Death of The News Reporter
A Look at Bias in the Media: Then and Now
R.I.P.
Background: At the core of a healthy democratic republic is the informed participation of the
polity. The vitality and efficacy of public policy are measured by many criteria, but it is widely
accepted by both philosophers from antiquity and contemporary political scientists, that the
citizenry’s access to credible information is critical in choosing quality leaders and shaping
policy formulation. The sources of information that connect government to the public are called
a linkage institution, or more commonly, the media. While the internet has emerged as a “game
changer” in terms of electioneering, campaign funding, and policy manipulation – television is
still the most important form of media in our democracy. Americans receive most of their
political information from television and that means the “boob tube” deserves special scrutiny in
terms of the information it provides and its reliability as a linkage institution.
Television’s role in our democracy is manifest in so many ways and demands that informed
participants be critical consumers of content. With the advent of 24 hour cable news networks,
the era of people receiving their news in one hour segments, with little or no editorializing, by
one of three trusted WASP males with nicely parted hair, is ancient history. One of the pioneers
of objective political news reporting was Walter Cronkite, who argued the job of the reporter was
simply “to hold up the mirror – to tell and show the public what has happened.” This archetype
of reporting the political news of the day absent partisanship and pontification is becoming
blurred by cable news networks that claim “fair and balanced” journalism involves a hyperAmerican “anchor” casually using the word fascist in association with President Obama.
Meanwhile, a rival network’s “anchor” takes the network slogan of “lean forward” to mean that
she should travel with a camera crew to Alaska, not to “cover and report” the news, but rather
become part of a political process that might help elect a Democrat in an area where the
Republicans are splitting votes between a conservative candidate and a more conservative
candidate. It is interesting that Walter Cronkite noted that “objective journalism and an opinion
column are about as similar as the Bible and Playboy magazine,” when it seems quite apparent
that many cable “news” outlets have managed to combine the two and call the mixture “news.”
It is in this pluralistic, if increasingly partisan, environment of political information that this
lesson plan emerges. I try to convince my students that in a democracy, people get the
government they deserve. This is a quip that has many layers and can be understood on different
levels and the lesson design here is part of teasing out that meaning.
Context:
This lesson is designed for a college level Political Science/Advanced
Placement U.S. Politics and Government classroom. The overarching goal of the class is to
create a classroom of “hyper-politically-literate” students. This political literacy is regarded as a
process, a “becoming,” where students combine knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, branches of
government, political history, and policy specifics with current events and political discourse in
an attempt to understand their roles as constructive and critical participants in our democracy.
The following lesson is one small part of that process and is directed specifically at the area of
media literacy, bias detection, and how partisanship in the media might impact public policy.
Detecting bias is a complex task and I have not yet developed or found a simple tool for analysis
of television media specifically, but as a precursor to this lesson - one of the summer
assignments for students is to watch “political news” on Fox, MSNBC, CNN, and the former
“Big 3 – CBS, ABC, and NBC, and to journal their observations and questions about the quality
of the information they receive. Also, students will have numerous opportunities to explore bias
in print media and political cartoons before this lesson.
A few of the lessons that work in conjunction with this lesson are as follows:
1]
Image over substance in our sound-byte democracy… “You need to campaign as
if America is watching TV with the volume turned down.” [Karl Rove]
2]
Lessons learned in 3 seconds… The Dean Scream and “When Fact is Fiction and
TV Reality” [U2]
3]
How much credit or blame does any one man deserve for the state of our
economy? “It’s the economy, studid” [James Carville] and The Myth of the
President as Oz
4]
When slinging mud works and when it doesn’t…. A look at negative campaign
tactics and Machiavellian politics
5]
“If it bleeds, it leads” [Armstrong Williams] and when the truth becomes that
which is easily packaged and sold… Should modern consumers of political
information question everything they read, watch or listen to?
Montana State University/AP Collegeboard Standard:
Students successfully completing this course will:
• be able to analyze and interpret basic data and information relevant to U .S. government
and politics (including data presented in charts, tables, and other formats)
• be able to critically analyze relevant theories and concepts, apply them appropriately,
and develop their connections across the curriculum
To help students meet these goals, the course should cover the following topics:
The Media:
The media are a major force in U .S. politics. Students are expected to understand the role
of the media in the political system. In addition, the impact of the media on public
opinion, voter perceptions, campaign strategies, electoral outcomes, agenda development,
and the images of officials and candidates should be explored and understood by
students. Understanding the often symbiotic and frequently conflictual relationship
among candidates, elected officials, and the media is also important.
