Confederate Supporters

Throughout our history there have been those who have wrapped themselves in the American Constitution to oppose progress. A recent letter writer, Mr. James Shaner, Sr., quoted former Chief Justice Roger Taney to back up the neo-conservative’s “strict constructionist” argument. Briefly, that position says that the founders principles and original intent were clear” and should not be challenged.

Forget for a moment, that the founders included a method for amending the constitution (a process which has happened 27 times in our history). Let’s just look at Justice Taney. He is most famous for writing the majority decision in the Dred Scott case which was decided by a 7 to 2 vote in 1857. This decision overturned all restrictions on attempts to limit the spread of slavery into the territories. How did such a reprehensible decision be reached?

The majority of the Supreme Court felt that the original intent of the framers of the Constitution must be upheld. To that end Taney wrote; The Constitution and histories of that time (the founding of our Country) show, free or slave, Black people were not considered to be citizens. He went on that if “persons of the negro race…were recognized as citizens in any State of the Union”, they would be able to “go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done (with) the inevitable producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.”

Let’s look at the language of the U.S. Constitution in 1857.

Article 1, Section 2 said that;

“Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.”

This language was changed by the 14^th amendment which was passed 11 years after Dred Scott. Section 2 of the 14^th Amendment says “the basis of representation … shall be in proportion … to the number of male citizens 21 years of age.”

Even this language was changed. It took another 70 years before women were included with the passage of the 19^th Amendment. It took several decades more to lower the voting age to 18 with the 26^th Amendment.

Could Justice Taney have thought that the original language of Article 1, Section 2 supported his position?

Article 4, Section 2 of the Constitution originally read that “No person held to service or labor 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 labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri. After his masters death he sued for his freedom. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court. Using the principles and original intent of the framers of the Constitution, the court ruled that Mr. Scott was not a citizen and was returned to slavery.

If the people who talk about “activist courts” that “stray from the original intent” of the Founding Fathers really want to bring back slavery and take away women’s right to vote to go along with the “original intent” of our founding fathers, they should tell us that. If these people regret the South lost the civil war giving rise to the 13^th and 14^th Amendments, they should speak up or shut up!