Out of context
I was motoring along the highway today on the way to work and saw a bumper sticker that made me sigh with the silliness of the statement that was emblazoned across it.
"Abortion - The supreme court also said that slavery was legal"
Yes, they did. But they didn't say it was legal just 30 years ago (1973 for Roe vs. Wade). They said it was legal in 1857 thanks to the Dred Scott case. In 1857, while there were abolitionist movements finally taking hold which would eventually sway Abraham Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, the negro at the time was considered property and nothing more. The argument of the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case went simply that the justices believed the framers of the Constitution felt that negroes "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it." This was not a strange or uncommon idea at the time. While it would be unconscionable to abide by such a statement today, remember we're talking about a very different time in the world when most level-minded people found slavery to be part of culture. They simply didn't know any better. That doesn't make it right...but they were simply unable to see the forest for the trees.
It would be constructive to imagine - would the supreme court have decided in favor of abortion in 1857? Highly unlikely. While abortions were practiced, most states by 1857 had already outlawed the practice and it would have been quite unusual, given the still somewhat puritanical times, for the Supreme Court to have ruled against the wishes of religion.
Equally, would they have decided that slavery was legal in 1973? Of course not - it would have been unconstitutional to do so.
So for this bumper sticker to proclaim these two items to be of equal merit in an argument is just plain silly. But, the arguments of the conservative right tend to be a bit silly, anyway - though not typically any more silly than those of the liberal left, mind you!
Keep an open mind and you'll be fed endless meals of mirth from people trying to be deadly serious!
"Abortion - The supreme court also said that slavery was legal"
Yes, they did. But they didn't say it was legal just 30 years ago (1973 for Roe vs. Wade). They said it was legal in 1857 thanks to the Dred Scott case. In 1857, while there were abolitionist movements finally taking hold which would eventually sway Abraham Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, the negro at the time was considered property and nothing more. The argument of the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case went simply that the justices believed the framers of the Constitution felt that negroes "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it." This was not a strange or uncommon idea at the time. While it would be unconscionable to abide by such a statement today, remember we're talking about a very different time in the world when most level-minded people found slavery to be part of culture. They simply didn't know any better. That doesn't make it right...but they were simply unable to see the forest for the trees.
It would be constructive to imagine - would the supreme court have decided in favor of abortion in 1857? Highly unlikely. While abortions were practiced, most states by 1857 had already outlawed the practice and it would have been quite unusual, given the still somewhat puritanical times, for the Supreme Court to have ruled against the wishes of religion.
Equally, would they have decided that slavery was legal in 1973? Of course not - it would have been unconstitutional to do so.
So for this bumper sticker to proclaim these two items to be of equal merit in an argument is just plain silly. But, the arguments of the conservative right tend to be a bit silly, anyway - though not typically any more silly than those of the liberal left, mind you!
Keep an open mind and you'll be fed endless meals of mirth from people trying to be deadly serious!
posted by Erik | 6:57 PM
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