Students should be aware of the goals and incentives of the media as an industry and how
those goals influence the nature of news coverage. They should also understand the
consequences of the increasing concentration of major media outlets in fewer hands, as
well as the growing role of the Internet.
Essential Questions:
What does bias look like in media coverage of political events and why should citizens care
about objectivity in the news?
What impact might political news “tinged” with partisanship have on public policy?
How does the contemporary media environment compare with “the good ol’ days” in terms of
partisanship and bias?
Methodology:
The vehicle for exploring media bias in the public policy arena will be two controversial
Supreme Court opinions, the justices who authored the decisions, and the media’s coverage of
the two cases. Jurisprudence, at the highest level, is a useful place to examine bias in the media
because the members of the court are supposed to make policy through court rulings with little
regard for partisanship, parties, or public passions. The “rule of law”, stare decisis, and the
Constitution guide court opinions and those decisions are, in theory, expressions of reasoned,
moderate, and lawful deliberation. So when jurists, relatively immune from democratic
pressures, decide controversial cases that shake the political or social landscape of the United
States, students can learn from the responses of the more ideologically components of our
political system: the media, the legislative and executive branches, and the polity.
The pedagogy of this lesson might be classified as inquiry-constructivist-Socratic as students will
be actively involved in the analysis of documents in search of answers to the research questions
listed above. They will be constructing meaning and understanding through small group
discussion as well as dialogue and debate with the entire class. The teacher’s role will vary by
class but is best described as the purposeful facilitation of the essential questions. Students will
work in small groups [size defined by class size and number of documents/information sources]
analyzing several documents that range from brief biographies of Supreme Court justices,
summaries of Supreme Court opinions, and responses in the media [print and electronic] to the
court opinions. Each group will analyze a document, gleaning any relevant background, bias,
and relationship to the essential questions. The group will then share all or relevant portions of
their document/information with the class and act as experts in a class question and answer
session as the larger group tries to understand the importance of the document as it relates the
essential questions.
Lesson Part I: The first set of documents are related to the Court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision.
The documents [A-E] include the OYEZ project’s summary of the opinion, a brief biography of
the majority opinion’s author, and three media excerpts concerning the case.
Documents A-E are attached.
Student presentations will vary but Doc A is a brief and neutral summary of the court
opinion taken from the OYEZ project which catalogues Supreme Court opinions in a user
friendly fashion. The discussions surrounding this document might be described as
contextual and provides a type of median from which to measure more ideological media
responses.
Document B is a brief biography of Justice Blackmun, who authored the majority opinion
in Roe. The biography, taken from a PBS website on the Supreme Court, serves as a
source of information that adds a human component to the student’s understanding of the
mysterious men and women who wear the black robes and that sometimes make
decisions that shake the policy landscape. The discussion usually includes a realization
on the part of students that although the media often characterize court opinions as
“extreme,” “radical,” or “reactionary” – the authors of those opinions rarely fit a more
objective understanding of those terms.
Document C is clip discussing the Roe v Wade decision in a scholarly manner that
includes a concerted effort to understand the ruling, absent much of the ideology and
demagoguery that infuses itself into any public forum on abortion. The nugget embedded
within this clip is a brief section that includes Walter Cronkite’s original coverage of the
court’s opinion. Students will note how neutral and ideologically void the coverage is
and how different the evening news of the 1970s is compared with their experiences.
Document D is a clip from FOX News dealing with the anniversary of the Roe opinion
including an interview with “an abortion survivor.” The students don’t have to work too
hard to identify the conservative, pro-life bias of this “news” piece. This is often where
the discussion includes dialogue about political parties and the Republican Party’s
platform with respect to abortion and the Roe opinion. The conversation might also
include dialogue about conservative Supreme Court judges vs their liberal counterparts,
or different approaches regarding judicial review [activist judges v originalists, etc.]
Document E is a clip from MSNBC News dealing with the same anniversary of the Roe
opinion including an interview with the director of Planned Parenthood and what she
thinks needs to be done to protect the sanctity of the Roe decision and the “right of
women to control their own bodies.” Again, students will identify the liberal, pro-choice
bias of this “news” piece, etc.
*At this point in the lesson, the students are directed to use the documents and the information
gleaned from them to discuss the first two essential questions:
What does bias look like in media coverage of political events and why should citizens
care about objectivity in the news?
