Six of the seven justices within the majority have been Democratic appointments. The one who wasn’t, Samuel Nelson, was nominated by John Tyler, who was a Democrat earlier than operating on the Whig ticket with William Henry Harrison. 5 of the justices have been appointed by slave homeowners. On the time of the ruling, 4 of the justices have been slave homeowners. And the chief justice, Roger Taney, was a robust Democratic partisan who was in shut communication with James Buchanan, the incoming Democratic president, within the weeks earlier than he issued the court docket’s ruling in 1857. Buchanan, actually, had written to among the justices urging them to concern a broad and complete ruling that may settle the authorized standing of all Black Individuals.
The Supreme Court docket, critics of the ruling stated, was not attempting to faithfully interpret the Structure as a lot because it was performing on behalf of the so-called Slave Energy, an alleged conspiracy of pursuits decided to take slavery nationwide. The court docket, wrote a committee of the New York State Meeting in its report on the Dred Scott determination, was decided to “carry slavery inside our borders, towards our will, with all its unhallowed, demoralizing and blighted influences.”
The Supreme Court docket didn’t have the political legitimacy to concern a ruling as broad and probably far-reaching as Dred Scott, and the consequence was to mobilize a big phase of the general public towards the court docket. Abraham Lincoln spoke for a lot of in his first inaugural address when he took purpose on the pretense of the Taney court docket to resolve for the nation: “The candid citizen should confess that if the coverage of the federal government upon important questions, affecting the entire folks, is to be irrevocably mounted by choices of the Supreme Court docket, the moment they’re made, in peculiar litigation between events, in private actions, the folks can have ceased to be their very own rulers.”
As a lot as ours is a dire second for the way forward for the American republic, we are able to not less than relaxation assured that we aren’t residing via 1857 or 1860 or 1861. Santayana however, historical past doesn’t truly repeat itself. However this Supreme Court docket — the Roberts court docket — is enjoying its personal model of the harmful sport that introduced the Taney court docket to spoil. It’s performing as if the general public should obey its dictates. It’s performing as if its legitimacy is incidental to its energy. It’s performing as if can’t be touched or delivered to heel.
The Supreme Court docket is betting, in different phrases, that it’s really unaccountable.
