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the question of slavery, and which, in the South was divided between those who, while not denying the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in the Territories, contended that the existing legislation on the subject should be abided by as a final settlement, and those who denied such a power to Congress and insisted on congressional protection to slaves until the territory became a State. Both sections of the party, South, agreed that the present laws should be carried out, and that the constitutionality of the question should be left to the decision of the Supreme Court. This party at the South was able to poll against the Democracy more than one hundred thousand more votes than were cast for Gen. Scorr, and nearly fifty thousand more than were cast for Gen. TAYLOR.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Dred Scott Decision-Condition of Parties in 1858 -The Irrepressible Conflict-The John Brown Raid -Leagues of United Southerners-The Southern Commercial Convention-Debate between Yancey and Pryor-Precipitating the Cotton States into Revolution, &c., &c.

"Free labor and slave labor, these antagonistic systems, are continually coming into close contact, and collision results. Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free-labor nation."

W. H. SEWARD, IN 1858,

"Our own banner is inscribed: 'No co-operation with slave-holders in politics: no fellowship with them in religion: no affiliation with them in society: no recognition of pro-slavery men, except as ruffians, outlaws and criminals.'" IMPENDING CRISIS.

"As long as the blood-stained Union exists, there is but little hope for the slave." W. L. GARRISON, AT NEW YORK, 1857.

At the time when the Whigs of Alabama in their support of Mr. FILLMORE, had asserted the right of the people of any State to remove to and hold within a territory any species of property, subject to the decision of the people of the territory, through a constitution framed as preliminary to their admittance as a State, the Supreme Court of the United States had pending before them a case (Dred Scott vs. Sandford, 19 Howard's Reports, p. 393,) involving all the contested questions in regard to slavery. Two days after

Mr. Buchanan's inauguration, a decision was announced upon this case which affirmed the correctness of the Alabama American platform. It established the prop

osition that the Federal Government could not interfere with the possession of slave property in a slave territory, and could not authorize the local government to do so, and that it was the duty of the Government to protect such property there. The Republican party denied the binding force of this decision. Although composed principally of Northern Whigs who applauded Mr. Webster when he named the Supreme Court as the arbiter in disputes concerning constructions of the Constitution, they now found it convenient to reject that arbitration. They, together with the adherents of Mr. Douglas, held that the Court could pass simply upon each case as it came before them, and could not lay down a general principle which would bind the political department of the Government. The Douglas Democracy in thus rejecting the umpirage of the Supreme Court were undoubtedly in accord with the views of Hayne, Van Buren, Calhoun and other leaders of the Democratic party of the preceding generation. The Buchanan Democracy could not, with consistency, claim the Dred Scott decision as strengthening their case. They had, theretofore, uniformly declared that the dignity of the States would not permit the decision of constitutional questions to rest with a Federal Court. For the purpose of advancing their party interests, the Northern Whigs and Southern Democrats, the extreme Free Soilers and the extreme States-Rights men, at this point reversed their positions. The party that had once spurned the idea of listening to the Supreme Court upon political questions, now emblazon

ed the Dred Scott decision upon its flag, and the party which had invariably appealed to the Court in the days of MARSHALL now rejected it with loathing and hate in the days of YANCEY. The Whig party of the South alone maintained its ancient land-marks. Inheriting the traditions of 1830 and of 1840, it still adhered to the faith of Webster and Clay, and bowed to the decision of the Court. They still held that the Constitution, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, were the supreme laws of the land, and that the Supreme Court could alone decide whether a law was made in pursuance to the Constitution.

All of the Compromises of the Constitution having been rejected, and the Supreme Tribunal having now announced its decision upon the grave question of the day, the Whigs of Alabama had no further point of dispute with their adversaries upon matters growing out of slavery. They still, however, held themselves in solid array against the Democracy upon the ground that the Territorial question was an impracticable one, upon which the continuance of the Union should not be staked, and that the States-Rights leaders who now held unbounded sway in the Democratic ranks, had come to the conclusion that secession should be resorted to without awaiting any further overt act than the Conference Bill, under which Kansas was virtually. refused admittance with her Lecompton Constitution. So determined was this array that in the election for Congressman in the Montgomery District, as late as November, 1858, Mr. JUDGE, who has been already alluded to as a prominent leader of the Whigs, failed of an election by only two hundred and fourteen votes in a poll of more than thirteen thousand. Referring to

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