The bitter asperity of the United States Supreme Court decision in the 1857 case, Dred Scott (and Harriet) v. Sanford, is belied by its pablum history, where 300 prior, lower profile, cases involving 239 black persons in Missouri, whose litigation was largely successful, had both preceded and inspired it .
Methinks the Court did protest too much. Subsequent events attest!
If lower courts truly lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the slaves' "freedom suits," because the black slaves, lacked standing to sue, as "persons"--being chattel--as Chief Justice Roger Taney and his white supremacist colleagues dubiously, craftily concluded, in their 7-2. U. S. Constitution interpretation, why then did it them take 400 pages of separate opinions to say just that?
Water is displaced equivalently by commensurate volumes precisely. More volumes more displacement. Less volumes less displacement. Fluid dynamics mirror humanity.
Metaphors aside, these thoughts occur to me, as I begin reading Lea Vandervelde 's newly released legal history: REDEMPTION SONGS : SUING FOR FREEDOM BEFORE DRED SCOTT (2014), chronicling previous Missouri slaves' law suits.
Therein, this determined University of Iowa law professor writes, coyly, in her first chapter, "A Metaphor for the Subordinate Buried in History," the following:
"In suing for freedom the slaves defied his or her masters. When one sings a redemption song, one speaks truth to power. But not the full truth--the slave is not empowered to tell the whole truth--but enough of the truth to be upsetting to the master, to make a sound discordant with the legitimacy of the master's dominion, and enough of the truth to meet the elements legally necessary to redemption. That much and no more....
"Yet, the redemption song in a freedom suit is unlike other songs. It is not one of rescue, or mercy, or grace; it is a claim of entitlement. In this respect, it is different from other discourses that subordinates voice. Because it is instrumental--intended to redeem the legal right to free status--the petitioner cannot speak fully and freely. Extra notes and militant tones will impair the objective and may bring penalties; so the song must be spare, preserving the political economy of the resistance it presents."
P. 1-2
Monday, May 23, 2016
REDEMPTION SONGS, EXCERPT....
The bitter asperity of the United States Supreme Court decision in the 1857 case, Dred Scott (and Harriet) v. Sanford, is belied by its pablum history, where 300 prior, lower profile, cases involving 239 black persons in Missouri, whose litigation was largely successful, had both preceded and inspired it .
Methinks the Court did protest too much. Subsequent events attest!
If lower courts truly lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the slaves' "freedom suits," because the black slaves, lacked standing to sue, as "persons"--being chattel--as Chief Justice Roger Taney and his white supremacist colleagues dubiously, craftily concluded, in their 7-2. U. S. Constitution interpretation, why then did it them take 400 pages of separate opinions to say just that?
Water is displaced equivalently by commensurate volumes precisely. More volumes more displacement. Less volumes less displacement. Fluid dynamics mirror humanity.
Metaphors aside, these thoughts occur to me, as I begin reading Lea Vandervelde 's newly released legal history: REDEMPTION SONGS : SUING FOR FREEDOM BEFORE DRED SCOTT (2014), chronicling previous Missouri slaves' law suits.
Therein, this determined University of Iowa law professor writes, coyly, in her first chapter, "A Metaphor for the Subordinate Buried in History," the following:
"In suing for freedom the slaves defied his or her masters. When one sings a redemption song, one speaks truth to power. But not the full truth--the slave is not empowered to tell the whole truth--but enough of the truth to be upsetting to the master, to make a sound discordant with the legitimacy of the master's dominion, and enough of the truth to meet the elements legally necessary to redemption. That much and no more....
"Yet, the redemption song in a freedom suit is unlike other songs. It is not one of rescue, or mercy, or grace; it is a claim of entitlement. In this respect, it is different from other discourses that subordinates voice. Because it is instrumental--intended to redeem the legal right to free status--the petitioner cannot speak fully and freely. Extra notes and militant tones will impair the objective and may bring penalties; so the song must be spare, preserving the political economy of the resistance it presents."
P. 1-2
