11 Comments

"Though America was at war with Japan, Germany, and Italy—only Japanese Americans suffered mass arrest and deprivation of property."

Again, not true...both Italian and German Americas to a smaller extent were also rounded up and put into concentration camps.

https://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/enemy-aliens/ww2#:~:text=Along%20with%20detainment%20and%20internment,citizens%2C%20from%20designated%20military%20zones.

Expand full comment

wow you nailed your history of bad cases that make harsh law, a total shift from Professor Dworkin's philosophy that hard cases make bad law. These cases did not sound hard at all, if you care about litigants and law has the purpose of justice- as in freedom from harm. Thank you for your work on this as the information should be distributed widely and known by citizens who don't get to take con law. I could even say your recitation gives an interesting take on what we generally call con law. Too bad the con is on us.

Expand full comment

Ever since I became a lawyer 45 years ago, my first consideration in every election has been what Supreme Court nominees the new president would bring forth. While most of us argued about meaningless things, the right wing built a judiciary that we cannot penetrate. Standard democratic remedies will be ineffective. We need to do more.

Expand full comment

I think about that often. They spent 50 years to repeal Roe and the left didn’t even bother to codify it.

Expand full comment

Not bad , much better than 99% of US text books,

But you forgot the biggest issue

Jeff Davis CREATED Dred Scott decision because the three groups of his paid men -- paid is a big deal---did not kill enough Kansas Citizens, starting from 1854, when Douglas, Davis and Atchison took Kansas Act to Davis to sign, and five weeks later, Atchison vanished from DC, then showed up in Kansas where the first group --- 800 men from outside Kansas --were waiting

Tjos group of PAID men -- and from outside Kansas -- first terrorized, then tortured, then killed Kansas citizens -- on the insane lie that it was a crime to publish anything against slavery (That was the law in most slave states)

But 95% of Kansas Citizens were against slavery --as Stephen A Douglas famously said (famous for that period)

When that first group of men did not kill or terrorize enough -- when many of the paid men ran away, Atchison and Davis spent a year getting a much larger group -- 3000 or so men, mostly from Texas.

Atchison speech in 1856 was to that second group of paid killer. Read that speech. Atchison boasted they would be well paid, and boasted their new flag was red "for the color of blood" they would spill to spread slavery. In all this -- remember- 95 % of Kansas civitizens were against slavery. Most of them did not want blacks allowed in KS, but they fought back against Davis Douglas and Atchison forcing slavery upon them.

WHen the second group of paid men -- the 3000 men, did not quickly turn slavery into a slave state, Davis, as Sec of War under Pierce, ordered US troop to go to Kansas to protect his paid killers

All of this -- however, did not work to get Kansas to be a slave state

Hence -- DRED SCOTT decision. Dred decision ordered -- directed that blacks are not human

It also ordered -- directed blacks could not be made human

It also ordered--directed --that the fed gov must HELP -- HELP the chit heads spread slavery. The logic of course, was that blacks were not human, they were property. As such federal govern is ordered to protect the passage of properting, and protect the owner ship of property -- just like fed gov had to protect the shipment of cows to all of US, it had to protect the transfer of sub human being -- blacks

Lincoln of course exposed this over-- and over. And over.

Lincoln correctly termed the KS Act Dred Scot fraud as the "carefully crafted machinery" fitted together by design to spread slavery to all of US -- by violence. Dred decision justified all his past and future violence -- in Davis mind and his book, So it's necessary to read Jeff Davis book

The point is, we should teach these facts. Almost idiotically US text books and many "scholars" claim that Kansas Act was "a way to resolve the vexing issue of slavery in the territories by popular sovereighty. How stupid can anyone be? Davis and Atchsin sent paid killers -- two groups of paid killers to terrorize and kill specifically TO STOP Kansas citizens from voting or even speaking aginst slavery. What manner of stupid is this? But once a dupe ass "educator" tells the kids in class such nonsense, someone else repeats it. Even the Britannica encyclopedia and most text books put such nonsense on paper. Historians like Joyce Kern Goodwin repeats goofy slogans.

Expand full comment

🤬💔

Expand full comment

For a brilliant, comprehensive analysis of the Supreme Court as an institution that has usually limited or denied the civil rights of U.S. citizens when those rights conflict with the interests of oligarchs, see Louis Boudin's "The Supreme Court and Civil Rights" in the journal Science and Society, circa 1937.

Expand full comment

Thanks for the rec. Will check out.

Expand full comment

That's great. It heartens me that you're in a position to know what to do with it. It's potent but should be accompanied by a clear explanation that explains its relevance to what we're seeing today.

Expand full comment

Thanks for this excellent summary. Except SC stands for settler colonialists. Can’t have racism for free labor without free land to capitalize through genocide.

Expand full comment

Thank you for reading and sharing!

Expand full comment