What impact might political news “tinged” with partisanship have on public policy?
*The discussion will obviously vary from class to class, but the students generally express a new
or affirmed awareness of just how much bias presents itself as “news” in the contemporary
political media. They are encouraged to share other examples of bias in the media from their
summer journals and personal experiences. Furthermore, students begin to see how biased
media can misinform, mislead, or lead to increased partisanship within the public sphere. The
discussion usually includes some cautionary tales about citizens believing everything they see or
hear on TV, the internet, etc. Also, students are asked to think about the impact on public policy
if large segments of the U.S. population tune in to either Fox or MSNBC exclusively for their
political news – and what would happen if members of those two audiences were ever put in the
same room and asked to compare notes about what has been going on in D.C.?
At this point in the lesson, the students often conclude that the “Death of the Reporter” in the
Cronkite style will have catastrophic policy consequences, that we will become systematically
mistaken, hyper-partisan, and that gridlock on Capitol Hill will only get worse with endless
filibusters in the Senate and political alienation in the polity. This is where the TAH experience
has allowed me to add perspective and another layer of understanding for my students.
Lesson Part II: Students are now put in groups and given a second set of documents. These
documents include a brief summary of the 1857 Dred Scott v Sandford opinion, a short
biography of the historically maligned author of the majority opinion – Chief Justice Taney, and
some newspaper articles from different areas of the U.S. with very different “news” reports on
the court decision. The process for documents F-K is repeated as described in Part I of the
lesson. The students go through the process of presenting and discussing the opinion and its
author and the different newspaper perspectives.
*The students note that depending on location, and political affiliation of the print media, the
“news” regarding the Dred Scott case was so loaded with partisanship, it makes Hannity and
Maddow look a little more “Cronkitish” and moderate. There are a variety of subtopics to be
explored if time permits [ie. the difference between having access to one or two print media of
local or regional flavor in 1857 to the national 24/7 news coverage]. The discussion focuses on
essential question number 3:
How does the contemporary media environment compare with “the good ol’ days” in
terms of partisanship and bias?
The student analysis of the media response to the Dred Scott case in 1857 adds perspective and
another layer of understanding to balance a too gloomy assessment of the current media
environment as it relates to the health of our democracy and the formulation of good public
policy.
The discussion usually ends with a question about each citizen’s responsibility to be critical
consumers of media and inform themselves in such a manner that America might get the
government it deserves.
Assessment:
This lesson is one of many within a larger unit on Media and Democracy. The capstone
assessment for this unit is a student essay addressing the following prompt:
Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Norvell in 1807 that "nothing can now be believed which is seen
in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." Replace
the word newspaper with media and evaluate the statement in light of your understanding of the
media as a linkage institution between the American people, our political institutions, and the
quality of public policy in the United States. Remember to address both the potentials and
pitfalls of our plugged in polity. In a thoughtful, example rich essay – evaluate the statement
below:
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in the media. Truth itself becomes suspicious
by being put into that polluted vehicle.”
Include ideas, concepts and learning embodied in the lessons listed below:
1]
Image over substance in our sound-byte democracy… “You need to campaign as if
America is watching TV with the volume turned down.” [Karl Rove]
2]
Lessons learned in 3 seconds… The Dean Scream and “When Fact is Fiction and TV
Reality” [U2]
3]
How much credit or blame does any one man deserve for the state of our economy? “It’s
the economy, studid” [James Carville] and The Myth of the President as Oz
4]
When slinging mud works and when it doesn’t…. A look at negative campaign tactics
and Machiavellian politics
5]
“If it bleeds, it leads” [Armstrong Williams] and when the truth becomes that which is
easily packaged and sold… Should modern consumers of political information question
everything they read, watch or listen to?
6]
Death of the News Reporter… and why consumers of political news should ask tough
questions before believing.
[1000
words approx.]
Much of the assessment of student learning and mastery within this lesson is built into the
analysis, reporting, and discussion. This assessment for learning will be real-time and the
teacher as a facilitator of the process is responsible for affirming, redirecting, focusing,
clarifying, and exploring the essential questions. The teacher will also be able to measure
whether students have constructed enduring understandings from this lesson from the examples
they develop and explain in their final essay.
