This conduct of the State of Wisconsin, in first, by her Supreme Court releasing a criminal imprisoned by a Court of the United States, and then ordering its Clerk to disregard a writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States; and, secondly, by her Legislature declaring a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States "void and of no force," "and that a positive defiance" of all acts of the Federal Government which it may deem unauthorized "is the rightful remedy," is without parallel for audacity in the history of our Government up to that time. From the time (about forty years ago) that the emissaries of the abolition societies of Great Britain began to inculcate their doctrines in New England, the antislavery sentiment had increased in intensity, until it had become an epidemic fanaticism of both countries. In England, it had infected, more or less, all classes of minds. Max Müller, the Oriental scholar, and Professor at Oxford, could not lecture in London on "the Science of Language," without venting his fanatical spleen against negro slavery in America. And even Earl Russell, in Parliament, seemed to have found relief from a moral oppression at other people's transgressions by pronouncing slavery a sin. In fact, for thirty years, there had been an active co-operation between the radicals of both England and America to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. This co-operation of radicals in different

countries is now, through the International Society, threatening to destroy the proper order of society all over Europe and America.

South Carolina, before she threatened nullification, and even while doing so, was willing and anxious that a question involving the constitutionality of a revenue laid primarily for protection, like that by the Act of 1828, should be put into judicial form, and submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States. South Carolina had faith in that tribunal, though presided over at the time by Chief-Justice Marshall, who differed so entirely in political views from that State. But such men as William H. Seward now taught the people that the Judges of the Supreme Court were utterly corrupt; and that the Chief Justice was a monster, who could, and did, administer the official oath to the President of the United States while whispering in his ear a corrupt political bargain with him.

A

CHAPTER VI.

JUDICIAL LIFE.

A. D. 1860-1864.

NEW era now begins in the political history of

the United States. The conservative, statesmanly civilization of the Southern States, which had, by its Federal rule, conducted the country through a period of so much honor among nations and so much happiness at home, becomes entirely excluded from all influence in the working of the Federal Government. The civilization of New England, with its radical spirit, is inaugurated, to direct and control the policy of the Government and the destiny of the people.

We must now recount how this great change was brought about, and show what part Chief- Justice Taney acted in the drama of this transition from one civilization to another as the controlling power in the Government of the country.

When that great statesman, Thomas Jefferson, heard, in his retirement at Monticello, that the Missouri compromise was passed, dividing political parties by a geographical line, making them sectional instead of national, he said it was like the sound of a firebell in the night, and made him fear that the revolu

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tionary struggle for self-government had been in vain. But up to this period, the Southern political doctrines and policy of Federal administration had received such wise and powerful aid in the Northern States, that no political party had yet been organized upon a geographical line. But now so complete was the alienation of the free States from the slave States, that even Christian churches had been broken asunder on the question of slavery, and were divided by a geographical line. A Christian on one side of the line was not a Christian on the other. The United States were, in fact, only held together by a written Constitution, which was denounced, by a constantly increasing political party on one side of a geographical line, as "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell." And the provision incorporated into the Constitution for the special protection of the peculiar institution, on which the present prosperity and safety of the Southern States depended, was openly and persistently violated and nullified, upon a principle whose obligation was assumed to be above the Constitution. A party breathing this sectional spirit, assuming the name Republican, nominated, in May, 1860, Abraham. Lincoln, of Illinois, as their candidate for President of the United States, and Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, as their candidate for Vice-President. This nomination of both candidates, contrary to unbroken usage, from one side of the geographical line between the

slave States and the free States, proclaimed, with the fearful sound of a fire-bell at night, the policy of the party now aiming at the control of the Federal Government.

Three other candidates for President and VicePresident were also nominated by three other parties; but each presented candidates chosen from both sides of the geographical line between the slave and free States. They were national parties, deprecating sectional strife, and stood upon the national ground that their candidates must represent both the North and the South, pledged to a policy of equal protection to every section of the country.

It was felt by all who could forecast coming events, that the question was now presented in the political issue, whether the Constitution and Union were to be one and inseparable in the future, as they had been in the past, or the Union preserved and the Constitution disregarded. For those conversant with the history of popular movements inspired by one idea, foresaw that the Republican party, if successful in the election of their candidates, would be hurried on, even in spite of itself, by the mere momentum of a developing idea, from step to step- the opinions and conscience of the party changing as it moved to the entire extirpation of the institution of slavery. Mr. Lincoln but uttered this truth, when, at Springfield, Illinois, in 1858, he said, in his speech to the Convention which nominated