Student Blogger - #13Amend Live Blog: “One Law for the Lion and the Ox…”

It is inevitable that so much of today's paper's focus on the language of the 13^th Amendment. It is also inevitable that fixing the meaning of the language of the Amendment, we will consult context. This collapses much of the distinction between text and context. Ken Warren, in his comments, mentions Justice Scalia's questionable textualism and Originalism in Domino's Pizza v. McDonald, which in the opinion of many was neither faithful to the text nor the context of 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Warren also discusses the relation of freedom to difference, and equality to difference. As William Blake wrote, "One law for the lion and the ox is oppression." The enduring question is whether we should take note of difference, or treat everyone the same? Warren asks several more questions: Ought we to not run the slavery argument into the ground? Does the abolition of slavery, when taken to its extreme, abolish all legal distinctions between classes of people? It may be the case that maintaining a posture that seeks to do away with legal distinctions will blind us to power differences that ensue from economic inequality.