>>> nathan at newman.org 05/17/01 11:08PM >>>
-And yes, the imposition of slavery and forcing the Civil War, the gutting
of
-Reconstruction, the suppression of labor unions and progressive
-legislation - this is the prime legacy of the Supreme Court for the first
-150 years of this country. I think it is completely accurate to see the
-Supreme Court as probably the worst, most reactionary institution in the
-history of the United States.
((((((((((
>CB: When one thinks about it, you are right , Nathan. The only court only
half bad was the Warren Court, >probably.
>What about the Presidency ? That's an atrocious institution too.
If we are talking in relative terms and structurally, I would argue the Presidency is a more mixed bag. The Presidency has at times been the most responsive institution to progressive democratic currents, since it lacks both the lifetime tenure of the courts or the incumbent protections of Congress - and the historically distorting power of Southern dominance for most of that institution's history.
It was the capture of the Presidency by Andrew Jackson that forced through broadbased suffrage (with other mixed bag of his office); it was the capture with Lincoln that led to the assault on slavery; and it was the election of Roosevelt that led to the assault on the reactionary courts that opened the way for labor and social legislation in the 1930s. It has its very reactionary history as well, but that reflects the swings of the country and corporate power, but the point is that the Presidency, for all its faults, has been less consistently rightwing than the courts. Congress is more interesting, since in the Reconstruction era it was the most progressive institution, but once Reconstruction was gutted and the southern black vote eliminated, it became more institutionally rightwing than the Presidency until the 1960s when the civil rights movement broke the back of the old Dixiecrat hold on it.
-- Nathan Newman