Kamala Harris, history professor, held class tonight and gave V.P. Pence a lecture on how even a GOP icon like Lincoln would have been opposed to filling a Supreme Court vacancy in an election season. She said: “In 1864 a seat became open on the Supreme Court. Abraham Lincoln’s party was in charge of not only the White House but the Senate. But honest Abe said it’s not the right thing to do. The American people deserve to make the decision about who will be the next President of the United States, and then that person can select who will serve [on the Court].”
Well, what she was referring to was the October 12, 1864 death of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. Taney was a vehemently pro-slavery jurist — his Court decided in Dredd Scott that Blacks were not people and thus had no right to sue — whom Lincoln no doubt disdained. Contrary to Sen. Harris’ version of history (that a junior staffer must have hastily Google searched, scribbled onto a sheaf of paper, and then placed in front of her under the label “zinger”), if anything, Lincoln was chomping at the bit to fill this Jacksonian Democrat’s seat with a Republican…especially with emancipation amendments to the Constitution on the horizon.
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