What is it if it’s not an establishment of religion? An accident? A poorly formatted haiku?
On preview, I see you sort of asked this yourself. What is the statute’s secular legislative purpose?
I’m working two sides of the coin here.
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The textualist/originalist viewpoint, in which “establishment of religion” means having a state religion that is in some way supported by the state. In this case, the Lemon Test is not valid.
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The “consistent with current jurisprudence” viewpoint, in which the Lemon Test is valid.
Dred Scott says that the government’s action to deprive a person of property – a slave – under a statute that exceeds Congress’ enumerated powers would be a deprivation of property without due process of law.
But clearly, there was procedural due process – Congress passed the laws in question following its procedure, didn’t it?
So what due process was Taney talking about?
Taney could easily have been saying that the statute denied Sandford his due process because he was not entitled to a hearing before Scott’s emancipation. The decision is largely composed of non sequiturs so it’s pretty hard to grok the underlying rationale, but this paragraph in particular could be read either way:
You can also read it as procedural in the sense that the constitutional limits on Congressional power are procedural in a sense. That is, constitutional imperatives are part of Congress’ procedures.
Are we arguing about whether Taney makes a reference to substantive due process (he probably does) or about what a “substantive due process case” is?
There’s a larger substantive due process argument that revolves around this case (i.e. the notion that Taney invented substantive due process in the opinion, which he did not), but I’m not familiar with the previous discussions about this point so I’m not sure if we’re having that one.
Yes, well, I was either completely drunk when I wrote it or my roommate hijacked my account. I will concede it is fairly coherent for me. I’m going to try my next court case drunk and see what happens.
More on the motives of those that pushed to put “In God We Trust” on our money.
From the same site:
Chase was an active Episcopal and a member of the American Sunday School Union. Pollock was a strong Christian and Vice President of the American Sunday School Union, who wrote in his official report to the Secretary Of The Treasury in 1863 pertaining to this proposal, "We claim to be a Christian nation—why should we not vindicate our character by honoring the God of Nations…Our national coinage should do this. Its legends and devices should declare our trust in God—in Him who is “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” and ” The sentiment is familiar to every citizen of our country—it has thrilled the hearts and fallen in song from the lips of millions of American Freemen. The time for the introduction of this or a similar motto, is propitious and appropriate. ‘Tis an hour of National peril and danger—an hour when man’s strength is weakness—when our strength and our nation’s strength and salvation, must be in the God of Battles and of Nations. Let us reverently acknowledge his sovereignty, and let our coinage declare our trust in God.”
Now I’m even more offended when I see it. What a load of crap.
I think that goes back to Captain Amazing’s point that Tanney seemed to create some special, super-duper property right in slaves, because otherwise, this reasoning would have had the ability to turn the whole notion of in rem proceedings on their head.
Too late to add: I am currently looking through the list of 39th Congress members to see if any Jews, Muslims, Hindi or atheists voted for this bill.
Not looking good so far.
What about double secret atheists?
Reminds me of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, where the defendants went out of their way to claim that teaching biblical creation in science class wasn’t religiously motivated. Yet one of the proponents (Buckingham) once made a statement in support of the policy, saying, “2,000 years ago someone died on a Cross, can’t someone take a stand for Him?”
Nothing religious about that.
I think that’s the bottom line here. It’s not prohibited, though a minority of citizens wish it was. I’m in that minority.
You’re implicitly assuming that if someone is a Christian, he can’t be voting for the phrase to mean anything other than a Christian God.
You are also making the assumption that we must read it today the way people were thinking about it 150 years ago.
Neither of those assumptions is correct.
Keep in mind that Congress just a few years ago voted to keep the phrase.
It was the 38th Congress. As far as I know there were no Hindu or publicly atheist congressmen. There were two Jewish congressmen; Leonard Meyers and Myer Strouse. I’ll try to figure out how they voted tonight.
Since I am only addressing how this mess began, the only assumptions I’m making are about the degree of evidence you are requiring of me in that they apparently require time travel, mind reading and Wonder Woman’s Lasso. I have shown the intent of those that proposed the measure and pushed the measure with their own words. If you have counter-evidence that they were all lying to each other as their intent, I’d love to see it.
You’ll have to provide your own parapsychological powers and magic lasso, though.
Further information as to the original reason for inclusion of “In God We Trust” on money:
The 1950’s were the time of McCarthy, the Red Scare, and the creep of Godless Communism.
You younguns may not be aware that some of the more radical outfits with political clout such as the John Birch Society were circulating pamphlets claiming that Communism was poised to take over the world by 1973, not entirely by military means, but by mind control and weakening social conditions.
The “Put God back in our national life” to oppose Communism movement reached a peak mid-50’s when not only did the IGWT slogan become universal, but the Pledge of Allegiance added “Under God” as well.
There’s absolutely no question that these actions were highly religiously motivated, and designed to establish a Christian position as a bulwark against the non-Christian enemy. The enemy must be made to understand that God is on our side.
Maybe we should keep it on there to evangelize to the Chinese.
Agreed. Even if you assume the argument in Dred Scott that blacks were not human beings in the law but simply property, no other form of property was or is given such absolute protection.
I can buy marijuana in Colorado, for example, but if I take it to other states or federal territories, then I can lose that marijuana for violating those local laws. Why did Taney give the ownership of slaves any special status? If a slaveholder from Georgia took his slave to Pennsylvania (or a territory) then he could/should be deprived of that property by PA or federal authorities for his illegal activity.
Fireworks are another example. I can buy a truckload in South Carolina, but if I cross over into Georgia, the cops can confiscate them. Aren’t they depriving me of my property without substantive due process?
In fairness, the legislation at issue in Dred Scott was federal, not state. In the precursor decision the Missouri Supreme Court had ruled that Missouri law did not require his emancipation.