Tom Allen Quotes
They don't have special rights because we have civil rights laws that protect them. The laws work both ways.
Allen, Thomas H. Congressional Record, 109th Congress. U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005.
This quotation was a slight paraphrase from Article 14 of the Republican Party Platform which had been adopted unanimously at the Chicago Party Convention on May 17, 1860. This was the convention where Lincoln was nominated. It is not known who originally drafted Article 14, although Lincoln's agents were very active in the platform drafting process. In his later campaign speech, Lincoln ran on the Party Platform.
He was trying to calm many Americans who were upset that a young Black man who was accused of a minor misdemeanor of selling loose cigarettes (not whole packs) was being arrested by 5 white New York City police officers who thought that he was not cooperating forced him to the ground with one using a “choke hold” that was against Police Department regulations. The video, taken by a citizen, showed the arrested man crying to the police several times that he could not breathe when the pressure was placed by the officer with the choke hold. He man was choked to death. The coroner declared the death a homicide. However, the Staten Island district attorney presented the case to the Grand Jury in such a way that the jury found no reason to indict any of the police officers for any crime. Staten Island is a borough of New York far smaller and more suburban than the rest of New York System and more than half of all the white New York City police officers lived in the only conservative borough of New York where they were a major political force in the election of the borough district attorney. The President told the public that the Justice Department would investigate the case to determine if the victim’s civil rights had been violated.
This was the first named Civil Rights Act passed in the United States. It was passed over the veto of President Andrew Johnson, a Southerner, who tried to thwart Congress’s efforts at Reconstruction.
It is surprising that these ideas would come from one of the most autocratic powerful monarch in the world at the time. However there were many very liberal influences on her from Europe. This set of proposals she even sent to Voltaire to get his feedback and criticism.
For a similar application of the law to all see the Massachusetts Body of Liberties over a century earlier.
Thomas Hodge Allen is a former member of the United States House of Representatives representing Maine's 1st congressional district, and the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2008 against Republican incumbent Senator Susan Collins. Allen lost to Collins (61.5% to 38.5%).
