- Concurring Opinions - http://www.concurringopinions.com -
Dred Scott as Authority
Posted By Gerard Magliocca On December 7, 2012 @ 11:07 am In Constitutional Law | 1 Comment
I was re-reading Justice George Sutherland’s dissent in Blaisdell, which is probably the greatest defense of originalism in the Supreme Court’s history. This time, I was struck by this passage:
“Chief Justice Taney in Dred Scott v. Sandford . . . said that, while the Constitution remains unaltered, it must be construed now as it was understood at the time of its adoption: that it is not only the same in words, but the same in meaning.” [Sutherland then quoted Taney's opinion.]
I’m thinking that this was the last time that a Supreme Court Justice cited Dred Scott as positive authority, as opposed to descriptively or negatively. Does anyone know of a subsequent positive cite?
Article printed from Concurring Opinions: http://www.concurringopinions.com
URL to article: http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2012/12/dred-scott-as-authority.html
Click here to print.
Copyright © 2010 Concurring Opinions. All rights reserved.
1 Comment To "Dred Scott as Authority"
#1 Comment By Jon Weinberg On December 7, 2012 @ 2:54 pm
Souter’s dissent in Seminole Tribe v. FL: “Regardless of its other faults, Chief Justice Taney’s opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393 (1857), recognized as a structural matter that ‘[t]he new government was not a mere change in a dynasty, or in a form of government, leaving the nation or sovereignty the same, and clothed with all the rights, and bound by all the obligations of the preceding one.’”