Interesting Read: Sailors, the last US slaves to be set free?

[WideNine]

Just off the beaten Biden and Trump path.

 

We sometimes treat the Supreme Court with so much deference, but in 1896 it was still common practice to hold sailors as indentured slaves with open-ended contracts. Sailors seeking to escape were rounded up by any local constabulary and returned to ships in chains and released to forced-labor again once far enough out to sea.

 

The Arago four is the story of 4 seamen who tried to escape their plight and the case was brought by the sailors union to the Supreme Court where it shockingly lost on an 8 to 1 vote https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/165/275/. The justices tied themselves in knots quoting harsh maritime laws from other nations that basically amounted to slavery and even ancient Greek maritime practices. Also, much like plantation owners of the South, they used arguments that dehumanized sailors as the chattel or property of their captains - a sub-species of human lacking the intelligence to manage their own affairs.

"Seamen are treated by Congress, as well as by the Parliament of Great Britain, as deficient in that full and intelligent responsibility for their acts which is accredited to ordinary adults, and as needing the protection of the law in the same sense in which minors and wards are entitled to the protection of their parents and guardians."

 

A rather ironic direction for the Supreme Court to take with the Civil War not that far back in the rear-view.

 

Of course the one dissenting opinion from Justice Harlan was a doozy as he lambasted the other justices and rightfully predicted that they would open the floodgates for the South to create the same kind of open-ended contracts and forced labor agreements with no "out" clauses for those recently freed from slavery, which would usher in a whole new thinly-veiled era of American slavery anew. It did, and the whole debacle of judicial overreach and democratic mismanagement was finally overturned in 1915.

 

https://www.newsbreak.com/oregon/astoria/news/2101660278483/offbeat-oregon-arago-four-decision-literally-declared-sailors-enslaved

 

 

[BullBuchanan]

25 minutes ago, WideNine said:

Just off the beaten Biden and Trump path.

 

We sometimes treat the Supreme Court with so much deference, but in 1896 it was still common practice to hold sailors as indentured slaves with open-ended contracts. Sailors seeking to escape were rounded up by any local constabulary and returned to ships in chains and released to forced-labor again once far enough out to sea.

 

The Arago four is the story of 4 seamen who tried to escape their plight and the case was brought by the sailors union to the Supreme Court where it shockingly lost on an 8 to 1 vote https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/165/275/. The justices tied themselves in knots quoting harsh maritime laws from other nations that basically amounted to slavery and even ancient Greek maritime practices. Also, much like plantation owners of the South, they used arguments that dehumanized sailors as the chattel or property of their captains - a sub-species of human lacking the intelligence to manage their own affairs.

"Seamen are treated by Congress, as well as by the Parliament of Great Britain, as deficient in that full and intelligent responsibility for their acts which is accredited to ordinary adults, and as needing the protection of the law in the same sense in which minors and wards are entitled to the protection of their parents and guardians."

 

A rather ironic direction for the Supreme Court to take with the Civil War not that far back in the rear-view.

 

Of course the one dissenting opinion from Justice Harlan was a doozy as he lambasted the other justices and rightfully predicted that they would open the floodgates for the South to create the same kind of open-ended contracts and forced labor agreements with no "out" clauses for those recently freed from slavery, which would usher in a whole new thinly-veiled era of American slavery anew. It did, and the whole debacle of judicial overreach and democratic mismanagement was finally overturned in 1915.

 

https://www.newsbreak.com/oregon/astoria/news/2101660278483/offbeat-oregon-arago-four-decision-literally-declared-sailors-enslaved

 

 

That's wild. Thanks for sharing.

Judges are still just people after all and all people, especially powerful ones, have agendas and biases. When enough time goes by, we tend to make heroes out of people that would be at least somewhat flawed and divisive had we been alive to witness it.

[WideNine]

Just now, BullBuchanan said:

That's wild. Thanks for sharing.

