QOTD

[sirs]

“The truth is, that, even with the most secure tenure of office, during good behavior, the danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion, and in defence of private rights or public liberties; but, that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passions, and politics, and prejudices of the day.” — Justice Joseph Story, who served from 1811 to 1845

[Christians4LessGvt]

way back then......he knew!

[Xavier_Onassis]

This could describe the Dred Scott decision, couldn't it?

Public opinion was probably against it, being as there were more Northerners than Southerners.

[BT]

The Dred Scott Decision was correct based on the law at that time. Slaves , black or white, were property.

[Xavier_Onassis]

But if one believes that human beings cannot or should not be property, which a majority of people in the US probably believed at that time, then deciding that Dred Scott should have remained free after having lived in a free state would have been the MORAL decision.

That is the point.

[BT]

But if one believes that human beings cannot or should not be property, which a majority of people in the US probably believed at that time, then deciding that Dred Scott should have remained free after having lived in a free state would have been the MORAL decision.

That is the point.

Are MORAL decisions to be decided by the courts or voiced by the people through their representatives. There are mechanisms in place to change the law up to and including the constitution itself, in the hands of the legislative branch.

[BSB]

Umpire of Liberty?

http://www.economist.com/node/21551477

[Xavier_Onassis]

So, actually, assassinating Hitler now would not be nearly so moral as to wait for him to be captured and tried in a court of law? As it happened, Hitler was a fugitive from Justice and his committing suicide was a travesty of justice.

The country would have been better off had the Dred Scott decision been decided in Dred Scott's favor.
Brazil abolished slavery with no civil war, so did England. The Dred Scott decision provoked the Civil War, this country's worst and most stupid disaster.

[Plane]

The Dred Scott Decision was correct based on the law at that time. Slaves , black or white, were property.

Not so, the minority opinion is much better founded.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I agree with Plane.

Even if the decision was logical, it was not only unjust, it was a major cause of the Civil War, which could and should have been avoided. I don't think that slavery is or ever has been logical, but there was a lot of precedence for it, and English law has always been based on precedence.

The English ended slavery in 1833, and broke that precedence. Of course, slavery was less important to the English as a moneymaker, and American slaves in factories that did not require heating would have been able to undercut British cotton mills that were in a rather chilly part of Britain.

Justice was on some British minds, but they also had their financial motives.

Brazil was always the major slave labor economy, and the British felt that their dominion over the seas could be threatened by the Portuguese and Brazilians, especially when the Spanish and Portuguese crown were united from 1580 to 1640.

[Plane]

I disagree with Sirs.

The British were making money directly by the slave trade, and their textile mills depended a lot on importing cheaper cotton.

England was destructive to its economic interests in ending slavery.

And as for the rise of rivals, dividing the USA-CSA would have pretty much eliminated the USN as a world player for all time.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The English were quite happy to import American slave-grown cotton. The conditions on Indian plantations were hardly different from slavery. They were not so much against slavery as the slave TRADE. Brazil was united with Portugal for many years, and Portugal was always a close ally of the British.

The Church of England lobbied to have the slave trade abolished. This suited the ruling classes (nobility and other 'old money') quite well, as they felt that selling slaves was beneath them, and since slavery was very lucrative, it removed the riff-raff from becoming wealthy and competing with them.

Note that the period 1833 through 1914 was the most prosperous period the British Empire ever had. Abolishing the slave trade did not deter them from ruling over half the world.

Their morals did not extend to ending the opium trade, please note.

[Plane]

They should get the credit they are due.

After a Christian revival and much ,much public discussion the British decided that slavery was odius and proceeded to abolish or attack it anywhere they could. They did not simply quit, they worked to prevent slavetrading and freed whomever they could reach.

Abraham Lincon had this to consider when he signed the emancipation proclamation, that the English Navy was the one entity on the planet that could end the blockade of the southern coastline. A CSA dependant on English military power would make a sweetheart deal that would provide British mills with cotton, practicly paying a tax to them.

Do you think England was not offered something sweet if they would help?

[Xavier_Onassis]

The English did not wish to run the blockade, but when cotton reached England, the English surely bought it. They could assume that all American cotton was the product of slave labor.

I did not say they do not deserve SOME credit. But they were hardly angels.

Queen Victoria was opposed to slavery. She was not opposed to fellow Brits buying Confederate cotton. I think that she and her ministers are most responsible for the British not punching a hole in the embargo.