John McLean Quotes


In the argument, it was said that a colored citizen would not be an agreeable member of society. This is more a matter of taste than of law. Several of the States have admitted persons of color to the right of suffrage…


Citations

John McLean, 1785-1861, United States Supreme Court Justice, Dissent, Dredd Scott Case

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Eight years and a Civil War later, he had changed his mind and was the sponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 1866—the first Federal civil rights law in America. See {587711}.


Miller was the first Black American admitted to a Graduate Program—Johns Hopkins—in Mathematics. Women were not then universally allowed to vote and suffrage was a major issue. Miller, like many Black males, was opposed to female suffrage. The prospect of many women holding public office was to him so absurd that the potential prospect was sufficient to oppose women voting.


Jessie Helms was his young assistant who drafted this race baiting ad. There are two vicious but subtle aspects to this kind of attach ads. First, not that the ad does not address the problem of white men working along side of blacks. It only refers to wives and daughter. This interracial sex innuendo played on and increased the fear of whites that Blacks would commonly rape white women. The second nasty aspect of the ad is the specific attack on the opponent. Instead of saying that he favored desegregation, the phrase “mingling of the races” was used which implied that Graham was in favor of biracial intermarriage and children—again another sex innuendo. When integration of the workforce finally occurred in the South, there was no increase in Black men sexually assaulting white women. There has been a substantial increase in racial intermarriage however as racial bigotry has diminished in America.


After attending a Lincoln speech, Booth said to Lewis Powell, one of his band of conspirators, “Now, by God, I’ll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make.”


What is interesting, that few people realize, is that large number of men who had never voted before, and would not be able to vote afterwards (the were not property owners for example), were allowed to vote in the ratification debate. As a result, an entire new socio-economic class was empowered and became interested in politics for the first time in history. The result was greater and wider public interest than there had been or would be for many years to come. All voting requirements had been set by the states and were still so after the Constitution was adapted and still is the current situation, although there has been a constant battle in many states to keep Blacks and other minorities from voting between the desires of the states and Federal pressure after the Civil War Constitutional amendments.


John McLean
John McLean
  • Born: March 11, 1785
  • Died: April 4, 1861
  • Nationality:
  • Profession:

John McLean was an American jurist and politician who served in the United States Congress, as U.S. Postmaster General, and as a justice of the Ohio and U.S. Supreme Courts. He was often discussed for the Whig Party nominations for President.