REDEMPTION SONGS, EXCERPT...

"Judicial activism" was a bane and political rallying-cry of right wing demagoguery, following the Earl Warren Court era, when American court decisions finally began to attempt to approximate its credo: "with liberty and justice for all." The activist door was slapped shut, however, beginning with the "law and order" election of Richard Milhouse Nixon as President in 1968. It was definitely nailed shut with Ronald Reagan and Bushes. History is full of sardonic irony, however. Perhaps the most stark example of "judicial activism" may be found in the 1857 "Dred Scott" decision, which made a mountain out of a molehill in freedom suits! Writes Prof. Lea Vandervelde in her breakthrough book, REDEMPTION SONGS: SUING FOR FREEDOM BEFORE DRED SCOTT (2014): "This book does not attempt to address the causes of the Civil War, except to note the obvious--that the Dred Scott case was a contributing factor--and to demonstrate something much more obvious: that the decision was the game changer. Dred Scott was a major shift in the body of law of the state from which it originated. The decision departed so substantially from Missouri 's previous precedent as to conflict with rules applied in more than 200 cases arising previously in the same jurisdiction. The overwhelming lesson of these cases indicated that the Scotts had a very good expectation of winning. Framed by this prior practice, their claim was a relatively simple and easy case. Justice Taney is infamously quoted as saying that black men had no legal rights. In these very numerous cases, black persons had legally enforceable 'rights ' that white men were obligated to respect. Thus, the 'Dred Scott ' case can no longer be viewed as a foregone conclusion that a slave would lose to his master , but as the game changer, the case that repudiated established legal rules applied in at least 200 cases of precedent. With 'Dred Scott,' redemption songs were silenced. The Civil War loomed." P.10, "A Metaphor for the Voice of the Subordinate Buried in History" The "Dred Scott" case was racist "judicial activism" on steroids!