If Abraham Lincoln had been Enda Kenny - a thought experiment

Enda: Take this out to my plantation and start planting, boy.

Enda Kenny keeps promoting the line that he has no choice but to bring in abortion legislation (even though he said the exact opposite before the election).  He is of the opinion, or so he says, that the judgment in the X-case is forcing his hand (even though, as he also keeps repeating, other governments didn't feel so compelled for twenty one years).  

The Taoiseach said the people’s wishes had been determined and set out by the Supreme Court, which determined what the Constitution actually meant.  “People have given their views on this already but it’s now a process that we’ve entered into as a legislature and that’s our responsibility in this Republic,” he said.

The same line has been repeated ad nauseam by Eamon Gilmore and the other pro-aborts.  I listened to Pat Kenny grill a pro-life TD last week and the X-case judgment was presented as in the same manner as the unbreakable last word on abortion and suicide.

Two words came into my head listening to all this - Dred Scott.

In 1857 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in the case Dred Scott v. Sandford, that that African-Americans were not citizens, and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court.  They also ruled that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in any territory acquired subsequent to the creation of the United States.  it was an appalling decision, the X-case judgment of its day.

Three years later, in November 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected 16th President of the United States.  

So if Abraham Lincoln had been Enda Kenny what would have happened next?  Well firstly he would have established an expert committee comprising lawyers and slave owners to bring forward recommendations on preparing legislation and regulations to implement the Dred Scott judgment with a view to removing citizenship from African Americans in those States where they were citizens and to end any regulation of slavery by the federal government.

Abraham Lincoln would then have forced the Senators and Congressmen from his party (The Republican Party) to support new laws enforcing slavery and removing citizenship from African-Americans.  

There would be no Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 freeing slaves in territory occupied by Union forces.  There would be no 13th Amendment in 1865 outlawing slavery.  

Instead there would have been legislation copper-fastening a bad, immoral, judgment.

When Catholics would remind Abraham Lincoln of Pope Gregory XVI's 1839 bull, "In Supremo Apostolatus" (which reiterated papal opposition to enslaving "Indians, blacks, or other such people" and forbade "any ecclesiastic or lay person from presuming to defend as permissible this trade in blacks under no matter what pretext or excuse.") Lincoln would, Enda Kenny style, shrug his shoulders, and say "this is a Republic, the Pope is entitled to his opinion but I have a responsibility to implement the judgment of the Supreme Court.  This isn't new legislation, this is about protecting slaves and their owners."

So when you next hear "X-case" just reply "Dred Scott".