In
1850 the Congress and the President adopted a series of bills that they thought
would end the sectional division in the country over the slavery issue. It didn’t, it did delay what now appears to
have been an inevitable Civil War for ten years and probably bought the North
the time it needed to develop strong enough to win that conflict. Despite what the legislators and President
thought, their best efforts were undermined by a decision of the Supreme Court
of the United States in 1856 known as the Dred
Scott Decision. That infamous
decision ruled that a class of people could never be considered citizens of the
United States nor have any rights under the laws and constitution of the nation
because they had black skin. That
decision made the Civil War inevitable
upon the election of President who opposed the expansion of slavery; a
Civil War with over 600,000 dead and more wounded.
After
ten years of an effort by the Congress and the President to assure the rights
of the newly freed slaves and enforce amendments to the constitution that fully
undid the Dred Scott Decision, the
country settled for a society where all were free but only some (white) had
rights. In 1896 the Supreme Court of the
United States issued a second outrageous ruling Plessy v. Ferguson. That decision accepted the right to citizenship
of ex-slaves but held that black and white citizens could be separated and
treated equally. It led to Jim Crow segregation and unequal schools, libraries,
wash rooms, public fountains, parks etc.
It took almost 60 years for the Supreme Court to reverse that decision
and declare unanimously that separate but equal was inherently unequal and
therefore a violation of the Constitution’s equal protection of the laws
clause.
It
took another dozen years for the country to come to grips with that 1954
decision Brown v. Bd.. of Education. And, in 1964 and 1965 the people of the
country and the President from the South, with a preacher from Alabama and a
Senator from Illinois succeeded in enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Some of those provisions led to immediate
desegregation of public facilities; and, the Voting Rights Act led to
representation at the county, state and federal level for the black citizens of
many states. Every President since
Johnson and every Congress through 2006 has renewed the Voting Rights Act.
Now
the Supreme Court of the United States, in a 5-4 decision, decides that section
4 of the Voting Rights Act which sets the trigger for the implementation of
Section 5 is unconstitutional. It is
Section 5 that has made the Voting Rights Act a success. It is Section 5 that
required per-approval by the Justice Department if covered jurisdictions want
to make changes in their election laws.
And, it is the means by which the federal government prevents
encroachments on the rights of our citizens in the covered states. If there is a weakness in the Voting Rights
Act it is that pre-clearance should apply to all the states.
The
Supreme Court is the most undemocratic branch of our government. The Justices
are appointed for life by an indirectly elected President (read Electoral
College) and a non-representative Senate (read 2 per state). It has a history of bowing to the powerful
interests that rule our economy (witness the attempts to gut the New Deal
reforms). And now in Shelby v Holder it guts the Voting
Rights Act.
We
are at a crossroads in America. One road
leads to an America with a large underclass of undocumented non-citizens who
will provide a cheap labor force for the industrial capitalists; a
debt-burdened graduate student population that will live in apartments (read
dollars for landlords and real estate interests) as they can’t afford their own
homes; and a poor and black population whose voices at the ballot box will be
stifled. The other road leads to the
America that the 19th and 20th centuries progressed towards: a Nation where
all: men and women, young and old, rich and poor, white and black and Latino,
gay and straight, enjoyed the promise of the American Dream - the right to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and to live one's life with dignity.
Twice
the Supreme Court has been dangerously wrong on the issue of race and equality. Now it is wrong a third time. Three strikes and you’re out. It is time to begin a crusade for Democracy
in America. It is time to abolish the Electoral College; reform the
Congress(and particularly the Senate) and establish a Supreme Court with
Justices serving ten-year terms. It is
time to enhance and enshrine popular democracy in the United States. We can keep the Republic that Benjamin
Franklin said was being left to us rather than a Monarchy -- and we don’t want
an Oligarchy or a Plutocracy either.
25
June 2013
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