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Lincoln, Douglas, and the Law
Round II on the moral case for positive law.
Pat Smith comments at Ius & Iustitium on my prior post on originalism and positive law, comparing it to Stephen Douglas's studied neutrality on the expansion of slavery. Smith analogizes leaving the question of abortion to the states (if that's what the original Fourteenth Amendment did) to leaving the question of slavery to popular elections in the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, which Douglas famously supported and Abraham Lincoln famously opposed. To Lincoln, no one could outsource his views to state elections; it was untenable for Douglas to "say that any body has a right to do wrong." Smith argues that abortion, like slavery, is an "intrinsic evil[]," and "[a]law authorizing or commanding such an evil would be no law at all."
Two quick points.
1. The selection of Lincoln as exemplar here is very strange. Lincoln was implacably opposed to slavery, but he also scored very high on the Human Law Respecter scale. I'm not talking here about early positions like his Lyceum Address, which called on his countrymen "never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country," and argued that "bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed." I'm talking about his mature position—such as his response to the Dred Scott decision, which recognized that state legislatures had once "held the unquestioned power to abolish slavery in their respective States," but that many "State Constitutions [now] withhold that power from the Legislatures," and that Congress had "decide[d] that it will not continue the prohibition" on slavery in the territories. Or consider his First Inaugural, which disclaimed any "lawful right" to "interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists." Or his famous 1864 pronouncement that "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong"—paired with a declaration that, "in ordinary civil administration," his presidential oath "even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery." And so on.
Lincoln couldn't have been clearer that slavery was legal in many states, even while it was also wrong. Unlike Douglas, Lincoln was openly opposed to slavery, he wanted to restrain its expansion with the legal tools available, and he hoped that the proper legal authorities would eliminate it where it existed—soon, in our days. But he also recognized, as he had to, that slavery was part of American law at the time. He rejected, rather than endorsed, the view that "a law authorizing [slavery] would be no law at all"—even as he insisted that such laws were morally wrong and ought to be opposed. Law, for Lincoln, was never above moral question, but law and morals were nonetheless distinct.
2. Smith's post helps put into words a longstanding concern of mine, which is that the program of "common good constitutionalism" may put too much emphasis on constitutions. Our polity is one in which almost all of the important subjects addressed by law are addressed by subconstitutional law. Lincoln, for example, likely saw polygamy as an "intrinsic evil" in Smith's terms, and he opposed the admission of Utah as a state so long as the practice was legal there. But he also argued that, as things stood, "[t]here is nothing in the United States Constitution or law against polygamy." Why would there be? A confederation of states united only by a loose treaty, with otherwise complete legal systems of their own, wouldn't have needed any federal law—much less federal constitutional law—for or against polygamy.
The same was true, as of 1788, of abortion. There was no need for the delegates at Philadelphia to say anything on the topic; the U.S. Constitution did nothing to limit it, any more than it did to limit slavery. Those who opposed abortion then, like those who opposed slavery then, had to do so via the legislative or the amendment process.
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. Some argue that the Fourteenth Amendment, through its guarantee of equal protection, also abolished abortion; others disagree. There's no way to resolve these debates with an argument, maybe even a conclusive argument, as to whether abortion is wrong. Different polities address different wrongs through different legal instruments, if they're fortunate enough to address them at all. I worry that Smith is mistaking attempts at precision of thought in these matters for indifference or weakness of will.
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With all due respect, would a Professor Lincoln host a seminar on slavery in which he declined to teach his students that “if slavery is wrong then nothing is wrong” but simply furnished material on both sides of the debate – some saying that slavery is wrong, some that it’s not wrong, in any case Prof. Lincoln isn’t going to impose his views, whatever they may be.
https://reason.com/volokh/2020/04/30/abortion-a-syllabus/
For that matter, would Professor *Sachs* preside over a seminar which gave the pros and cons of slavery without the professor presuming to impose his view on the rightness or wrongness of slavery on the students?
This book looked like an interesting point of view. It got to what informs much of my opinion on abortion pretty quickly from the little I read in a short time. I just can’t square a belief that abortion is so morally wrong that it requires legally requiring a woman to remain pregnant against her will with how we treat animals. It takes thinking that humans are special “just because we are” to make these things compatible.
I have chickens. Planning on having one for dinner this Sunday, actually.
If letting the chicken live had any reasonable chance of it eventually becoming an intelligent being remotely comparable to a human, that would be horrific. But it’s only ever going to be a chicken.
This seems to base the issue only on the possible future of the zygote/embryo/fetus, then. Why is the possibility of an intelligent human coming into being enough to require a woman to remain pregnant against her will? Why not require women to become pregnant in order to create humans then?
That is the one thing it does not do !!!!
Would you without certainty risk taking an innocent human life ?
Nobody requires anything , you only say that the baby can be killed.
Read what you post so you don’t sound like a moron.
I’m old enough to remember when people spoke in terms of “human rights” not “carbon based lifeform rights.”
And that is my point. It is just taking it as a given that humans have rights, and animals don’t, without thinking any deeper than that. I feel that it is necessary to go deeper and explain why humans are special in order to examine the issue and say why a pre-viable fetus has a claim to an unwilling woman’s body.
