ConLaw Class 20 – Individual Liberty I

April 2nd, 2014

The lecture notes are here. The live chat is here.

Individual Liberty I

  • Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1476-1478).
  • Buck v. Bell (1428-1432).
  • Griswold v. Connecticut (1478-1494).

Pierce v. Society of Sisters

This is the Hill Military Academy, a private school shut down due to the compulsory education law.

Pierce-Hill_Military_Academy_1903

 

Buck v. Bell

This is Carrie Buck. Why was she designated as “feebleminded”? Because she had an “illegitimate child,” and they charged her with “promiscuity.” The pregnancy resulted from a rape.

buck-standing

This is Carrie Buck with her mother, Emma Buck.

carrie-emma-buck

This is Dr. J. H. Bell, the superintendent at the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics.

James_H_Bell

This is the  courthouse in Amherst County, Virginia where Buck’s case was first “heard”:

This is the “State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded,” where Carrie Buck was sterilized in the wake of Buck v. Bell.

colony-2

Here is a rendering of Carrie’s Buck family tree, as performed by Dr. Harry H. Laughlin. F stands for “feebleminded.” Notice That Carrie Buck is designated with an F, her mother Emma was designated with an F, and her daughter, Vivienne, was designated with an F. There you have three generations of imbeciles. Enough.

 

 chart_Carrie_kin2

Haughlin, impressed that Nazi Germany adopted his ideas, had this to say:

The fact that a great state like the German Republic, which for many centuries has helped furnish the best that science has bred, has in its wisdom seen fit to enact a national eugenic legislative act providing for the sterilization of hereditarily defective persons seems to point the way for an eventual worldwide adoption of this idea.

In 1936, Laughlin was invited by the Nazis to receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of Heidelberg for his work in the “science of racial cleansing.”

LaughlinNaziDegree Here is Carrie Buck shortly before she died.

old-carrie-buck


Here are several pieces of American propaganda about Eugenics.

This one says, “Some people are born to be a burden on the rest. Learn about heredity. You can help to correct these conditions.”

eugenics_display2

This piece of propaganda says “Eugenics is the self direction of human evolution.”

eugenics_tree_logo2

Speaking of social darwinism, and surivival of the fittest, here is Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who firmly believed that “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

Holmes

Buck’s daughter, Vivian, was raised by foster parents, This is Vivian at 6 months old. She flunked her IQ test. So she was also deemed an imbecile:

It was Estabrook’s habit to photograph the subjects of his eugenical family studies, and one surviving photo shows Alice Dobbs holding Carrie’s baby. It appears that Mrs. Dobbs is holding a coin in front of Vivian’s face in an attempt to catch her attention. The baby looks past her, staring into the distance, apparently failing the test. Estabrook described that moment during his testimony at trial a few days later: “I gave the child the regular mental test for a child of the age of six months, and judging from her reaction to the tests I gave her, I decided she was below the average.”

16_Alice-Dobbs-and-Vivian-Buck

In case you were wondering, the child was not an imbecile. Here is her report card from first grade. She was a solid B student, with an A in deportment, and on the honor roll.

Vivian died at the age of 8 due to intestinal diseases.

Vivians_grades2

Despite her sterilizations, Buck would go on to be married, twice. First to William Eagle.


buck-with-husband-william-eagle

25 year after William’s death, Buck married Charlie Deatmore.

buck-husband-2nd

Here is Carrie Buck shortly before she died.

old-carrie-buck

Here is a sign in Virginia to commemorate Buck v. Bell.

 

Griswold v. Connecticut

Here is Estelle Griswold, the lead plaintiff at the Planned Parenthood Center of New Haven, Connecticut.

ok

 

Estelle-Griswold

Here is a photograph of Dr. C. Lee Buxton and Estelle Griswold after their arrest.

Dr Lee Buxton and Estelle Griswold

Estelle Griswold Cornelia Jahncke Planned Parenthood League CT

A penumbra is a partial shadow outside the complete shadow of an opaque body.

eclipse-lunar-geometry