“The present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but a stepping-stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich.”
—Stephen J. Field, American judge, born November 4, 1816
Reuben, Reuben, I’ve Been Thinkin’
Ha. That’ll be the day. Stephen J. Field, appointed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, was one of the late nineteenth-early twentieth century US Supreme Court justices who were endlessly helpful to the Robber Baron capitalists during the first Gilded Age (the one before the one we’re enjoying so much now). Income Tax? We don’t need no stinkin’ Income Tax? Unions? See the quote. He also assented to Plessy vs Ferguson, the infamous 1896 case that upheld (legal) racial segregation. Field was the second-longest serving Supreme Court justice, only surpassed by William O. Douglas. He was repeatedly asked to resign by his colleagues, as he was intermittently senile in his later years, but he refused, insisting on breaking John Marshall’s record of thirty-three years on the court.
President James K. Polk annexed Texas and led the US to victory in the iniquitous Mexican War. He gets the Last Word today. Polk was the “54–40 or fight” guy, too, dear to generations of American schoolchildren. He has been called the “least known consequential president” of the United States. Tremble indeed.