Stack the Senate instead of the Court

[fredtoast]

(10-14-2020, 08:48 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Didn't you just start a thread because this is what you assert they did? 

No.  I am asserting that this was not their intention.

The system is not working the way they intended it to.

The main pint of creating a democracy is not to establish a system where a minority rules over a majority.

[*PhilHos*]

(10-15-2020, 02:08 PM)fredtoast Wrote: No.  I am asserting that this was not their intention.

The system is not working the way they intended it to.

The main pint of creating a democracy is not to establish a system where a minority rules over a majority.

Yes, but didn't things like the end of slavery and segregation and the creation of civil rights come about because the minority overruled the majority?

[Belsnickel]

(10-15-2020, 02:17 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Yes, but didn't things like the end of slavery and segregation and the creation of civil rights come about because the minority overruled the majority?

Did it? Were the pro-slavery sorts the majority? The segregationists and the anti-civil rights crowd? I mean, a constitutional amendment ended most slavery in this country, which requires a majority. Civil rights are based on constitutional and statutory law, both requiring (in theory) a majority. Segregation has a mixed history, so that one's tough.

[*PhilHos*]

(10-15-2020, 03:15 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Did it? 

I honestly don't know. That's why I asked.

(10-15-2020, 03:15 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Were the pro-slavery sorts the majority? The segregationists and the anti-civil rights crowd?

Again, I don't know. I know that slavery was upheld in the Supreme Court but outside of that, I just always had this impression that were it not for things like Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation that drastic change would not have happened as soon as they did because the majority were not in favor of change. Couldn't tell you why I have that impression, though.

[Belsnickel]

(10-15-2020, 03:27 PM)PhilHos Wrote: I honestly don't know. That's why I asked.


Again, I don't know. I know that slavery was upheld in the Supreme Court but outside of that, I just always had this impression that were it not for things like Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation that drastic change would not have happened as soon as they did because the majority were not in favor of change. Couldn't tell you why I have that impression, though.

So, the Taney Court really did a number on things, true. The issue is that even though the Union states had 18.5 million people and the CSA had 9 million (5.5 free, and 3.5 enslaved) the judicial circuits were set up by geography and not population. There were 9 circuits during most of the Taney period, and of those 9, 5 contained exclusively slave states (at least one of those also contained two union states). Since there was a tradition of a justice coming from each circuit, 5 were coming from heavily pro-slavery areas. So the majority on the bench came from a minority population that was pro-slavery.

Of course, it's generalizing to count all members of slave states as pro-slavery and members of non-slave states as abolitionists. My ancestors in Virginia were abolitionists, for example, and at least one was executed for it because they suspected he was a spy. But it works well enough for a message board conversation.

[Dill]

(10-15-2020, 02:17 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Yes, but didn't things like the end of slavery and segregation and the creation of civil rights come about because the minority overruled the majority?

Civil Rights came about because of the Declaration of Independence and a follow up constitution.

The end of slavery came about because the majority put together a larger army and "overruled" a smaller one.

Segregation received its death blow from "activist" judges on the Supreme Court.

The latter might be what you are referring to.