Posted on 08/18/2017 8:37:42 AM PDT by TigerClaws
Taney did nevertheless pay a steep price for Dred Scott, one of the worst decisions ever by the Supreme Court, judicial activism comparable to the likes of Roe. He died penniless and lonely, abandoned by almost all.
This new version of Kristallnacht should not be popular with anyone. It is going to lead to very bad things.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
As a matter of law, it looks pretty solid. As a matter of emotion, it is horrible.
We are slowly being turned into a nation of emotions, not law.
“While I don’t like removal of statutes in general, I don’t have a problem with removing Roger Taney’s statute. He was the Harry Blackmun of his day, twisting the Constitution to support Dem causes.”
That’s an interesting quote that you credited to me, but it is not my quote.
But a correct application of the existing constitutional law for that time period.
How was it Judicial Activism? My understanding is that it was a correct interpretation of the applicable constitutional law for that time period.
Voting the other way would have been Judicial Activism.
D@mn quote got stuck in the copy/paste buffer and I didn’t notice. It was intended for “ Opinionated Blowhard “.
“D@mn quote got stuck in the copy/paste buffer and I didn’t notice. It was intended for “ Opinionated Blowhard “.”
It’s all good.
Also, has anyone read Taney's opinion in Dred Scott? It's quite a piece of reasoning. The yahoos who wanted his statute gone couldn't understand two words of it, I'm sure.
Taney freed his slaves and paid some of them pensions. He also voted against Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus. He stayed loyal to the Union when the War came. He died poor.
What more does anyone want from a man? We're being pushed around by morons who aren't fit to shine the shoes of the men they're maligning.
This is exactly my point. It was an evil law, but it was the law. A proper judge applies the law as intended, not how he would prefer it to be.
Ashamed. Perhaps. But they are clearly cowards.
I don't believe that is correct. Two justices, Mclean and Curtis, dissented and clearly upheld the lower court decision in their written opinion. Of the six justices who voted with Chief Justice Taney, two concurred and four wrote separate opinions which agreed that the court lacked jurisdiction, Sanford being a slave, but disagreed to one extent or another on much of the rest of Taney's written opinion, most of which was given in dicta anyway.
It was an evil law, but until the 13th Amendment, a jurist who didn't want to legislate had no choice but to uphold it.
It was a terrible decision in that once the court determined that Sanford could not take his case to the Supreme court since he was property and not a citizen then the matter should have stopped there. Taney's further continuing with the unconstitutionality of the Northwest Ordinance and blacks not being able to be citizens under any circumstances - both of which were pet peeves of Taney's and had been for decades - were not germane to the underlying decision. It's this obiter dictum, which the Republicans would have challenged as soon as they could, that made the decision so reprehensible.
Also, has anyone read Taney's opinion in Dred Scott? It's quite a piece of reasoning. The yahoos who wanted his statute gone couldn't understand two words of it, I'm sure.
I have, and I disagree on the "quite a piece of reasoning" part.
Taney freed his slaves and paid some of them pensions.
So? He also thought that blacks were not and could never be citizens.
He also voted against Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus.
Ruled against it actually, but from the circuit court bench and not the Supreme Court.
He stayed loyal to the Union when the War came. He died poor.
Both true. He was also against secession as practiced by the Southern states.
What more does anyone want from a man? We're being pushed around by morons who aren't fit to shine the shoes of the men they're maligning.
I am not in support of this whitewash of history people are committing by removing statues. For good or bad, these men represent a part of our history. Taney's notoriety in history is assured, and his statue should remain as a reminded of how wrong jurists can sometimes be.
And yet you were all over the Confiscation Acts. But then again, you didn't agree with those.
They violate constitutional law.
And Dred Scott didn't. Because Constitutional law is what you say it is?
It is what it says it is. I merely read what it says and then I relate it.
However, for the Maryland legislature to maintain consistency it would require removing and destroying everything and anything associated with these things, such as:
-- anything associated with the Confederacy, slaveholding and the founding and growth of the Ku Klux Klan (i.e., the Democrat Party of the 1850s and 1860s)
-- anything associated with opposition to Reconstruction (i.e., the Democrat Party of the 1870s)
-- anything associated with segregation (i.e., the Democrat Party of the 1910s through the 1950s)
-- anything associated with opposition to Civil Rights legislation (i.e., the Democrat Party of the 1960s)
-- and anything with strong opposition to the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights (i.e., the Democrat Party of the 1990s to the present).
C'mon boys and girls of the Maryland legislature. Do your sworn duty to protect the citizens of your socialist Utopia from anything they find objectionable for their own private ethical reasons which, unfortunately (for you), includes elimination of every last vestige the Democrat/Left Party.
Substantive due process is not recognized by the Constitution, in my opinion, only procedural due process is. SDP is the pernicious doctrine that is the foundation for judicial activism and the concept of a "living" Constitution.
Taney thought if he decided issues not before the Court to resolve the slavery issue once and for all that he would bring peace to the dispute between North and South. Just like the Court thought if it issued a solomonic decision on abortion in Roe that the controversy would be ended.
No basis in the Constitution for his decision? What about this?
Article IV, Section 2.
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Can congress override this requirement with legislation?
Taney thought if he decided issues not before the Court to resolve the slavery issue once and for all that he would bring peace to the dispute between North and South.
That sounds like a very plausible conjecture, but so far as I can tell, the actual constitutional law is on his side insofar as it deals with the specific case of Dred Scott.
People might argue that Scott wasn't a fugitive, or that he didn't "escape", but if the intent of the Constitutional compromise about returning slaves to the person for whom their labor is due is to return slaves to the person for whom their labor is due, then it is sophistry to argue that it depends on how they "escaped."
It's not pretty, but it is legally and logically consistent so far as I understand the intent of the Constitutional clause.
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