RNC Attacks Kagan Over Praise For Thurgood Marshall (511 hits)

So, did everyone think that the Elena Kagan nomination was going to be easy? Ha, no.

Right out of the gate, the Republican National Committee -- you know, that organization headed by Michael Steele, who recently opined that the GOP had not "done a very good job" giving African-Americans a reason to vote Republican -- has released a statement slagging Kagan for her tribute to... uhm -- Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to serve on the Supreme Court. Smooth move!

In its first memo to reporters since Kagan's nomination to the high court became public, the Republican National Committee highlighted Kagan's tribute to Marshall in a 1993 law review article published shortly after his death.

Kagan quoted from a speech Marshall gave in 1987 in which he said the Constitution as originally conceived and drafted was "defective." She quoted him as saying the Supreme Court's mission was to "show a special solicitude for the despised and the disadvantaged."


The Sotomayor confirmation process, I think, firmly established how various factions feel about empathizing with the "despised and disadvantaged." Now, the RNC wants to know, "Does Kagan Still View Constitution 'As Originally Drafted And Conceived' As 'Defective'?" Well, let's take a look at the Marshall statement in question!

In 1987, Marshall delivered remarks at the annual seminar of the San Francisco Patent and Trademark Law Association. At the time, the Constitutional Bicentennial Celebration was underway, and, as Marshall noted in his speech, the year 1987 was "dedicated to the memory of the Founders and the document they drafted in Philadelphia," and Americans were invited to "recall the achievements of our Founders and the knowledge and experience that inspired them, the nature of the government they established, its origins, its character, and its ends, and the rights and privileges of citizenship, as well as its attendant responsibilities."

Said Marshall:

"I cannot accept this invitation, for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever "fixed" at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite "The Constitution," they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago."

"For a sense of the evolving nature of the Constitution we need look no further than the first three words of the document's preamble: 'We the People." When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of America's citizens. "We the People" included, in the words of the Framers, "the whole Number of free Persons." United States Constitution, Art. 1, 52 (Sept. 17, 1787). On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for representational purposes at threefifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years. The 19th Amendment (ratified in 1920)."

"These omissions were intentional. The record of the Framers' debates on the slave question is especially clear: The Southern States acceded to the demands of the New England States for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade. The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade" would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern States."

Read the entire story here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/10/r... Posted By:
Tuesday, May 11th 2010 at 5:38PM
You can also click here to view all posts by this author...