I heard the Fresh Air podcast of Lawrence Goldstone on his book, Inherently Unequal (on the Supreme Court's inaction on implementing the 14th & 15th amendments guaranteeing equal rights after the Civil War.
He makes two points: first, that several of the justices of that court were social Darwinists, and that that was an idea that was in the air (several of the robber barons of the time were social Darwinists as well). These people thought that survival was of the fittest (never a phrase used by Darwin himself, the johnny-come-lately social Darwinists came up with this one), and socially, if you were thriving, then you were fittest, and the other folks ought to be made to get out of the way for the good of the race (and that's not how natural selection works, either).
If you're brought up with those beliefs, though, it's a short hop to writing and interpreting laws that support them. As I was listening to this podcast, I was thinking that my leaning-left-ness is in not small part due to the bullying I endured throughout my schooling. I think that our political beliefs must arise from our histories. Conservatism must rise either from successes to which the person believes he or she is entitled, or from a belief in an earlier golden era to which we must return. I don't have either of those: I'd never want to go back to my childhood, and I don't think there was ever a golden era. Every grand house points to the slaves, serfs, indentured servants, and other poor folks who had to support it somehow. And if you have to build your house on the backs of poorer people, then you don't deserve your house.
The other issue that came up is that all of these decisions that, essentially, voided these amendments were based on what we now call constitutional constructivism, the view that the constitution should always be interpreted closely, on the intent of the founders. The past history of constitutional constructivism is that it led to law that eliminated rights and that most Americans now hate.
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