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May 8, 2022

We may be watching the breakup of the United States if Roe v Wade is overturned as indicated by the leaked draft memo of a pending Supreme Court decision.

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We have to go back to 1857, to the Dred Scott decision, to see how devastating a court decision could be. Prior to that decision, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required every state, including Northern states, to assist in the return of runaway slaves. Of course, Northern States were loath to oblige, and the South was furious about this. Northern interference was cited as one of the reasons for the South’s secession, indicating two things:

1) The South, despite its claims, did not care about state’s rights, when it applied to Free States.

2) The real issue of the Civil War was slavery, as also indicated by Vice-President Alexander Stephen’s inaugural cornerstone speech.

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The Dred Scott decision said that a slave was not freed when entering a free state, nor could he be. Couple that with the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, and what that meant was that slaves, as slaves, could be brought to every state of the Union, without an alteration of status. Effectively, the Supreme Court had forced the institution of slavery upon the North.

Dred Scott (public domain image)

Realizing that, the full horror of the Dred Scott decision becomes clear. Free States were jurisprudentially declared null and void. One could bring his slaves to Massachusetts, so any pretense of a Free State was lost. The South had won in the courts. Again, so much for Southern appreciation of state’s rights.

And a similar situation is what America will soon face regarding Roe v. Wade.

Essentially, we are faced with a cultural crisis of biblical proportions.  As the prophet Amos declared;

Amos 3:3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

Even in democratic republics, there has to be a consensus about some fundamental principles; there has to be some bedrock ideas that are not up for debate, or else the society will fly apart from centrifugal opposing forces. And that is what we are facing now.