The Supreme Court, in the 1857 case of Dred Scott (pictured), ruled that Black people were "so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
Alito’s draft opinion carries with it key features of the Dred Scott decision. It features nasty language demeaning the subject of the opinion and relies on an inaccurate history of law and precedent to justify the political goal he wishes to achieve.
Taney’s Dred Scott opinion drips with contempt for anyone who could possibly think that Black people could be citizens of the United States or that anyone in the Founding generation would approve of such belief. Taney argued that the United States, as a nation formed for the benefit of the white man, is both originally and fundamentally racist towards Black people. This racism was inborn from English law, belief and custom. And it was, therefore, ineradicable.
“[F]or more than a century,” before the founding, Black people were “regarded as beings of an inferior order,” who were “unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations,” Taney wrote.
“This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race,” he added, therefore, “[n]o one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the time.”
The court’s infamous Dred Scott decision and Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked opinion share many similarities, including bunk history and a desire to forestall the future.
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Sad...