This is an article I barely perused but something caught my eye in it.
https://connectakron.uakron.edu/law/lawreview/v39/docs/Aynes392.pdf
The author was a Dean at that law school at the time. He talks about how a Justice repeatedly misquoted Article IV, Section 2 by ONE WORD in order to make his case in the Slaughterhouse cases. BTW, the lower court in Wong talked about those cases and stripped away a sentence as Dicta.
I really can’t fathom why Gray pulled the number he did in Wong but it just goes to show you that the law will be decided how they want to that day and they will find a way to make it happen - even if it goes against another case that they previously decided a different way.
“I really can’t fathom why Gray pulled the number he did in Wong”
To protect the presidency of the man who appointed him to the bench. If Arthur was found to be ineligible and removed, Gray would have suffered the same fate. He had material interest in helping hide Arthur’s status and what it meant.
My theory is that he was rebuking the explicit racism of the Chinese Exclusion act and the Dred Scot v Sanford decisions. He wanted to make a political statement by forcing people whom he considered to be racists into accepting other races as equals whether they liked it or not. He wanted to ram it down their throats and watch them sputter and gag. It's really that simple.
You must remember, Republicans of that era became famous for "waving the bloody shirt." Excoriating the Previously Rebellious and Racist Democrats was a popular pastime in national politics after the civil war.
but it just goes to show you that the law will be decided how they want to that day and they will find a way to make it happen - even if it goes against another case that they previously decided a different way.
Exactly. The law means what the current judges SAY it means, with some respect to Precedent if it doesn't offend the current judges too badly. If it does, OUT WITH IT!
We are not a nation of laws, but of men. (and women.)