istic of Mr. Lincoln in both his public and private life. Yet, after the lapse of nearly fifty years, there are many among the descendants of the brave men who for four years fought in the cause of secession who have not learned the true worth of that broadminded, generous friend of all the people, whose great mind was constantly occupied in the solution of the most difficult problems ever presented to any statesman in ancient or modern times; whose heartbeats were ever quickened by thoughts of the misery inflicted upon both sections of his beloved country by years of fraternal strife.

He knew that he had been grievously misunderstood by a majority of the people of the South. He pleaded for a better understanding of his purposes toward them even as the lowly Nazarene pleaded with the people who surrounded him as he trod the byways and highways of Palestine reviled and rejected. As the Saviour of mankind cried out in the agony of his soul:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

so, in his last great appeal to all the people of his country, Abraham Lincoln implored them:

With malice toward none; with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds. . . to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

Should not the people, North as well as South, pause amid their many cares, meditate upon these noble sentiments, and consider whether we have done "all which may achieve a lasting peace among ourselves"? May not we of the North as well as of the South inquire whether we have always acted "with malice toward none," and "with charity for all," in the consideration of the grave questions which grew out of the Civil War? Had the people of the whole country approached the consideration of these problems in that spirit of fraternity which was always uppermost in the mind of President Lincoln, the bitterness engendered by the terrible conflict between the sections would soon have passed away, leaving in its wake, not a Union which, after fifty years, is still sectional, but in its stead a Union in sentiment as well as in form, in which the people of each state would have looked upon the states composing the nation as the common heritage of all.

L

CHAPTER IV

CRITICISM OF THE JUDICIARY

INCOLN'S criticism of the decision of the Su

preme Court of the United States in the famous case of Dred Scott vs. Sanford has been frequently referred to in recent years as an indication that he did not have a high regard for judicial authority in cases where it ran counter to the popular will. In support of this contention reference has been made to a speech made by Mr. Lincoln at Cincinnati, September 17, 1859. In that speech he said: "The people of these United States are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts"; and it has been contended that the words quoted indicate a belief on the part of Lincoln that the popular will should be held superior to the decrees and judgments of judicial tribunals. This view is not, however, supported by the evidence. No man entertains a higher regard for judicial authority than did Mr. Lincoln. It is beyond dispute that he severely criticized the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States who concurred in the majority opinion in the Dred Scott Case. He believed it to be the result of the proslavery views of Chief Justice Taney and the associate

judges who united with him in the decision. While he admitted its binding force in the particular case in which it was rendered, he insisted that it should not be regarded as a final settlement of the questions involved, and that therefore it should not be followed as a rule of political action.

There were many circumstances surrounding the Dred Scott Case which seem to furnish justification for Mr. Lincoln's belief that the opinion of the Chief Justice, in which a bare majority of the justices concurred, was brought about by "concert of action" between these justices, the executive and Congress, in an effort to settle a purely political question about which the country was greatly agitated, and that the decision was in part based on a false assumption of the judges as to historical facts.

Mr. Lincoln's most thorough analysis of the Dred Scott Case is contained in two speeches made by him at Springfield, Illinois, the first on June 26, 1857, and the second on June 16, 1858. In the first of these he said:

I have said in substance that the Dred Scott decision was in part based on assumed historical facts which were not really true, and I ought not to leave the subject without giving some reasons for saying this. I therefore give an instance or two, which I think fully sustain me. Chief Justice Taney, in delivering the opinion of the majority of the court, insists at great length

that negroes were no part of the people who made, or for whom was made, the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States. On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissenting opinion, shows that in five of the then thirteen states, to-wit: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, free negroes were voters, and in proportion to their numbers had the same part in making the Constitution that the white people had. He shows this with so much particularity as to leave no doubt of its truth.

He then proceeded to show that there had been a systematic abridgment of the rights of free negroes subsequent to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, as well as an extension of slavery into new territory, notwithstanding the policy of the framers of the Constitution as enunciated in the Ordinance of 1787 establishing the Northwest Territory.

Mr. Lincoln's attack upon the decision of the Supreme Court was directed chiefly against that part of the opinion which declared that Congress possessed no power under the Constitution to prohibit slavery in a United States territory. He proceeded to show that this construction placed upon the Constitution was contrary to that which had been placed upon it by its framers as well as by Congress and the executive, in the act of 1789 providing for the enforcement of the Ordinance of 1787, and in the deeds of cession by North Carolina and Georgia ceding