with a further link to The Wichita Eagle
about President Bush's reference in the last debate
regarding the comparison between Dred Scott vs Sandord
and the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decisions.
I didn't watch the debates so cannot comment directly
on what the President meant, may have meant, or so
forth. What I'm sure is being lost on many as they
scramble to spin this, is the unilateral decision
making power of the Supreme Court justices to effect
all Americans without process of legislation.
Dred Scott was a slave whose master had transported
him and his family through a free state to another
slave state. Dred Scott then contended that due to
having passed through free soil, he was then entitled
to be free himself as well as his family. He then
brought suit against his master for his freedom.
The Supreme court overturned a lower court decision
that Scott could not sue for his freedom as he was not
a citizen of the state of Missouri and could not bring
suit against his master with the following statements:
10. The plaintiff having admitted, by his demurrer to the plea in abatement, that his ancestors were imported from Africa and sold as slaves, he is not a citizen of the State of Missouri according to the Constitution of the United States, and was not entitled to sue in that character in the Circuit Court.
11. This being the case, the judgment of the court below, in favor of the plaintiff on the plea in abatement, was erroneous.
Contrary to the myth that this case was decided based
upon the "slave as property" but was in fact one of
the symantecs of what a citizen is and who can bring
suit in a court. That this had the overall meaning and
definition in history cannot be denied and the case as
a whole did become a further turning point in the
eventual abolishment of slavery in the US.
Unfortunatly, it would seem that the analogy was a
poor one when compared with Roe v. Wade. Whereas the
Supreme court then sided with the rights of the states
to define thier own citizenry based upon status (if
for example Missouri had on thier books the following
law: a person of African decent who is born into
slavery will be considered a slave until such time as
they have been freed by thier master but will not be
considered a citizen of the state of Missouri ...). In
the latter Supreme Court decision the rights of the
states to have laws making abortion ilegal were struck
down.
So, in one sense the Supreme Court Justices held to a
strict application of the constitution in regards to
the definition of citizenship as relating to the laws
of the states and what the constitution provided for
who could be counted as a citizen of those states:
4. A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a 'citizen' within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.
5. When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were not numbered among its 'people or citizens.' Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them. And not being 'citizens' within the meaning of the Constitution, they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United States, and the Circuit Court has not jurisdiction in such a suit.
Whereas in our latter case the rights of the states
were usurped by the court in the rights to make laws
governing thier citizenry in relation to abortion,
thus as some have argued, passed law from the bench
beholden to no one.
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