nationalism vs globalism

[David Morris]

The Dred Scott decision was also "constitutional."

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/21.htm

Dred Scott, born a slave, had been taken by his master, an army surgeon, 
into the free portion of the Louisiana territory. Upon his master's death, 
Scott sued for his freedom, on the grounds that since slavery was outlawed 
in the free territory, he had become a free man there, and "once free always 
free." The argument was rejected by a Missouri court, but Scott and his 
white supporters managed to get the case into federal court, where the issue 
was simply whether a slave had standing -- that is, the legal right -- to 
sue in a federal court. So the first question the Supreme Court had to 
decide was whether it had jurisdiction. If Scott had standing, then the 
Court had jurisdiction, and the justices could go on to decide the merits of 
his claim. But if, as a slave, Scott did not have standing, then the Court 
could dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction.

The Court ruled that Scott, as a slave, could not exercise the prerogative 
of a free citizen to sue in federal court. That should have been the end of 
the case, but Chief Justice Taney and the other southern sympathizers on the 
Court hoped that a definitive ruling would settle the issue of slavery in 
the territories once and for all. So they went on to rule that the Missouri 
Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional since Congress could not forbid 
citizens from taking their property, i.e., slaves, into any territory owned 
by the United States. A slave, Taney ruled, was property, nothing more, and 
could never be a citizen.


>From: JBFRAME at aol.com
>
> > The Bush administration is both democratic and constitutional, no 
>question about it.
>
>Oh, give us a friggin' break!


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