Reflection:
The biggest problem I faced with this lesson plan was idea explosion. The original idea for the
lesson and subsequent research led to 6,8, no 14 different lesson ideas. I am working on all of
those, at least in my head, and I blame the TAH grant program for the cognitive overload. I also
don’t like “forcing” constructs into lessons that seem to be working as is, but in this case, I think
the exploration of secession era history and its usefulness to my AP Government curriculum added real value to an existing unit. I have not been able to facilitate this lesson with the Dred
Scott additions and so the student work is pending.
Sources:
I’ve included basic source information within the lesson plan and I have included hyperlinks to
all the documents for those that would like to explore the sources further.
DOCUMENT A
Roe v Wade
From the OYEZ project
Location: US District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Facts of the Case
Roe, a Texas resident, sought to terminate her pregnancy by abortion. Texas law prohibited abortions
except to save the pregnant woman's life. After granting certiorari, the Court heard arguments twice. The
first time, Roe's attorney -- Sarah Weddington -- could not locate the constitutional hook of her argument
for Justice Potter Stewart. Her opponent -- Jay Floyd -- misfired from the start. Weddington sharpened
her constitutional argument in the second round. Her new opponent -- Robert Flowers -- came under
strong questioning from Justices Potter Stewart and Thurgood Marshall.
Question
Does the Constitution embrace a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion?
Argument
Roe v. Wade - Oral Argument Roe v. Wade - Oral Re-argument
Conclusion
Decision: 7 votes for Roe, 2 vote(s) against
Legal provision: Due Process
The Court held that a woman's right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy (recognized in Griswold
v. Connecticut) protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision gave a woman total autonomy
over the pregnancy during the first trimester and defined different levels of state interest for the second
and third trimesters. As a result, the laws of 46 states were affected by the Court's ruling.
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970‐1979/1971/1971_70_18
DOCUMENT B
Harry Andrew Blackmun
b. November 12, 1908, Nashville, IL
d. March 4, 1999, Arlington, VA
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
(1970-1994)
Harry Andrew Blackmun was raised in a working-class neighborhood of St. Paul, Minnesota, where his
father ran a general store. He was an excellent student, and one of his childhood friends was Warren
Burger, chief justice (1969-1986). Blackmun attended Harvard College on scholarship, graduating in
1929 summa cum laude in mathematics. He went on to Harvard Law School, where he got his degree
in 1932. For two years Blackmun clerked with Judge John B. Sanborn of the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Eighth Circuit. He entered private practice with a Minneapolis firm in 1934 and remained with it for
years, dealing with such issues as taxation, civil litigation, and trusts and estates.
In 1950 Blackmun became general counsel to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, serving until
1959, when President Dwight Eisenhower appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit. In 1970 President Richard Nixon nominated him to the Supreme Court. A lifelong Republican,
unassuming and intelligent, Blackmun had a reputation as hardworking and conservative. He was
initially dubbed one of the "Minnesota Twins" because he and Chief Justice Warren Burger were so
closely aligned. While Blackmun was somewhat less conservative than Burger, they agreed on more
than 90 percent of the early cases they decided.
In 1973, however, Blackmun distinguished himself by writing the opinion in the controversial case of
Roe v. Wade. The Court held, 7-2, that limiting or banning abortions violated a right to privacy
embedded in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Blackmun spent months in the
library of the Mayo Clinic researching the subject, and the resulting opinion prohibited the government
from banning abortion in cases in which the fetus had not yet reached the point of viability (ability to
survive outside the mother's womb), or in cases in which the birth of the fetus would endanger the life
of the mother. Roe caused a firestorm among cultural conservatives, and it became an acid test for
judging judicial nominees and politicians. Although Blackmun was attacked personally and received
death threats for his decision, he steadfastly defended his opinion in Roe and denounced attempts by
his fellow justices to weaken or reverse its findings.
The trauma of Roe had the effect of pushing Blackmun away from his conservative colleagues, and he
sided more and more frequently with the liberal Justice William Brennan in granting protection to
individual rights that were not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. He also articulated a libertarian
view of commercial speech, granting it constitutional protection under the First Amendment.
