Quote:
Originally Posted by Neal Stevens
What 'Lincoln' misses and another Civil War film gets right
If we are honest with ourselves, this was during a completely different era with different standards. It's silly to apply our standards to people of these times. (Of course he used the n-word, who didn't in 1860?) I'm in a Lincoln/Civil War/slavery reading mode currently. My last activities include the film Lincoln, read the book Battle Cry for Freedom, and am 1/2 way through Sandberg's Abraham Lincoln (the combined version). Also saw Django Unchained (wow, you did not want to be a slave in 1858). It's interesting for me to try and imagine the thought processes of the slaveowners and slaves, without the varnish of our modern society.
I won't make any declarative statements about Lincoln, the South, abolitionists, or slaves--any opinions or knowledge I can share has been acquired from reading, and I imagine this applies to you as well.
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1789 US Constitution
1857 Scott vs. Sandford
1861-1865 US Civil war
1865 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (Abolition of slavery)
Scott vs. Sandford:
In 1857 the slave Dred Scott was brought by his owner from the slave state Missouri to the free state Louisiana. Scott sued for his freedom and that of his family because of the move to a free state. US Supreme Court ruled back then that Scott has no legal standing because he is a being of an inferior order and that the mindset of the founding fathers was that:
“[T]hey were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."
And a simple abolition of slavery would be unconstitutional anyway because it would expropriate owners of their property (slaves).
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...ol=60&page=393
If the Supreme Court would have made clear already in 1857 that equality before the law is a defining statement under the rule of law and that slavery is unjust, could that have prevented the Civil war which caused 500,000 deaths from going to happen?
I don’t think so. It probably would have even speeded-up the process of secession of the southern states. But the decision they made certainly did not help.
Supreme Courts don’t tend to be visionary and to be ahead of their times. So much for usurpers in black who legislate from the bench.
Lincoln is not to be blamed for having used the n-word back then.