Elton on hiatus until next spring
On the WaterfrontBy Elton Engstrom
It's wonderful to be able to write freely. The Bill of Rights protects this privilege. In Article One it says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press.
When the American states voted to accept the Constitution more than 200 years ago, it was promised that the first order of the new Congress would be the adoption of a bill of rights, which became the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.
Not until after the Civil War did the courts also extend this protection to state citizens. They did this by reasoning that the 14th Amendment incorporated the most important of the Bill of Rights.
Generally courts have been good stewards of the national welfare. Our Supreme Court is unique. No other nation in history has ever permitted men and women to overrule the authority of the rulers of the land, which in our case is the president and Congress. Not even in England, where the Parliament is the final arbiter of right and wrong.
But occasionally, the Supreme Court has erred on a colossal scale. The most egregious case was Dred Scott in 1857, where the court held that slavery had to be respected not only in the South but also in the North, that a black man once a slave was always a slave even though he resided in a state that wished to declare him a free man.
Only the death of 500,000 American men and the enactment of the 13th Amendment repealed the Dred Scott decision. As has been often stated in historical commentary, a great tidal shift of sentiment occurred. For example, before 1865 the plural was always used in the phrase "the United States are." After the war, the United States became - and ever shall be - the singular, "the United States is."
Of course it was not until 100 years later, under the presidency of a moral man, that the nation was finally un-sundered with passage of the Voting Rights Act. Vietnam marred his legacy, but on race relations he stands in the company with Abraham Lincoln.
So I've come to the end. Thanks for the opportunity to write for you during the last few months.
My editors, Fern Chandonnet and Mike Plett, are terrific. I really enjoy talking and working with them. I'll try to save some articles over the winter months to present in the spring. No, I'm not moving away. I'm just hibernating like the summer black bear in your back yard, until the snow begins to disappear and the warm breezes start to blow.
God willing. Thank you.
• Elton Engstrom is a lifelong Alaskan, retired fish-buyer, lawyer and legislator (1964-70) who lives in Juneau.