And these are only some of the recent crimes of our court system.

Taking the longer view, in the first century and a half of our country's history, the courts were an almost unmitigated tool of oppression, from protecting holders of debt against state laws to help out debtors to striking down measure after measure to protect the rights of workers.

But the largest crime of our courts historically was their reactionary defense of slavery before the Civil War, as embodied in Dred Scott, then their destruction of Reconstruction in the 1870s. We fought a bloody war to end slavery and oppression, yet the courts stole that victory with a series of decisions that struck down civil rights laws and destroyed the right to vote for blacks in the south. With raw antidemocratic arrogance, the Supreme Court in the 1870s licensed mass murder and lynchings of black people as a tool to end Reconstruction.

Almost all liberals are willfully blind on this bloody responsibility of the courts for sanctioning racial violence and inequality. The progressivism of the Warren Court was a complete aberration in our history, yet liberals defend courts as if most courts haven't been the worst bastions of racism and privilege throughout our history.

Posted by Nathan at April 5, 2005 10:42 PM