Who has the burden of proof – those who say humans are different from other animals in terms of rights, or those who say they’re the same?
Are we defending the rights of all mammals? What about fish? What about clams and lobsters?
Still not following what I’m saying. I’m not talking about whether humans have rights that animals don’t. I’m asking the side that wants to treat a pre-viable fetus as equal to a person why humans have rights that animals don’t. I don’t think you can adequately make that case without answering that question and then showing how the fetus meets those criteria.
What about mosquitos?
I would draw an analogy to wat. Foreigners outside US territory have no constitutional rights. It’s not just that they have no abstract right to life. We can kill them. That’s what war is. We can follow international treaties setting laws of war. But we don’t have to. And we can do covert sctions thay don’t follow laws of war.
We could have any concepts of morality we want, including complete turn-the-other-cheek pacifism. But again, we don’t have to. We can fight wars of aggression and conquest if we want, so far as the constitution is concerned.
I don’t know…it’s true that Congress can *define* and punish offenses against the law of nations, but I think the best interpretation is so that Congress won’t have judges second-guessing its decisions (separation of powers), and that it’s not a license to abolish the law of nations, including the humanitarian restraints which existed in the 18th century.
In short, there’s limited judicial review for a bad definition, but I’d say a Congressperson who voted to define mass murder of civilians as permissible under the law of nations would be violating the constitutional oath.
There is no need to define it as permissible in order to do it. What do you think a nuclear first strike is? You think the Constitution prevents us from doing it?
Do you think that, if we did a nuckear first strike, we would be so foolish as to signal our doing so by first having Congress pass a law filled with legal gobbledygook declaring it consistent with the law of nations? Of course we wouldn’t.
More fundamentally, the Supreme Court has consistently said that when Congress has spoken, the law of nations is what Congress says it is.
I don’t need the Supreme Court to specify that the court’s can’t review Congressional definitions of the law of nations – I already explained this – the Constitution gives Congress final authority (unless, I suppose, they’re acting in bad faith by saying that speeding violates the law of nations).
This finality makes Congressional responsibility all the more pertinent – like I said, this isn’t a case where they can do something and let the courts clean up their mess.
Of course they can launch a nuclear war without Congressional approval or judicial approval, but again, just because they have the final decision doesn’t make it legal to massively kill a bunch of civilians, even foreigners.
(incidentally, who do you think approves spending on a nuclear buildup?)
The Supreme Court itself has recognized that Congress has the final authority on impeachments – if the House plus 2/3 of the Senate agree some federal official has done wrong, they can fire him and even bar him from office in the future, and the courts can’t second-guess it.
That means its more, not less important for Congress to get impeachment right.
And so on.
We can follow international treaties setting laws of war. But we don’t have to.
Ratified treaties are the “supreme Law of the Land” just as much as any other federal law. (Unless Congress later passes legislation contrary to the treaty, I believe, or it is ruled unconstitutional.)
I think this is a limitation on judicial power – they won’t force Congress to respect treaties if Congress doesn’t want to respect them. Congress is still supposed to respect the treaties, and the fact that they have the final say on the issue means they’re all the more morally accountable, because they can’t pass the buck and assume, “oh, well, if we’re wrong the courts will stop us.”
Nothing prevents the political branches from abrogating a treaty.
In the Kellog-Briand Pact of 1928, never formally abrogated, the United States formally declared war a violation of international law and solemnly promised never to go to war again.
You think courts have ever enforced it?
That’s the point, Jason. If Congress can pass subsequent legislation contrary to the treaty or if courts can declare it unconstitutional, then clearly the treaty was optional.
No, it means the courts’ role is limited. They aren’t empowered to right every wrong.
That’s what people claim about abortion – that it’s perfectly constitutional at least as far as the courts are concerned. Right or wrong, it can be argued.
Better example – calling out the militia. The Supreme Court has acknowledged that Congress and the President, not the courts, must decide the constitutional question of whether the prerequisites of calling out the militia have been met.
Just because a constitutional decision is entrusted to someone other than the Art. III courts doesn’t mean the decision is lawless. The supporters of judicial supremacy need to get over themselves.
My great grandfather was an abolitionist. He believed that slavery was an evil institution that should be abolished. But he recognized that the federal government, as it was then constituted, did not have the authority to end slavery in the Southern states. Abolition was a MORAL crusade. Lincoln’s view, I think, was the same. He opposed the extension of slavery to new western territories, but he never claimed that the federal government had the power to abolish slavery in the Southern states. Until the Southern states seceded. But Lincoln was committed to preserving the Union (so was my great grandfather, unlike other abolitionists who would have been happy to see the slave states OUT of the Union).
The key is that we were creating new states and so the politics had a lot to do with how the new states would vote and if they would be industrial states or agricultural states and that had a whole host of implications with respect to tariffs and silver coins and labor unions etc. So the last 4 states that were admitted had to have an existential threat to motivate Congress to admit the states…so the Mexican Revolution bled into AZ and NM and Hawaii and Alaska were admitted when Ike argued it was a Cold War necessity to grant them statehood.