Roger B. Taney

Swisher, Carl Brent

doi:10.2307/1596782

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Such disagreements were appealed to the Supreme Court through a procedure known as "certificate of division. "24 The Court's response affirmed Fessenden's hopes. As Dana and Fessenden argued the complex facts, a new issue "arose" concerning Section 34 of the 1787 Judiciary Act.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

SwiftâandâErie: The Trials of an Ephemeral Landmark Case

Freyer

2009

Journal of Supreme Court History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Like jazz improvisation, the meaning of Swift v. Tyson was elusive.1 Justice Joseph Story's 1842 opinion concerning an important commercial‐law issue arose from a jury trial.2 When the creditor plaintiff appealed, counsel for the winning debtor raised as a defense Section 34 of the 1789 Judiciary Act. The federal circuit court disagreed about the standing of commercial law under Section 34. Although profound conflicts otherwise divided nationalist and states'‐rights proponents, the Supreme Court endorsed Story's commercial‐law opinion unanimously.3 New members of the Court and the increasing number of federal lower‐court judges steadily transformed the Swift doctrine; after the Civil War it agitated the federal judiciary, elite lawyers, and Congress.4 Asserting contrary tenets of American constitutionalism, the Supreme Court overturned the ninety‐six‐year‐old precedent in Erie Railroad v. Tompkins (1938).5 The Swift doctrine's resonance with changing times was forgotten. The Court and the legal profession established, transformed, and abandoned the doctrine though an adversarial process and judicial instrumentalism. Although the policy of each decision reflected its time, Story's opinion was more consistent with the federalism of the early Constitution than was Erie.6

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

SwiftâandâErie: The Trials of an Ephemeral Landmark Case

Freyer

2009

Journal of Supreme Court History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The governor of the state urged upon its legislature "A firm determination to resist, at the threshold, every invasion of our domestic tranquility and to preserve our sovereignty and independence," because, he said, "there would be more glory in forming a rampart with our bodies on the confines of our territory" than in becoming either the victims of a successful slave rebellion or "the slaves of a great consolidated government." 4 Chief Justice Marshall regarded Johnson's action as rash. Marshall had himself confronted on circuit a Virginia law modeled on that of South Carolina, but had avoided pronouncing it unconstitutional.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even John Quincy Adams abandoned the House of Representatives to go listen to the closing arguments. 16 One attorney defending the validity of the notes-and thus of Slaughter's right to receive payment for the slaves that he had soldevidently believed in covering all bases, for he presented the Court with an initial position, a fallback from that one, and then a fallback from the fallback. First, he said that the relevant clause in the Mississippi constitution was not a regulation of commerce but an exercise of po-lice power, because it aimed to do such things as "guard against the admission of the vicious, through the deceptions of negro-traders," actions which were "evidently objects of proper municipal regulation."…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the highly charged atmosphere of the late 1840s, it was inevitable that both counsel and judges would be even more acutely conscious of the slavery entanglements that threatened to engulf them whenever they grappled with the commerce power. 31 The two legal disputes that the Supreme Court considered collectively as the Passenger Cases were first placed on the Court's docket in 1843 and 1844, respectively. One of the cases arose from an attempt by the state of New York to support a marine hospital by levying a tax on incoming passengers, both those arriving from abroad and those landing from coastal vessels.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Supreme Court and the Interstate Slave Trade: A Study in Evasion, Anarchy, and Extremism

Lightner¹

2004

J Supreme Court History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Opponents of slavery often argued that the federal government possessed the constitutional authority to outlaw the interstate slave trade. At its founding in 1833, the American Anti‐Slavery Society declared that Congress “has a right, and is solemnly bound, to suppress the domestic slave trade between the several States.” The idea had been endorsed earlier, during the Missouri controversy of 1819–1820, by both John Jay and Daniel Webster. Later on, in the 1840s and 1850s, it was supported by such prominent politicians as John Quincy Adams, Salmon P. Chase, and Charles Sumner. Defenders of slavery were, of course, horrified by the suggestion that the South's peculiar institution might be attacked in this way, and they vehemently denied that the Constitution permitted any such action. The prolonged debate over the issue focused on two key provisions of the Constitution. One was the Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3), which says that Congress has the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” The other was the 1808 Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 1), which says that the “Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight.” Abolitionists held that the Constitution sanctioned congressional interference in the domestic slave trade both generally, by virtue of the Commerce Clause, and specifically, by virtue of the 1808 Clause. They argued that since slaves were routinely bought and sold, they obviously were articles of commerce, and therefore Congress had unlimited authority over interstate slave trafficking. Furthermore, they said, the words “migration or importation” in the 1808 Clause meant that as of January 1, 1808 Congress had acquired the right not only to ban the importation of slaves, but also to prohibit their migration from one state to another. Defenders of slavery replied that Congress could not interfere in property rights and that the power to regulate commerce did not include the power to destroy it. They also said that the word “migration” in the 1808 Clause referred, not to the domestic movement of slaves, but to the entry into the United States of white immigrants from abroad.1

show abstract