As the Court became more culturally conservative, Blackmun was gradually isolated. Blackman and
Burger drifted apart, and their lifelong friendship was splintered by hostility and recriminations. While
it is often said that Blackmun became more liberal, he denied it, saying instead that the Court became
more conservative. On several issues, however, he clearly changed positions, notably on the death
penalty, which he had initially supported. On February 22, 1994, he issued a dissent declaring the
death penalty unconstitutional under all circumstances (Callins v. Collins). He announced his
retirement two months later.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/robes_blackmun.html DOCUMENT C PBS piece on Roe v Wade as a court opinion which includes the CBS Evening News announcement of the court opinion by Walter Cronkite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q5AgCzPIuA DOCUMENT D FOX News Story on the anniversary of Roe v Wade: decades later… An abortion survivor tells her side of the story http://video.foxnews.com/v/1408018969001/march‐for‐life‐anniversary‐of‐roe‐v‐wade DOCUMENT E MSNBC News coverage on the anniversary of Roe v Wade: Parenthood interviewed on Andrea Mitchell reports… Cecile Richards from Planned http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10218751‐abortion‐opponents‐march‐on‐roe‐v‐
wade‐anniversary?lite DOCUMENT F
Dred Scott v Sandford
From the OYEZ Project
Location: Fort Snelling
Facts of the Case
Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri. From 1833 to 1843, he resided in Illinois (a free state) and in an area
of the Louisiana Territory, where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. After
returning to Missouri, Scott sued unsuccessfully in the Missouri courts for his freedom, claiming that his
residence in free territory made him a free man. Scott then brought a new suit in federal court. Scott's
master maintained that no pure-blooded Negro of African descent and the descendant of slaves could be
a citizen in the sense of Article III of the Constitution.
Question
Was Dred Scott free or slave?
Conclusion
Decision: 7 votes for Sandford, 2 vote(s) against
Legal provision: US Const. Amend. 5; Missouri Compromise
Dred Scott was a slave. Under Articles III and IV, argued Taney, no one but a citizen of the United States
could be a citizen of a state, and that only Congress could confer national citizenship. Taney reached the
conclusion that no person descended from an American slave had ever been a citizen for Article III
purposes. The Court then held the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, hoping to end the slavery
question once and for all
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851‐1900/1856/1856_0 DOCUMENT G
Roger Taney
b. March 17, 1777, Calvert County, MD
d. December 12, 1864, Washington, D.C.
Fifth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
(1836-1864)
Son of a well-to-do family of tobacco farmers, Roger Taney graduated from Dickinson College in 1795
and was admitted to the bar in 1799. A Federalist, he served in the Maryland House of Delegates from
1799 to 1800 and was a local Federalist leader until he broke with the party over its opposition to the
War of 1812. Later he took control of the Maryland Federalist Party and was elected in 1816 to serve a
five-year term in the state senate. In 1824, as the Federalist Party weakened, Taney supported
Democratic-Republican Andrew Jackson. Jackson became president in 1829, and two years later he
appointed Taney Attorney General to assist him in the controversial dismantling of the Second Bank of
the United States. Taney helped draft Jackson's statement vetoing the bank's renewal, and he
assumed the post of Secretary of the Treasury in 1833 to withdraw all federal funds from the bank,
something two previous treasury secretaries had refused to do.
Taney was a political operative, gentle in manner and likable. Though he was involved in controversial
actions of the Jackson administration, he largely escaped personal attack. He was frail and afraid of
crowds; he suffered from stage fright when arguing cases in court; his voice was feeble; but his
presentations were clear and convincing. Jackson appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1835, but
the Senate, angered by his role in the national bank affair, refused to
confirm him. After the death
of Chief Justice John Marshall the following year, Jackson re-nominated Taney, this time as chief
justice, and the Senate, with a changed membership, confirmed his appointment.
In many matters, Taney followed the judicial philosophy of the Marshall Court. He generally supported
the primacy of federal power, but he believed that beyond a certain line political authority was vested
in the states, and it was the Supreme Court's role to determine exactly where that line lay.
The opinion that forever marked the Taney Court was issued in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford.
