On March 27, 1876 – the Supreme Court decidedUnited States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history.
The Court annulled the convictions of three men growing out of a massacre in Colfax, Louisiana, in which a white mob killed almost 300 African Americans who were defending a local courthouse, many after the freedmen had surrendered.
This was, in the words of historian Eric Foner, “the bloodiest single act of carnage in all of Reconstruction,” yet the Supreme Court held that the federal government had no power to protect the newly freed slaves from outright murder, even though the State of Louisiana had done nothing to redress these brutal murders. (ncn / the constitutional avoidance doctrine in full swing as if COTUS does not matter). Look at Title 18 USC , Chapter 13, section 241 ….
TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 241
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same;...
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Explanation:
Section 241 of Title 18 is the civil rights conspiracy statute. Section 241 makes it unlawful for two or more persons to agree together to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the Unites States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same). Unlike most conspiracy statutes, Section 241 does not require that one of the conspirators commit an overt act prior to the conspiracy becoming a crime.
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Indeed, the Court pretended the case had nothing to do with race. This was a Court that would stop at nothing to pervert the new Civil War Amendments to our Constitution -- the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth.
Cruikshankshould have been an easy case. The Fourteenth Amendment placed on state governments a duty to protect its citizens and other persons living in its jurisdiction from criminal acts and civil wrongs, and gave Congress the right to legislate to secure the right of protection when states refused to carry out their constitutional duty.
This right of protection was one of the very reasons the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution –immediately after the Civil War, Southern states had left the newly freed slaves utterly unprotected from violent reprisals and other wrongs at the hands of white terrorist groups. (ncn/so freedom from slavery needs protection when states and federal government is unable to do so? Can the freedmen and women ptotect themselves by forming militias a la 2nd Amendment?
As the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment explained, the Fourteenth Amendment was necessary because states had done nothing in the face of daily “acts of cruelty, oppression, and murder.” The Court did not even consider this history in giving the green light to the Klan to commit murder with impunity.
The modern Supreme Court, sadly, treatsCruikshankas foundational, a super-precedent immune from reconsideration because it was decided soon after ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Indeed, in 2000, the Court invoked the case in holding unconstitutional the civil rights remedy of the Violence Against Women Act. This is an outrage. Just likePlessy v. Ferguson, which upheld state mandated racial segregation,Cruikshankwas wrong the day it was decided, and the Supreme Court should say so.
The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment established the protection of civil rights as a national commitment, throwing a “shield of national protection” over the liberty and equality of all Americans. The narrative tells the sad story ofCruikshankand numerous other cases that perverted the text and history of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The right of protection that was so important to the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment is lost to us today. It is time we got it back, and fully restore the text and history of the Fourteenth Amendment.
(ncn/ what did I always say: The COTUS and the BOR is a paid ticket for tourists to gawk at an ancient parchment which has NO relevance as law in this squatter government. Why the devil do we keep on talking about the COTUS/BOR like it is relevant, applicable and workable when hidden hands and hidden agendas have other plans, designs and schemes.)
Majority opinion:
The Supreme Court ruled on March 27, 1876, on a range of issues and found the indictment faulty. It overturned the convictions of the white defendants in the case. Chief JusticeMorrison Waiteauthored the majority opinion.
In its ruling, the Court did not incorporate theBill of Rightsto the states. The Court opined about the dualistic nature of the U.S. political system (ncn/ Did they bother to read, examine, analyze and grasp the terms, conditions and provisions of the 14th Amendment)
There is in our political system a government of each of the several States, and a Government of the United States. (ncn/a corporation after 1871 – watch the year, note the year this case was decided)
Each is distinct from the others, and has citizens of its own who owe it allegiance, and whose rights, within its jurisdiction, it must protect. The same person may be at the same time a citizen of the United States and a citizen of a State, but his rights of citizenship under one of those governments will be different from those he has under the other. (ncn / so, serving 2 masters is eagerly anticipated?)
The ruling also stated that all U.S. citizens are subject to two governments, their state government and the other the national government, and then defined the scope of each: (ncn – 2 jurisdictions depending on which one will be lenient and less nasty)
The Government of the United States, although it is, within the scope of its powers, supreme and beyond the States, can neither grant nor secure to its citizens rights or privileges which are not expressly or by implication placed under its jurisdiction. All that cannot be so granted or secured are left to the exclusive protection of the States. (ncn / so, one can constitutionally disobey the federal government since it cannot protect us, right? BUT, see the DP and EP clauses of the 14th !!)
The Court then found that the First Amendment right to assembly "was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens, but to operate upon the National Government alone," thus "for their protection in its enjoyment ... the people must look to the States. The power for that purpose was originally placed there, and it has never been surrendered to the United States".
In addition the Justices held that the Second Amendment restricts only the powers of the national government, and that it does not restrict private citizens from denying other citizens the right to keep and bear arms, or any other right in the Bill of Rights. The Justices held that the right of the people to keep and bear arms exists, and that it is a right that exists without the Constitution granting such a right, by stating "Neither is it [the right to keep and bear arms] in any manner dependent upon that instrument [the Constitution] for its existence." Their ruling was that citizens must look to "municipal legislation" when other citizens deprive them of such rights rather than the Constitution. (ncn / no insinuation, implication, suggest, clue or hint in the 2nd for this !!!)_
The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, inThe City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police," "not surrendered or restrained" by the Constitution of the United States. (ncn / so, the People have a right to protect themselves using the 2nd).
The Court also ruled that theDue ProcessandEqual ProtectionClauses applied only tostate action, and not to actions of individuals: "The fourteenth amendment prohibits a State from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; but this adds nothing to the rights of one citizen as against another." (ncn / but doesn’t ‘state action” by state actors count because the state as an abstract and intangible entity can only be held accountable when its officers, and agents and other workers represent the “State” through its acts, omissions and commissions? See how the SCOTUS splits hairs when it ants to absolve responsibility?)
Dissenting/Concurring opinion
Justice Clifford also agreed with the other Justices to rescind the indictments but for entirely different reasons:
he opined that section five of the 14th Amendment invested the federal government with the power to legislate the actions of individuals who restrict the constitutional rights of others, but he found that the indictments were worded too vaguely to allow the defendants to prepare an effective defense.
TEXT OF THE 14TH AMENDMENT
Section 1.All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
(ncn/ “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means subject to the control and protection for the citizens of the United States (federal government) by the federal government. The SCOTUS did not analyze this provision !!?? “Due process” means every avenue of fact, law, equity has to be explored, analyzed and applied where required without fear, favor or fault. Equal rotection of the laws means every individual - black, beown, red, yellow, green or white – are to be equally protected)
Section 2.Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3.No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4.The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5.The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
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