Supreme Racism
Tuesday February 13, 2007
Full Coverage: The Supreme Court
We usually think of the Supreme Court as the institution that protects our rights, but it wasn't always that way. The first law the Supreme Court ever struck down, in Marbury v. Madison (1803), had to do with a judicial appointment dispute between an incoming and outgoing president. The second was struck down 53 years later in the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling.
I have been watching the new PBS miniseries on the history of the Supreme Court, and one of the things it has brought to my attention is just how dramatically Thomas Jefferson's view of rights differed from that of John Adams. You know, it's funny--Jefferson was the ideological father of the Bill of Rights, the person most responsible for encouraging a once-reluctant James Madison to propose it. And yet he also believed in a weak court system. The will of the majority, Jefferson believed, would ensure that constitutional rights would be protected. He was, for lack of a better term, a populist.
But John Adams was an aristocrat. He was not nearly as concerned with fundamental rights as was Jefferson, as most clearly demonstrated in Adams' decision to impose the Sedition Act of 1798 to silence critics, and yet what he did believe in was the power of courts to strike down legislation. He did not believe in the unchecked will of the majority.
The Supreme Court is ultimately the love child of Jefferson and Adams. At its best, it has had Jefferson's passion for basic human rights protections and Adams' passion for checks and balances. At its worst, it has had Adams' lack of concern for basic human rights protections and Jefferson's lack of concern for checks and balances. It was ultimately the anxieties of both men, and not their hopes, that were reflected in the noblest values of the judiciary.
I've written profiles of the ten most racist rulings in the history of the Supreme Court. All of them have one thing in common: They reflect the morality of a comfortable Court, a Court that was at the time bathing in the warm, soothing waters of mainstream public opinion. If we want a Court that will protect our liberal democracy, then let's always hope for an uncomfortable Court, an unpopular Court, the kind of Court that television pundits may well condemn as "activist."
See also:
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I have been watching the new PBS miniseries on the history of the Supreme Court, and one of the things it has brought to my attention is just how dramatically Thomas Jefferson's view of rights differed from that of John Adams. You know, it's funny--Jefferson was the ideological father of the Bill of Rights, the person most responsible for encouraging a once-reluctant James Madison to propose it. And yet he also believed in a weak court system. The will of the majority, Jefferson believed, would ensure that constitutional rights would be protected. He was, for lack of a better term, a populist.
But John Adams was an aristocrat. He was not nearly as concerned with fundamental rights as was Jefferson, as most clearly demonstrated in Adams' decision to impose the Sedition Act of 1798 to silence critics, and yet what he did believe in was the power of courts to strike down legislation. He did not believe in the unchecked will of the majority.
The Supreme Court is ultimately the love child of Jefferson and Adams. At its best, it has had Jefferson's passion for basic human rights protections and Adams' passion for checks and balances. At its worst, it has had Adams' lack of concern for basic human rights protections and Jefferson's lack of concern for checks and balances. It was ultimately the anxieties of both men, and not their hopes, that were reflected in the noblest values of the judiciary.
I've written profiles of the ten most racist rulings in the history of the Supreme Court. All of them have one thing in common: They reflect the morality of a comfortable Court, a Court that was at the time bathing in the warm, soothing waters of mainstream public opinion. If we want a Court that will protect our liberal democracy, then let's always hope for an uncomfortable Court, an unpopular Court, the kind of Court that television pundits may well condemn as "activist."
See also:
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