Although no ardent defender of slavery, Taney was an advocate of moderate states' rights, and as
slavery became a heated point of contention between the states and federal authorities, his position
toward it hardened. On March 15, 1857, he delivered the majority opinion in the case, stating that
African Americans, free or slave, could not be citizens of any state, that they were "of an inferior
order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race." This decision and its inflammatory
language aggravated the political crisis and met with furious opposition among Republicans. Taney
remained defiant. Writing to Franklin Pierce in 1857, he declared that he believed with "abiding
confidence that this act of my judicial life will stand
the test of time and the sober judgment of the
country." When Abraham Lincoln became president, he treated Taney as an enemy and defied a Taney
decision forbidding him to suspend habeas corpus in portions of Maryland after the outbreak of the
Civil War (Ex parte Merryman [1861]). When Taney died in Washington in 1864, the prestige of the
Supreme Court was at a low ebb and Taney himself was widely vilified.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/democracy/robes_taney.html DOCUMENT H
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Gazette [Republican]
(7 March 1857)
Is it [illegible] the threshold of the fierce struggle thrust before the people of this
nation, we design, that there shall be no misunderstanding as to our position on the
great point raised by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case. We shall treat the
so-called decision of that Court as an utter nullity. It is not law, and it has no binding
force upon either the people or the government. It is not an authoritative
interpretation of the Constitution, nor is it, legally, a decision entitled to
any weight whatever. It is simply a demagogical stump speech from the hustings of
the supreme bench, got up in legal phrase to suit the necessities of the Buchanan
administration. The Judges of the Supreme Court have therein simply abandoned the
robe and the ermine to achieve the task of framing a new platform for the locofoco
party.
Look at the facts in the case. Dred Scott, an alleged Missouri slave, brings a suit
against his claimant, for his freedom, upon the ground that his master, having
voluntarily removed him from Missouri on to free soil, he thereby became free. The
Supreme Court decide that Dred Scott is not a citizen of Missouri or of the United
States, and therefore was not entitled to bring a suit in that Court; hence they
dismiss his suit for want of jurisdiction. That, then, was the only point for them to
decide, and that decided, there was an end of the case. The suit fell because the party
bringing it had no rights in that Court.
Beyond this legal point the Court had no power to decide anything. They had no right
to go into the merits of a case, when the case itself was dismissed for want of
jurisdiction. All that follows is simply extra judicial and is entitled to be regarded only
as the unauthorized opinion of so many individuals.
At the time when Chief Justice Marshall was on the bench, he gave it as the opinion
of the Court, incidentally, that Congress had full and unlimited power over the
Territories. This opinion was once cited in the Senate, to Gen. Cass, as authoritative
and conclusive; but Gen. Cass replied that the opinion was an incidental one, foreign
to the case at issue, and was a mere obiter dictum -- an opinion, but not law. The
Democratic party sustained Gen. Cass in this view, and from that day to this has
refused to be bound by that decision of the Supreme Court. On the same ground we
object to this decision. It is a mere opinion, delivered in a case in which the Court
admitted it had no jurisdiction -- a mere obiter dictum, devoid of all legal force or
authority.
But if this were not the case, we have High Democratic authority for disregarding all
such decisions. Prior to the great Bank struggle of 1832, the U. S. Supreme Court
had decided a National Bank to be constitutional. Gen. Jackson and the Democratic
party set this decision aside, and pronounced the Bank unconstitutional. Gen.
Jackson utterly refused to be guided in his political opinions by the Supreme Court.
He had sworn to support the Constitution, he said, as he understood it, and not as
the Supreme Court understood it. We may safely plant ourselves upon that
ground. We cannot speak for the Republican party; but we feel free to say that it will
spurn this decision and, when its day of triumph comes, and come it will, sweep into
oblivion the base, reckless and unjust Judges who have prostituted their high offices
to purposes so vile.
The Constitution was ordained to establish Justice and secure the blessings of
Liberty to the people; and it will be worth one struggle, at least, to prevent it from
being thus turned from its high aims to subserve the lusts of tyranny. The
Constitution was made by the people and for the people; and to the people, the
sovereign power in this confederacy, we appeal from this decision. They understand
the charter of their liberties, we hope, full well enough to rebuke and defeat, at the
polls, this effort to give the whole country up to the domination of the slave power.
http://history.furman.edu/benson/docs/papgds57307b.htm DOCUMENT I The Important Decision of the Supreme Court of the
United States on the Slavery Question.
Cincinnati, Ohio, Daily Enquirer [Democratic]
(8 March 1857)
The decision of the United States Supreme Court in the famous "Dred Scott" case, an
abstract of which, as rendered by the Chief Justice, was contained in our telegraphic
columns yesterday, is an event of great political importance. The Court of last resort,
which has jurisdiction over questions appertaining to the powers of the Federal
Government, decided that Congress has no power under the Constitution to legislate
upon slavery in the Territories, and that all such legislation as the so-called Missouri
Compromise, which undertook to do so, is null and void. This is
a complete vindication of the doctrine of the Nebraska Bill, which now, it is judicially
determined, only swept an illegal and unconstitutional measure from the statutebook. To the friends of the "Wilmot Proviso" and the Abolition legislation for the
Territories this decision of the Supreme Court will be most crushing and annihilating.
