argument that he could no longer be a slave because he had been taken to a free state. He had initially tried to buy freedom for himself and his wife, but his owner refused.

In March 1857, more than 10 years after he filed his lawsuit, the Supreme Court ruled on his case. The wide-reaching 7-2 decision denied citizenship to all black people and declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, allowing slavery in all states.

Black people "had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations," Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote in the court's decision. "They had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit."

The decision, along with its soaring racist rhetoric, fueled the public debate on slavery, leading to Abraham Lincoln's election as president in 1860 and contributing to the start of the Civil War.

Kennedy said he sees Taney nearly every day in Harvard's library, where his portrait hangs on the wall among other historical figures. Despite the justice's opinion backing slavery, Kennedy said, he would not take the portrait down.

"In a way it's useful for Taney to be up on the wall," he said, because it can lead to conversation about him. "The problem is general ignorance."

The Dred Scott symposium is free and open to the public and will be held at the Eidman Courtroom, 723 Dean Keeton St. Parking is available at the San Jacinto garage.

I have not read this entire article but I think it is a good idea to continually discuss this case. Why? Because it can be tied into so many other recent decisions that are also wrong. Abortion, for one. Eniment Domain, for another. It can be explained that political decisions and feelings get in the way of interpreting the Constitution and following the law.

Your usual tactic of setting up a straw man conclusion, putting out an all points bulletin to your buddies, accusing someone of drawing a conclusion that you concoct, and then feigning extreme surprise and condemnation, and yes, even personal abuse to try to make a point.

Is that what I do? Thanks for clearing that up.

Now, who is the blithering idiot?

Not me. Why do you ask?

Roger Taney was the driving force behind the Dred Scott decision. He wrote the "majority opinion" but from what I gather, each judge wrote his own opinion -- a sign that Taney didn't speak for everyone on the court.

Taney was over eighty in 1860, and he couldn't last forever on all the legal points involved. A Republican President would soon enough have the chance to appoint a Republican Chief Justice. As it was most of the court had been replaced due to deaths and resignations after 16 if not 8 years. There was the possibility to create new seats on the court and accelerate the change (which in fact Congress did do in 1863 and 1869).

New Justices wouldn't have been bound to Taney's decision, which was indeed quite radical (apparently, it was only the second time in history that the high court had set aside an act of Congress). So it just isn't true that the Corwin Amendment would have left Dred Scott -- a bad, pro-slavery decision -- permanently in effect.

As it was, it was going to be awfully difficult to enforce Dred Scott v. Sanford when something like half the country disagreed with it, but it wouldn't remain on the books forever. Then as now, Democrats had cause to fear that Republicans would appoint good judges to replace their bad ones.

He wrote the "majority opinion" but from what I gather, each judge wrote his own opinion -- a sign that Taney didn't speak for everyone on the court.

Taney was over eighty in 1860, and he couldn't last forever on all the legal points involved.

That last phrase "on all the legal points involved" should end the previous sentence "Taney didn't speak for everyone on the court". Whatever the legal points involved, Taney wasn't going to live forever.

"Why are black people so angry?"

The color of their skin is becoming less and less relevant, therefore, they have less and less power.

Politicians are going after white and brown voters.
Employers are going after brown faces to fill their minority quotas.

The blacks who relied on the color of their skin rather than the content of their character to open doors are finding more and more of those doors closed.

Sucks to be #2 don't it.

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