grace and gentleness and fulness of feeling of their young mistress, and received so many kindnesses from her gracious hands, could never forget her. So that now, when she had been taken from earth, one of these servants, who had for many years been living in Pennsylvania, far away from the scenes of early life, wrote the Chief Justice the following letter: QUAKERTOWN, November 26, 1855. DEAR SIR:-Being informed lately of the irreparable loss you have sustained in the death of your affectionate wife, one who I had every reason to respect and regard for the many kindnesses and attentions shown me while a servant in her father's family, I thought perhaps a few lines from one, though in inferior station, who remembers her virtues and amiable disposition, in the way of consolation to you, sir, suffering under the privation of so valuable a companion, might not be considered arrogant or improper, for I can truly say I was very sorry when I was informed of her death, and hope you may so bear your affliction as that it may be sanctified to your eternal comfort and a reunion in a better world with her. I am getting to be an old man, failing some in bodily strength, but my mind I believe pretty sound, and my memory a little failing of things recently past, but of things that happened in early life I have clear recollections, and hence the remembrance of the respected Mrs. Taney. Excuse me for thus approaching you, but I have written as I felt best, and therefore hope it will be accepted in all good feeling by you. I shall forward this by Dr. Samuel Bradshaw, a member of Congress from our place, for whom I have a high regard, having labored for him often. With sentiments of profound respect, I remain your humble friend, who was one of the servants of General J. Ross Key. JARAD. The Chief Justice's answer to this letter I have not been able to recover; though I wrote to Dr. Samuel C. Bradshaw, who, as a member of Congress, franked the letter, and was living when I wrote, and I suppose is now. Jarad, I suppose, is dead. CHAPTER V. JUDICIAL LIFE. A. D. 1856-1860. OTWITHSTANDING the exalted place which, NOTWITHSTANDING as we have seen, Chief-Justice Taney had attained in the esteem of the great men of all political parties, we shall now see him assailed, for political ends, until he becomes an object of especial hate to a powerful political combination. As the head of the Federal judiciary, he stood between that political combination and the Constitution, which was a barrier in the way to their purposes. It is a sad chapter in the history of the United States upon which we now enter. Chief-Justice Taney was a grand actor in its successive melancholy scenes. By the part he took, he consummated the glory of his high career. Before the Federal Government was formed, and even before the war of independence, there were two diverse forms of civilization in this country - that of Virginia and the other Southern States, and that of Massachusetts and the other New England States. Besides that, the first settlers of the two regions were very different in character and opinions - the Cavaliers having settled the Southern States, and the Puritans the New England States - the soils and the climates of the two regions were so different as to necessitate such different pursuits in life as to enhance the original diversity of character of the two distinct peoples. But, nevertheless, the peoples of the two regions had much in common. Besides their common language and laws, their political rights were the same. England was their common mother country, with the same governmental relation to them. Therefore, when their common liberties were invaded by the mother country, they joined with alacrity in a common defence, and in the struggle a more fraternal feeling grew up between the two peoples. But when the war with the mother country was over, and a common government was formed by all the colonies now become States, the antagonism of the Southern and the New England States began at once to manifest itself in the politics of the country and the working of the Government. Each people aspired to rule the country through Federal power, permitting the other to only a participation in the trusts of office. Sectional influence was therefore, at the very origin of the Federal Government, an element, and a powerful one, in the politics of the country and the working of the Government. At first, as we have seen, New England held the sceptre, after Washington laid it down. And when the alien and sedition laws were passed and attempted to be enforced, Virginia and Kentucky, representing the Southern States, proclaimed the right of the States to interpose their Sovereignty to prevent the enactment and execution of unconstitutional laws. The New England States at once repudiated any such right. But when the Southern States attained the control of the Federal Government under Jefferson's administration, and Louisiana was purchased in 1803, to be formed into new Southern States, thereby increasing their political power, the doctrine of State sovereignty was proclaimed in New England, to preserve the balance of Federal power between the two sections of the country. Massachusetts asserted that, as the purchase was a violation of the constitutional compact between the States, she was no longer bound by it. Her Legislature passed the following resolution: "Resolved, That the annexation of Louisiana to the Union transcends the constitutional power of the Government of the United States. It formed a new confederacy, to which the States united by the former compact are not bound to adhere." And when, in 1811, a bill was before Congress for the admission of Louisiana into the Union as a State, Josiah Quincy, an able and leading representative from Massachusetts, in discussing the bill, said, "If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation; and as it will be the right of all, so it will |