Today in Supreme Court History: April 14, 1873

4/14/1873: The Slaughter-House Cases argued.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

My Con Law professor (like a lot of professors) had no conception of how he came off. In lecturing on this case he would spit out the words “the butchers of New Orleans!” like he was talking about war criminals, even though he was portraying them in a sympathetic light.

[Brett Bellmore]

Probably one of the worst Supreme court cases ever, eclipsing even Dred Scott. The Court literally took a constitutional amendment and set out to render it moot.

And then when the Court was finally in a mood to do something about it, rather than directly overturn the bad decisions, they invented "substantive due process" as a work-around, further warping 14th amendment jurisprudence.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

IANAL and my understanding of this and the 14th amendment passage and ratification is that both pro and con agreed on what the amendment would do, differing only on whether that was desirable or not. The Slaughterhouse decision basically threw all that understanding out and made up their own interpretation.

I know it's not practical or realistic for many reasons, but things like this make me wish the Supremes could be required to provide their interpretation of every bill in its final form before the final vote; no further legislative amendments allowed.

[Cal Cetín]

To return to a subject discussed during the German prosecution of people using the letter Z, the International Coveanant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 20(1), says "Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law."

https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights

The U. S. gutted this provision when it ratified the Covenant, subordinating 20(1) to the First Amendment.

Other countries (like Germany) did not attach any reservations to this particular clause, so they have to apply it as written.

So for Germany and those other countries, what obligations did they assume? Must they ban even the advocacy of *defensive* war, or should this provision be construed as applying to aggressive wars only?

What about rebellion against "legitimate" governments? Must rebels against tyranny be prevented from advertising their cause in other countries?

Could this clause be used against Americans who support America's foreign policy? Of course America won't prosecute them. but do other countries have to?

So...are the Germans simply conforming to their treaty obligations by being "Not-Zs"?

[Cal Cetín]

I was trying to post this in the Thursday thread...let me try again.