and form, they were, substantially, designed to protect the citizens of those States against kidnapping; to punish for falsely declaring a free person to be a slave; to forbid State officers aiding in such arrests, and also the use of local jails for the detention of persons claimed as fugitive slaves; and to secure to such citizens the right of trial by jury and the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus. These same States and some others adopted similar legislation, the design of which was to protect the colored race in the enjoyment of its admitted rights. But with all that was humane and just, there remained many evidences of prejudice, and a lack of any adequate recognition of the primal truths upon which alone rest free institutions. In the right direction was the action of the Massachusetts legislature respecting separate colored schools in the city of Boston. Although discrimination on account of color had been driven from all the towns and every other city of the Commonwealth, the capital had persisted in maintaining the invidious distinction, in spite of many and earnest appeals and arguments against it. But when, in consequence of the great political revolution of 1854, the Whig rule had been broken, and the power had passed into the hands of the American party, and it was found that both branches of the legislature were decidedly antislavery, it was resolved to effect a change. Not long after the assembling of the legislature an order was adopted, instructing the Committee on Education to report whether further legislation was necessary upon the subject. That committee soon presented a very elaborate and able report, drawn by Charles W. Slack, and a bill, prepared by John A. Andrew, afterward governor, removing the hateful discrimination. With little debate, and by almost unanimous votes, it passed both houses, received the governor's signature, and became a law. But of all the aggressions of those dark years none produced a more profound impression and alarm than the Dred Scott decision. It was not simply its cruel and abhorrent dicta that excited apprehension. Their gratuitous proclamation created alarm. That the Supreme Court of the United States should, without any call from the case in hand, volunteer such an opinion, revealed the alarming symptom, the ominous fact, that the poison of oppression had reached the heart; that the spirit of slavery, and not of liberty, had become the inspiration of that august tribunal, and that the highest judges of the land had joined in this crusade against human rights. This decision involved the necessity, on the part of State courts, of defining their position and of indicating where they were to be found in the stern struggle then in progress. And cases involving these principles were soon presented for their consideration. It was not long after the proclamation of this opinion that the legislature of Maine, besides declaring it extra-judicial, submitted to the supreme court of that State the inquiry whether citizens of African descent had a right to vote. The court decided that the term "citizens of the United States " "applies as well to free colored persons of African descent as to persons descended from white ancestors"; one judge dissenting. In May, 1857, the supreme court of Ohio decided, by four of its five judges, that slaves coming into that State from Kentucky with the consent of their owners were at once emancipated, and could not be reduced to slavery again by any laws that court could recognize. The chief justice made a distinction, however, between a change of residence with the consent of the master and a simple transit through the State. Mr. Brinkerhoff, assenting to this decision and giving reasons therefor, said that the enslavement by local authority of one already free presented "the monstrosity of a legalized wrong, —an iniquity intensified and hardened into law." To decide otherwise would be, he contended, "to lend it indirect sanction through a morbid exaggeration of the spirit of courtesy." In New York the same matter came up for adjudication on what was familiarly called the Lemmon case, or that of certain slaves who were taken to the commercial metropolis in transit from one of the Northern slave States for Texas. They had been set at liberty by one of the inferior courts on the principle that slaves could not be taken through a free State and remain slaves. An appeal was taken to the supreme court of the State, and on the 7th of December, 1857, that decision was affirmed, one judge only dissenting. In January, 1860, the case was taken before the Court of Appeals, William M. Evarts and Charles O'Connor appearing respectively for the slaves and the slaveholders; and it, too, affirmed the decisions below, recognizing the principle claimed, and establishing the fact that New York could not be made a highway or port of transit for the domestic slave-traffic. This trial was noticeable, too, for the extreme opinions advanced by the counsel of the slaveholders. He based his argument for reversal of decision upon the ground that property in man rested on the basis of all other property, and that no State could pass laws that would vitiate or extinguish its claim. To establish that point, it was necessary to show that slavery was not wrong, and not contrary to the self-evident truths of the Declaration. The first he boldly affirmed, declaring that slavery was