Brief the dred scott v. sanford case and the raines v.byrd case - Essay Example

They believed, according to the Court, that African Americans were "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." There were two dissenting opinions in this case. One by Justice Mclean and one by Justice Curtis. They argued that the court should not give an opinion on an issue that they had said was beyond their jurisdiction and that the constitution didn’t say what the other judges thought it said.

In 1994, the Republicans won control of Congress. They wanted to legislate a Line Item Veto for the President, so the President could veto aspects of a bill (in the past the constitution seemed to imply a president could only veto bills as a whole). A number of congressman disagreed with this idea and sued. The court reasoned that under the constitution a federal court could decide cases only when the plaintiffs had a concrete injury and a personal stake in the issue. The court said the congressmen only had an institutional interest in the matter of the line-item veto—there was no personal