Judges are still just people after all and all people, especially powerful ones, have agendas and biases. When enough time goes by, we tend to make heroes out of people that would be at least somewhat flawed and divisive had we been alive to witness it.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Not that I am tired of hearing the circular name-calling and baseless conspiracies, but yeah... I wanted to "post outside the box" for a change.

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

2 hours ago, WideNine said:

Just off the beaten Biden and Trump path.

 

We sometimes treat the Supreme Court with so much deference, but in 1896 it was still common practice to hold sailors as indentured slaves with open-ended contracts. Sailors seeking to escape were rounded up by any local constabulary and returned to ships in chains and released to forced-labor again once far enough out to sea.

 

The Arago four is the story of 4 seamen who tried to escape their plight and the case was brought by the sailors union to the Supreme Court where it shockingly lost on an 8 to 1 vote https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/165/275/. The justices tied themselves in knots quoting harsh maritime laws from other nations that basically amounted to slavery and even ancient Greek maritime practices. Also, much like plantation owners of the South, they used arguments that dehumanized sailors as the chattel or property of their captains - a sub-species of human lacking the intelligence to manage their own affairs.

"Seamen are treated by Congress, as well as by the Parliament of Great Britain, as deficient in that full and intelligent responsibility for their acts which is accredited to ordinary adults, and as needing the protection of the law in the same sense in which minors and wards are entitled to the protection of their parents and guardians."

 

A rather ironic direction for the Supreme Court to take with the Civil War not that far back in the rear-view.

 

Of course the one dissenting opinion from Justice Harlan was a doozy as he lambasted the other justices and rightfully predicted that they would open the floodgates for the South to create the same kind of open-ended contracts and forced labor agreements with no "out" clauses for those recently freed from slavery, which would usher in a whole new thinly-veiled era of American slavery anew. It did, and the whole debacle of judicial overreach and democratic mismanagement was finally overturned in 1915.

 

https://www.newsbreak.com/oregon/astoria/news/2101660278483/offbeat-oregon-arago-four-decision-literally-declared-sailors-enslaved

 

 

Who's treating the SC with deference?  Accusations of violent sexual assault, the implication that the most recent nominee was a colonizer, another nominee not getting a hearing, conspiracy theories around the death of one and mockery for another who stayed about 45 days too few. 

 

 

[Tiberius]

2 hours ago, WideNine said:

Just off the beaten Biden and Trump path.

 

We sometimes treat the Supreme Court with so much deference, but in 1896 it was still common practice to hold sailors as indentured slaves with open-ended contracts. Sailors seeking to escape were rounded up by any local constabulary and returned to ships in chains and released to forced-labor again once far enough out to sea.

 

The Arago four is the story of 4 seamen who tried to escape their plight and the case was brought by the sailors union to the Supreme Court where it shockingly lost on an 8 to 1 vote https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/165/275/. The justices tied themselves in knots quoting harsh maritime laws from other nations that basically amounted to slavery and even ancient Greek maritime practices. Also, much like plantation owners of the South, they used arguments that dehumanized sailors as the chattel or property of their captains - a sub-species of human lacking the intelligence to manage their own affairs.

"Seamen are treated by Congress, as well as by the Parliament of Great Britain, as deficient in that full and intelligent responsibility for their acts which is accredited to ordinary adults, and as needing the protection of the law in the same sense in which minors and wards are entitled to the protection of their parents and guardians."

 

A rather ironic direction for the Supreme Court to take with the Civil War not that far back in the rear-view.

 

Of course the one dissenting opinion from Justice Harlan was a doozy as he lambasted the other justices and rightfully predicted that they would open the floodgates for the South to create the same kind of open-ended contracts and forced labor agreements with no "out" clauses for those recently freed from slavery, which would usher in a whole new thinly-veiled era of American slavery anew. It did, and the whole debacle of judicial overreach and democratic mismanagement was finally overturned in 1915.