Hereafter they will have no pretense whatever for keeping Congress and the country
in a turmoil on that subject, as it would be no use for Congress to pass laws on a
subject which the Supreme Court would immediately annul, in accordance with this
decision. The whole question of slavery, in its judicial aspects, has been argued by
the best lawyers before the Court, which, after mature and long deliberation, have
come to the conclusion announced above. The influence of their action upon the
country must neccesarily be immense. The whole people, without distinction of party,
have confidence in that august tribunal, the Supreme Court of the United States,
which, by virtue of the age, eminent legal attainments of its members, their life
tenure, which places them beyond the influence of party feeling, have no motive
whatever in the world to bias and corrupt their decision
Additional force will be given it when it is known that the bench, composed of
Northern and Southern members, was nearly unanimous on the main point, there
being but two dissenters out of the nine Justices who compose the Court. One of
them, Judge McLean, of this city, had previously volunteered an opinion on the
subject years ago, before it was argued or came before him judicially; and, sustaining
this unfortunate position, his dissent was naturally anticipated. It is to be regretted
that he should thus have unnecessarily committed himself on a point that he was
liable to be called upon to determine as a Judge.
While thus anticipating a general acquiescence in the decision of the Supreme
Court, it would be too much to expect that it will escape attack and censure from
disappointed and embittered partisans, whose political capital and hope of office will
wither before it. They will doubtless blackguard and assail the Court; but it will still
further weaken their cause among sober and intelligent men, who will never
countenance their foray upon an honest and intelligent Judiciary. The men who
aided in the passage of the Nebraska Bill of 1854, and sustained it against an
unreasoning and infatuated opposition, will, by this decision, be placed in an
enviable attitude before the country, and will have a good position assigned them in
history. Coming after the result of the late election and the new President's
inaugural, it is the last of a series of triumphs, political and judicial, to which
hereafter they will ever refer with pleasure and pride.
http://history.furman.edu/benson/docs/ohceds57308a.htm DOCUMENT J The Issue Forced Upon Us.
Albany, New York, Evening Journal [Republican]
(9 March 1857)
The three hundred and forty-seven thousand five hundred and twenty-five
Slaveholders in the Republic, accomplished day before yesterday a great success -- as
shallow men estimate success. They converted the Supreme Court of Law and Equity
of the United States of America into a propagandist of human Slavery. Fatal day for a
judiciary made reputable throughout the world, and reliable to all in this nation, by
the learning and the virtues of Jay, Rutledge, Ellsworth, Marshall and Story!
The conspiracy is nearly completed. The Legislation of the Republic is in the hands of
this handfull of Slaveholders. The United States Senate assures it to them. The
Executive power of the Government is theirs. Buchanan took the oath of fealty to
them on the steps of the Capitol last Wednesday. The body which gives the supreme
law of the land, has just acceded to their demands, and dared to declare that under
the charter of the Nation, men of African descent are not citizens of the United
States and can not be -- that the Ordinance of 1787was void -- that human Slavery is
not a local thing, but pursues its victims to free soil, clings to them wherever they go,
and returns with them -- that the American Congress has no power to prevent the
enslavement of men in the National Territories -- that the inhabitants themselves of
the Territories have no power to exclude human bondage from their midst -- and that
men of color can not be suitors for justice in the Courts of the United States!
The Lemmon Case is on its way to this corrupt fountain of law. Arrived there, a new
shackle for theNorth will be handed to the servile Supreme Court, to rivet upon us. A
decision of that case is expected which shall complete the disgraceful labors of the
Federal Judiciary in behalf of Slavery -- a decision that slaves can lawfully be held in
free States, and Slavery be fully maintained here in New York through the sanctions
of "property" contained in the Constitution. That decision will be rendered. The Slave
breeders will celebrate it as the crowning success of a complete conquest. But how
they will reckon without their hosts!
Beneath Courts and Congresses and Presidents is the great PEOPLE. They love liberty
-- they love justice -- they love humanity. Till they affirm the decisions of Law
embruting man's divine nature, and till they approve of legislation which defies God,
and till they order Executives to execute iniquity, this conspiracy of the Oligarchy is
wholly incomplete. That consent will forever and ever be wanting. But one thing will
not be wanting -- the resolute purpose of the humane, the just and the free men of
the Free States, to meet the close issue forced upon them through the decision of
the case of Dred, squarely and fairly, and never to abate their efforts to recover the
entire administration of the Republic away from Slavery and back again to Freedom.
