SUPREME COURT CASES ENGINEERED TO “GORE ANOTHER’S OX?”
Larry Delano Coleman, Esq.
Monday, May 11, 2015
June is the traditional hand-down month of most U.S. Supreme Court decisions
Certain cases pending before the Supreme Court in recent years have been filed –indeed, engineered—by secret interest groups, silent partners; even “straw plaintiffs,” for the purpose of “goring another’s ox;” that is, thwarting another’s desired outcome or advancing an adverse outcome, though being actually materially disinterested, except as pertains to attaining a desired national policy by judicial decree.
Once known as champerty or barratry, and forbidden as illegal, unconscionable, or presenting no “case or controversy” for federal court jurisdiction, present day practitioners of these despicable antics have perfected them to such an extent that they are difficult to discern. Especially have they been used to nullify post- Civil War laws and Amendments, investing citizenship and theretofore nonexistence “rights” in newly-freed blacks. A former Supreme Court justice serves as a modern day template for this wrong.
That former justice was none other than the venal Confederate, John Archibald Campbell, one of the leading obstructionists to the "rights" of blacks.
Not only did he rule against Dred Scott's bid for freedom in 1857, which, in part, launched the Civil War, but he served in the Cabinet of Jefferson Davis in the Civil War. Even more importantly, he filed a lawsuit under the 14th Amendment in the “Slaughterhouse Cases,” which involved no blacks, but that derailed the Amendment's salutary purposes for blacks into a constitutional slough!
The Supreme Court, whose sitting justices had lobbied for Campbell's appointment, decreed that the 14th Amendment protected federal rights only, which were very few in number, all others were states' rights, which the 14th Amendment did not reach!
This line of thought was followed by the Court from 1873, well into the 20th Century, as "Jim Crow," thanks to John Campbell and his racist judicial cronies!
As this term’s hand-down date—June—approaches, it be well to be cognizant of certain verbs that traditionally, with their synonyms, have been used to negate or to truncate blacks’ civil rights. These include: "Separate, dissociate, dissect, dissolve, deconstruct, parse, divide, reverse , & overturn."
The verbs listed above describe the deductive process by which remedial Civil War-era laws and Amendments passed by Congress and ratified by the States were negated or effectively truncated by the U.S. Supreme Court.
It began its assault softly, subtly with the facially non-racial, "Slaughter House Cases" from New Orleans, Louisiana, that involved butchers of that Crescent City's livestock in 1873.
In those cases which were brought by a former Supreme Court Justice named John Archibald Campbell, who detested blacks, as well as radical Reconstruction's investing of any blacks with citizenship rights, he sued pointedly under the Fourteenth Amendment to stop his independent butcher clientele from having to rent butcher stalls in the new, municipally-owned rendering plant.
Previously, they had slaughtered their animals north of the city, not south of it, so that the offal and effluvia had contaminated the water supply that was drawn from the Mississippi River. Campbell wanted his clients to be free to run their own shops south of the city, to solve the offal problems causing repeated cholera outbreaks there, without renting from the city.
Now, Campbell could have sued under any number of common law theories or even may have sought equitable relief. But, he purposely chose the brand new Fourteenth Amendment because he knew the judicial temperament of his former colleagues toward blacks, for whose special benefit the Fourteenth Amendment was passed after the Civil War. And he wanted to muck it up, and preclude its value to blacks.
This venal Confederate, Campbell, was one of white supremacists' leading obstructionists to the "rights" of blacks. Not only did he rule against Dred Scott's bid for freedom in 1857, while on the court, which, in part, launched the Civil War; but, after resigning therefrom with the outbreak of war, he served in the Cabinet of Jefferson Davis in the Civil War. Even more importantly than all of that, was the deceitful lawsuit that he filed under the 14th Amendment in the Slaughterhouse Cases, which involved no blacks, at all! That combined case, operating by inference and analogy, derailed the 14th Amendment's salutary purposes for blacks and shoved them into a swill of constitutional slough, instead!
The Supreme Court whose sitting justices had actually lobbied for John A. Campbell's appointment to the Court, slyly decreed that the 14th Amendment protected federal rights only, which were very few in number, all others were states' rights, which the 14th Amendment did not reach! This line of thought and rubric was followed by the Court and lower state and federal courts, well into the 20th Century.
Thereby, "Jim Crow" law, and the nullification of the post-Civil War Amendments overspread America, like a noxious plume, thanks to John A. Campbell and his racist judicial cronies sitting on high!
Such sneaky, dissembled, litigation is still being filed in the present day, in John Campbell - like fashion, to scuttle the voting, political, economic, educational, legal rights of blacks and others, by various well-funded interest groups and/or think-tanks of all kinds!
Meanwhile the blacks and their civil rights, or other organizations, are either too oblivious of history to be cognizant of these occurrences; or worse yet, they are too conflicted or compromised by their non-black funding sources, including secret payments to key persons, to want to fight back, beyond mere lip service!
What this term’s decrees might be, whose “ox gets gored,” we will soon see!
#30
J.A. Rogers and Carter G. Woodson have proven that there is more than one way to skin a cat! Both men have provided amazing examples of historical rigor and business acumen, by being able to unearth great historical truths about black people, ancient and modern, and to publish them, themselves !
Rogers had no degree; Woodson was a Harvard Ph.D. These men worked during the pre-Civil Rights era when Jim Crow prevailed, when times were presumably tougher than they are now.
I salute these brothers and thank them for blessing me everyday !