not morally wrong, and that there was no law of nature or of God against slaveholding. He said that if slaveholding was a sin, it was a sin of the greatest magnitude; that the man who did not shrink back from it with horror was utterly unworthy of the name of a man; and that an honest European would, if he had self-respect, turn his back upon a Northern man wilfully offending, as "the vilest of the vile." Of the phrases concerning human equality in the Declaration of Independence he said, if they were intended to include negroes, that the first sentence of the Constitution, setting forth its purpose to establish justice, is "a piece of hypocrisy and falsehood, and the American name is covered with the undying stigma inwrought with the perpetuation of injustice." Though many may not have accepted this estimate of slavery or this interpretation of the Declaration, yet it would have been then, as it is now, much easier to denounce the insincerity and extravagance of this language than to answer this sharp arraignment of the nation for its inconsistency, not to say "hypocrisy and falsehood," in promulgating such a Bill of Rights, adopting such a Constitution, and then supplementing it with such a history. CHAPTER LI. MENACES OF DISUNION. Intense Southern feeling. - Disloyal sentiments. Parties in Congress. — Failure to elect a Speaker. - Clark's resolution. Helper's book. - Millson's declaration. Sherman's disclaimer. - Sarcasm of Stevens. - Treasonable utterances of Garrette and Lamar. "Overt Act." Threats of De Jarnette, Leake, Pryor, Keitt, Crawford, Underwood, Pugh, Clopton, Barksdale, and Singleton. Patriotic utterances of Southern men. Stokes. Anti-Lecomp ton Democrats. - - John Hickman. Thomas Corwin. - Extreme utterances in the Senate. Toombs, Iverson, Clay, and Clingman. — Mr. Wilson's response. Such sentiments feebly rebuked by Northern Democrats. — Similar sentiments proclaimed throughout the South. - Public meetings. -- Avowals of Jefferson Davis, Faulkner, McRee, and Iverson. Picture of a Southern confederacy. - WHEN the XXXVIth Congress met on the 5th of December, 1859, the Southern members exhibited great intensity of feeling and earnestness of purpose. Many had convinced themselves that in secession alone could the South find protection from the rapidly accumulating forces of free institutions. They were indifferent to anything like conciliation and agreement; and they sought rather to aggravate than remove whatever was calculated to widen the breach already existing, and to render hopeless everything but disunion. Such had become the tone of several of their leading presses, and such the sentiment which had been proclaimed at several public meetings held during the summer and autumn. There were three parties represented in the House by one hundred and nine Republicans, one hundred and one Democrats, and twenty-seven Americans, or old-line Whigs. On the first ballot for Speaker there was no choice, John Sherman receiving sixty-six, and Galusha A. Grow forty-three votes; the latter, however, withdrawing his name on the declaration of the result. This vote and the state of feeling indicated thereby became the signal of an irregular debate, extending through eight weeks, before an election of Speaker was effected. In it were uttered sentiments of the most disorganizing character and of the baldest treason. This stormy debate was introduced by a singular resolution, offered by John B. Clark of Missouri, to the effect that the doctrines of a book just published, written by Hinton R. Helper of North Carolina, and styled "The Impending Crisis of the South," were insurrectionary and hostile to the domestic tranquillity of the country; and that no member who had indorsed it was fit to be Speaker. The impertinence of that intrusive measure was indicated, not simply by its conflict with freedom of speech and action, but by the fact that the book condemned was not distinctively an abolition work, but was written not so much in the interest of the black as of the white population, for prudential rather than philanthropic reasons, more in behalf of the master than the slave, and more to help the non-slaveholding whites than either. A compendium, prepared for general circulation, had received the recommendation of a paper signed by nearly seventy members of the House of Representatives, and by such men as Horace Greeley, William C. Bryant, Thurlow Weed, and John Jay. The special point of the resolution was directed to the fact that Mr. Sherman, one of the candidates for the speakership, was among these signers; and the demand was made by the mover that his name should be withdrawn. Mr. Millson of Virginia said that he who "consciously, deliberately, and of purpose lends his name and influence to the propagation of such writings, is not only not fit to be a Speaker, but he is not fit to live." This strange and senseless declaration was applauded by the galleries. Mr. Sherman then informed the House that he had never read the work, and that he had never seen a copy of it. He read, too, a letter from Francis P. Blair, in which it was stated that Mr. Helper had promised to expurgate the objectionable passages, and he added that it was in consequence of this assurance that Republican members had joined in the recommendation. Mr. Leake of Virginia, rising under great excitement, demanded of the "candidate of the Abolition party," whether he was opposed |