What is marxs philosophy on civil liberties?
He had no opinion. “Civil liberties” by that name is uniquely American. It originally referred to the rights guaranteed by the Federal government to people who were not under jurisdiction of their States, whose job it was to guarantee their “constitutional” rights including those not enumerated. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments allow us to go to court to determine these “unenumerated” rights. But in the Territories and on passenger ships, and in some other limited areas, the Federal government had to guarantee certain rights under certain conditions. Those were the only thing ever called “civil rights” until the 14th Amendment. This is because that Amendment “granted” from the Federal government all the rights of a Citizen of a State, to the freed blacks who were denied their constitutional rights by the very states empowered to protect them. So the Federal government granted to all freed slaves the same rights within their State the same rights as white citizens.
