In 1820, Thomas Jefferson
described the Missouri Compromise as a "firebell in the night,"
warning of "future bloody conflict." That Act of Congress had allowed
the expansion of slavery beyond its original boundaries, into the territory of
Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, although limiting it to south of a given
latitude, except for the Missouri Territory. As the 19th century progressed and
westward expansion did so with it, the Slave Power became ever more concerned
with securing the place of the "peculiar institution" in that
expanding territory. Even though it appeared to be unlikely that slaves could
be used productively for the kinds of farming and cattle raising opportunities
that the Great Plains could offer, the Slave Power still saw them as a
potentially huge market for slaves.
And increasingly, the
breeding of surplus slaves for sale (yes, treating human beings as commodities)
was becoming a profitable business for certain slave owners. These policies,
and others, increased the resistance in the North, not to slavery in the slave
states, but to its further expansion westward. Then, a major Supreme Court
decision, going well beyond the necessary legal boundaries of the case, greased
the skids towards the "future bloody conflict" that Jefferson had
predicted.
The Dred Scott case (1)
could have been decided narrowly, dealing solely with the question of whether a
slave, living for a significant amount of time in a Free State was entitled to
sue as a citizen in an attempt to maintain his freedom and avoid being returned
to slavery. Or, if entitled to sue, was there a
"once-a-slave-always-a-slave" rule applying to persons who were not
covered by the Fugitive Slave Act (Scott was not a fugitive)? But a Slave
Power-dominated Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, went well
beyond the requirements of the case to rule, among other things, that the
Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. One outcome of that decision was to
potentially allow the expansion of slavery into the all of the Western
territories. Even before Dred Scott one of the nation's then two major
political parties, the Whigs, had split into two, over the question of the
westward expansion of slavery. When the "Republican" Northern Whig
party won the four-way election of 1860 on a platform of no expansion/no
interference with the slavery as it then existed, we all know what happened.
Parallels now? Since the
first Reagan election the Corporate Power has been gradually expanding its hold
on both the economy and the political process of the United States. The
Citizens United decision (2) can be seen as our era's Dred Scott decision. A
Supreme Court with a majority beholden to the Corporate Power (just as at the
time of Dred Scott the Supreme Court was almost entirely beholden to the Slave
Power [2, pp. 86-7) could have ruled narrowly, on the matter specifically
before it: the justification of the Federal Election Commission's
classification of a "documentary" (campaign) film attacking Hillary
Clinton from the right. But like the Taney Court, the Roberts Court went way
beyond the particular issue at hand, to rule that unlimited campaign
contributions (oh yes, supposedly "independent" of the candidate
being supported) would be permitted and that that could be made anonymously.
This among other things essentially gutted the McCain-Feingold Act which had
put some limits on "independent" political advertising, just as Dred
Scott gutted the Missouri Compromise.
The Corporate Power, which
totally dominates the U.S. economy, is on its way to own, literally, the whole
of the U.S. political process as well. The GOP totally serves the interests of
the Corporate Power: achieving as much environmental, financial, and workplace
de-regulation as possible; making sure that nothing significant is done about
global warming; continuing reduction of personal and corporate income taxes;
continuing destruction of the U.S. labor movement; and eliminating virtually
any Federal programs other that those concerned with the military, American
imperialism, and domestic repression. It is well-known that the Democratic
Party to date has offered little organized resistance to this process. I (3) am
not the only one who has held that if a further descent into Corporatocracy is
to be prevented, the development of a Progressive Democratic Party is
absolutely essential. And it would be essential, obviously after the 2012
election, whether or not President Obama is re-elected, for many reasons which
we do not have to discuss here.
Certain noises have been
made in this direction, such as the creation of the "People
Budget"/"Bernie" [Sanders] Budget (4), which goes in an entirely
different direction from that taken by the President. Former Congressman Alan
Grayson (5), seeking to return to the House this year, also talks very
differently from the current leadership of the Democratic Party. But there has
been no talk yet that I have heard of, of making concrete moves in this
direction, from the left. But then, lo and behold, the first open shot towards
splitting the party comes not from the left, but from the right. Sen. Joe
Manchin, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and Rep. Rick Rahall, of West Virginia, have all
announced that they will not be attending this year's Democratic National
Convention (6). Their state has apparently become a wholly-owned subsidiary of
the coal industry. Sounds like a split to me, to which a say:
"Hurrah!"
Our
nation cannot afford to have one political party totally beholden to the
Corporate Power while the other, only partially beholden to it, keeps its
powder wet. There is simply no consistent, strongly positioned, strongly voiced
opposition to the Corporate Power. (For starters along those lines, do see Alan
Grayson's website.) If the nation is not to become totally oppressed under it,
which process would necessarily lead to an authoritarian state as economic
misery becomes ever more wide-spread, a strong opposition to it must be
developed. I have been waiting for signs of the splitting process to begin,
from the left. Well, the leadership of the West Virginia Democratic Party has
begun it from the right. (Ironically, the state was formed during the Civil War
by a split of the anti-slavery counties in the northwest of what had become the
political center of the Confederacy. Virginia itself is still a state that
celebrates, along a major boulevard in its capitol, Richmond, the cream of the
Rebel leadership: Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall"
Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart.) It is now up to some political leadership, within
the Democratic Party, from the left, after the 2012 election, to pick up the
gauntlet that has been thrown in our faces.
On the matter of "Dred
Scott" v. "Citizens United," an astute reader noted that: "Chief Justice Taney declared that Dred
Scott, a person, is property. Chief Justice
Roberts declared that corporations, property, are persons. If a decision requires denial of reality,
it's wrong."
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References:
1. Stampp, K.N., America in
1857, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, chap. 4: "President, Chief
Justice, a Slave Named Scott."
2. Toobin, J., "Annals
of Law: Money Unlimited: How Chef Justice Roberts Orchestrated the Citizens
United Decision" The New Yorker, May 21, 2012.
3. "It's Time to "Whig
It'," http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12362
4.
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70;
click here
5.
http://www.congressmanwithguts.com/
6.
Siddiqui, S., "West Virginia Democrats to Skip Democratic National
Convention," The Huffington Post, June 18, 2012.