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Dred Scott and the Dangers of a Political Court

Amazon.com Price:  $42.89 (as of 06/05/2019 06:47 PST- Details)

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Description

The Dred Scott decision of 1857 is widely (and accurately) regarded as the very worst in the long history of the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision held that no African American could ever be a U.S. citizen and declared that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional and void. The decision thus seemed to promise that slavery would be perpetually safe in the great American West. Prompting mass outrage, the decision was a an important step on the road that led to the Civil War. Dred Scott and the Dangers of a Political Court traces the history of the case and tells the story of the various key people involved, including Dred and Harriet Scott, President James Buchanan, Chief Justice Roger Taney, and Abraham Lincoln. The book also examines in some detail each of the nine separate Opinions written by the Court’s Justices, connecting each with the respective Justices’ past views on slavery and the law. That examination demonstrates that the majority Justices were willing to embrace virtually any flimsy legal argument they could find at hand with the intention to justify the pro-slavery result they had predetermined. Many modern commentators view the case chiefly in the case of Roe v Wade and related controversies in modern constitutional law: some conservative critics attempt to argue that Dred Scott exemplifies ‘aspirationalism’ or ‘judicial activism’ gone incorrect; some liberal critics in turn try to argue that Dred Scott instead represents ‘originalism’ or ‘strict constructionism’ run amok. Here, Judge Ethan Greenberg demonstrates that none of these modern critiques has much merit. The Dred Scott case was not about constitutional methodology, but chiefly about slavery, and about how very far the Dred Scott Court was willing to go to offer protection to the political interests of the slave-holding South. The decision was incorrect because the Court subordinated law and intellectual honesty to politics. The case thus exemplifies the dangers of a political Court.

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