 

https://www.newsbreak.com/oregon/astoria/news/2101660278483/offbeat-oregon-arago-four-decision-literally-declared-sailors-enslaved

 

 

Same court that decided  Plessy vs Ferguson, and same judge who wrote the dissenting opinion. Working class people were just treated like reusable machine parts. Pretty easy to see why the Progressive Era exploded in popularity shortly thereafter. Thanks for posting, very interesting 

[SoCal Deek]

A Supreme Court decision from 125 years ago? Oh come on! Any chance you can dig up some dirt on Pharaoh to justify another push for progressive policies? 

[BullBuchanan]

6 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:

A Supreme Court decision from 125 years ago? Oh come on! Any chance you can dig up some dirt on Pharaoh to justify another push for progressive policies? 

[Tiberius]

7 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:

A Supreme Court decision from 125 years ago? Oh come on! Any chance you can dig up some dirt on Pharaoh to justify another push for progressive policies? 

This really sounds Chef Jim level of stupid here. Same person? 

[SoCal Deek]

7 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

This really sounds Chef Jim level of stupid here. Same person? 

Right...everyone is stupid. Get over yourselves.

[Warcodered]

10 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Right...everyone is stupid. Get over yourselves.

What you seemed to of missed is that this topic isn't all that political at all. It's about something interesting from history, it's not anti/pro red, blue, liberal, conservative, or any combination of them. It's about a moment in history where the Supreme Court was very wrong. For some reason you couldn't help but make it about something else, which is what you're getting mocked for.

[SoCal Deek]

1 hour ago, Warcodered said:

What you seemed to of missed is that this topic isn't all that political at all. It's about something interesting from history, it's not anti/pro red, blue, liberal, conservative, or any combination of them. It's about a moment in history where the Supreme Court was very wrong. For some reason you couldn't help but make it about something else, which is what you're getting mocked for.

I know EXACTLY what it’s about! And I don’t care a lick about getting mocked by Tibs. 

By the way, in the Middle Ages they thought rats came from filth. So?

[Warcodered]

13 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

I know EXACTLY what it’s about! And I don’t care a lick about getting mocked by Tibs. 

By the way, in the Middle Ages they thought rats came from filth. So?

Generally if I don't find a topic interesting I don't post in it, but you feel the need to just have this same conversation everywhere apparently, whatever I'm done with it here.

 

Considering that slavery ended up ending due to a civil war and not from our institutions figuring out for themselves It's really not all that surprising that the Supreme Court which is seemingly designed to lag behind popular consensus failed on this so bad.

[SoCal Deek]

21 minutes ago, Warcodered said:

Generally if I don't find a topic interesting I don't post in it, but you feel the need to just have this same conversation everywhere apparently, whatever I'm done with it here.

 

Considering that slavery ended up ending due to a civil war and not from our institutions figuring out for themselves It's really not all that surprising that the Supreme Court which is seemingly designed to lag behind popular consensus failed on this so bad.

It's not the Supreme Court's job to change US Policy or to keep up with public opinion.  There job is to make interpretations of the laws as written by the Legislative Branch. What I would love to see more of is the Court telling Congress that they wrote a crappy law, so go back and fix it, if you want a different outcome. 

[SoTier]

On 11/17/2020 at 8:39 AM, SoCal Deek said:

A Supreme Court decision from 125 years ago? Oh come on! Any chance you can dig up some dirt on Pharaoh to justify another push for progressive policies? 

 

Obviously you're a fan of Tommy Tuberville.

 

 

[WideNine]

On 11/17/2020 at 5:39 AM, SoCal Deek said:

A Supreme Court decision from 125 years ago? Oh come on! Any chance you can dig up some dirt on Pharaoh to justify another push for progressive policies? 

 

You're an idiot.

 

This is a forum about politics, and I posted something I thought was interesting from US history. That is all. 

 

Have zero idea what agenda you read into that other than your own.