All who love Republican institutions and who hate Aristocracy, compact yourselves
together for the struggle which threatens your liberty and will test your manhood!
http://history.furman.edu/benson/docs/nyajds57309a.html DOCUMENT K The Past and the Future.
Charleston, South Carolina, Mercury [Democratic]
(17 March 1857)
Our columns, for some time past, have teemed with a record of facts that it is
impossible to review without feelings of strong indignation, and even of amazement -indignation at the humiliations that have been forced upon us, and amazement at
the quiet submission that has marked our counsels and repressed our action.
The Supreme Court of the United States, in a recent case, has, by a decision of seven
to two of the Judges, established as law what our Southern statesmen have been
repeating daily for many years on the floors of Congress, that the whole action of this
Government on the subject of slavery, for more than a quarter of a century, from the
initiation of the Missouri Restriction in 1822, to the California Compromise in 1850,
has been all beyond the limits of the Constitution; was without justifiable authority;
and that the whole mass should be now proclaimed null and void, and that slavery is
guaranteed by the constitutional compact.
In this decision of the Court there is certainly presented to the minds of all those
anxious Union-savers south of MASON and DIXON'S line -- the men who have been
teaching us so anxiously lessons of peace, and forbearance, and self-sacrifice -- a
charming subject of contemplation and retrospection. It appears that
we, Secessionists, have been all the while not disturbing the law, not intruding
novelties upon the country, not seeking to break up established principles, but that
we have been simply a step in advance of the highest tribunal in the country, in
declaring what was the law of the land, and seeking honestly and faithfully to enforce
it.
But it is a curious spectacle that the Southern people have presented to the world
during this controversy. With a domain three times greater than that of the French
Empire, with a population greater than that which FREDERICK of Prussia made the
terror of Europe, with agricultural productions which govern the markets and freight
the ships of the whole civilized world -- a people independent in themselves,
necessary to all others, compact in the position of their territory, warlike in their
character, and with their whole vast internal strength easily at command -the South has, for a period of more than thirty years, allowed her public men to deal
in windy boastings, and sometimes even to descend to servile entreaty, for the
purpose of saving, from the abuse of demagogues and the persecution of
traducers, those institutions which form her lifeblood, the sources of her prosperity,
and the whole foundation of that social and industrial existence which makes her,
more than any other people, the centre of civilization of the world. We have allowed
ourselves to be assailed in our social, political, moral and legislative relations, and
this by a people not distant or professedly hostile, but bound to us by the ties of a
common Government -- bound by every consideration of political brotherhood, social
sympathy and commercial interest, to treat us not only with forbearance, but even to
stand as our friend against all aggressors from without -- by a people to whom we are
indebted for no protection -- who have hung for half a century, for the support of
their industry, upon that Central Government which we have fed and nurtured into
strength, and who have a thousand times proclaimed that their country would
become a howling wilderness but for the exactions which have wrested from
the South the best part of the profits of her industry. Now the highest tribunal in the
country decides that every principle on which the North has assailed us and sought
to repress us in the exercise of our rights as a part of the Confederacy, and to limit
the spread of our institutions, to undermine their stability and to endanger their
peace, is false in law, and that every enactment of Congress tending to carry out
these principles is null and void.
Now, however, we may congratulate ourselves that the highest tribunal has at last
interposed and given its sanction to principles that recognize distinctly the equality of
the States, and condemn the interference of the Federal Government with affairs that
are peculiarly under their jurisdiction, and for interfering with which there is no
warrant in our common Constitution, we cannot help feeling a sense of mortification
that there has been so little of consistent union, on the part of the South, in the
maintenance of principles on which depend absolutely her power, her industrial
prosperity, and even her very existence. We might have made a better, as we might
have made a more successful, battle in favor of interests so great and so vital. When
all was at stake, we ought to have risked all, for the settlement of this question. What
was it to us that there was a President to be elected, a Cabinet to be appointed, and a
squad of subordinate officers to be placed or displaced. The sea is whitened with the
rich freightage of our commerce, and the great country of our home is teeming with
the abundant products of our peaceful industry. These are mighty interests,
compared with which the shuffling game of politics is pitiful in the extreme; and
these are the interests which we have too much allowed our public men to forget, or
at least to make secondary to considerations of personal interest.
http://history.furman.edu/benson/docs/sccmds57317a.htm