Sunday, October 7, 2007
Paul Finkelman Vs. Raoul Berger and the fourteenth amendment
My question is: Is Paul Finkelman basing his argument about the 14th amendment in the constitution on the notion that, the framers were not racist and they wanted freedom for blacks? If so why in is article does he only provide evidence from the people in the State not following the laws that would prevent blacks from coming to the North and gaining some rights and provisions? It seems like his argument does not provide evidence of the framers not being racist, it only provides evidence of people not enforcing the law. If Raoul Berger's argument was correct that the intentions of the 14th amendment was not the gradual move towards equality but the framers were actually racist, wouldn't this allow us to critically look at the framers and see the mistakes that they made in the past and correct those mistakes instead of ignoring them and turning their intentions into something it might not have been?
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The question is one of HOW we discern intent. Berger argued that the framers of the 14th Amendment, particularly Bingham, came from the very racist Ohio, and as such could not have meant for the 14th Amendment to grant racial equality. Finkelman's evidence speaks not just to those who refused to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, but also the laws passed that extended rights to free blacks in the North. Is this evidence compelling enough to overcome the obvious racism of the era?
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