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KANSAS ADMITTED-DRED SCOTT.

35

251

Convention at Wyandot was laid be- | 1860. At the next session of Congress, however, her application was renewed; and on the same day that Messrs. Jefferson Davis, Clement C. Clay, Fitzpatrick, Mallory, and others, abandoned their seats and the Capitol to take part in the Southern Rebellion, a bill admitting her as a Free State under the Wyandot Constitution was called up by Gov. Seward, and passed the Senate: Yeas 36; Nays 16. One week later, on motion of Mr. Grow, of Pennsylvania, it was taken up in the House, out of regular order, by 119 to 42, and passed.

fore the House, February 10th, 1860.
On the 15th, Mr. Grow, of Pennsyl-
vania, introduced a bill for the admis-
sion of Kansas into the Union;
which was read a first and a second
time, and referred to the Committee
on Territories. This bill was report-
ed to the House from that Commit-
tee, and, on the 11th of April, it
passed, under the Previous Question:
Yeas 134; Nays 73. But the Senate,
which was very strongly Democratic,
stubbornly refused (32 to 27) to take
it
up, and adjourned, leaving Kansas
still a Territory: so that, though
every way qualified for and entitled
to admission, she was remanded into
territorial vassalage by the very men
who had been so eager to admit her,
two years before, when her popula-
tion and every other element of
strength and stability were consider-
ably less. She was thus denied a
voice in the election for President in

And thus, on the very threshold of our great struggle-no serious effort having been made by the slaveholders to colonize or conquer Nebraska-—the arduous contest opened by Mr. Dixon's proposition to repeal the Missouri Restriction, was closed by the admission of Free Kansas as the thirtyfourth State of our Federal Union.

XVIII.

THE DRED SCOTT CASE.

DRED SCOTT, a negro, was, previously to 1834, held as a slave in Missouri by Dr. Emerson, a surgeon in the U. S. Army. In that year, the doctor was transferred to the military post at Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, and took his slave with him. Here, Major Taliaferro (also of the army) had, in 1835, in his service a black known as Harriet, whom he likewise held as his slave. The major was transferred that year to Fort

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35 January 21, 1861.

sent soon after his arrival at the Fort. Two children were born to them; Eliza, in 1838, on board the steamboat Gipsy, on their way down the Mississippi, but still north of the Missouri line; Lizzie, seven years later, at Jefferson Barracks, in the State of Missouri. The doctor, with Dred, Harriet, and Eliza, returned thence to St. Louis, and he there continued to hold them as his slaves, until he sold them, several years later, to John F. A. Sanford, of the State and City of New York. Finally, Dred brought suit for his freedom, on the above state of facts, in the State Circuit Court of St. Louis County, Missouri, and obtained a verdict and judgment in his favor. But this was reversed by a judgment | on a writ of error to the Supreme Court of that State, from which an appeal was taken to the courts of the United States, and the case came to trial in May, 1854. Having been fully heard by the Supreme Court at Washington, that court was about to decide it at its term of 1855-6; but the controlling majority of its Judges concluded, in view of the pending Presidential election, and the strong excitement which the Nebraska bill and the Kansas outrages had aroused throughout the Free States, to defer rendering judgment until its next session. It is quite probable that its action in the premises, if made public at the time originally intended, would have reversed the issue of that Presidential election. The eminent Chief Justice John Marshall, who had so long presided over that tribunal, and whose opinions had won for it a weight and influence rarely accorded to any court, died in 1835

at the ripe age of eighty. None of the Judges appointed by any predecessor of Gen. Jackson survived. Of the nine who now composed that august tribunal, eight had been selected from the ranks of the Democratic party, and most of them for other considerations than those of eminent legal ability or acquirements. John McLean, of Ohio, was placed on the bench, in 1829, by Gen. Jackson, in order to make room for a PostmasterGeneral who would remove from office the postmasters who had supported Mr. Adams and appoint Jacksonians to their places; which McLean-having been continued in office by Mr. Adams, though himself for Jackson

could not decently do. Roger B. Taney, of Maryland, was likewise appointed by Jackson in 1836, as a reward for his services in accepting the post of Secretary of the Treasury and removing the Federal deposits from the United States Bank, upon the dismissal of William J. Duane, of Pennsylvania, for refusing to make such removal. Mr. Taney, born in 1777, was an ultra Federalist previously to his becoming a Jacksonian, but always a devotee of prerogative and power. Of his associates, beside Judge McLean, only Samuel Nelson, of New York, and Benjamin R. Curtis, of Massachusetts, were ever presumed qualified, either by nature or attainments, for judicial eminence.

The decision and opinions of this Court, in the case of Dred Scott, had not been made public when Mr. Buchanan was inaugurated;1 but that gentleman had undoubtedly been favored with a private intimation of their scope and bearing:

1 March 4th, 1857.

BUCHANAN AND TANEY ON DRED SCOTT.

253

hence the following prelusive suggestions of his Inaugural Address:

"We have recently passed through a Presidential contest, in which the passions

of our fellow-citizens were excited to the highest degree by questions of deep and vital importance; but, when the people proclaimed their will, the tempest at once subsided, and all was calm.

"The voice of the majority, speaking in the manner prescribed by the Constitution, was heard; and instant submission followed. Our own country could alone have exhibited so grand and striking a spectacle of the capacity of man for self-government. "What a happy conception, then, was it for Congress to apply this simple rule that the will of the majority shall govern-to the settlement of the question of domestic Slavery in the territories! Congress is neither to legislate Slavery into any territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.' As a natural consequence, Congress has already prescribed that, when the Territory of Kansas shall be admitted as a State, it shall be received into the Union with or without Slavery, as their Constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission.'

“A difference of opinion has arisen in regard to the point of time when the people of a territory shall decide this question for themselves.

"This is, happily, a matter of but little practical importance. Besides, it is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs to the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is now pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally settled. To their decision, in common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit."

Not many days thereafter, the decision and opinions thus heralded, and commended as a new and admirable exemplification of "Popular Sovereignty," and the "happy conception" embodied in the KansasNebraska bill, were revealed, with due trumpeting and laudation, to an expectant world.

Chief Justice Taney, in pronouncing the decision of the Court, which nullified the Missouri Restriction, or any restric

tion by Congress on the boundless diffusion of Slavery throughout the territories of the Union, commenced by denying to Dred Scott, or to any person "whose ancestors were imported to this country and sold as slaves," any right to sue in a court of the United States. He said:

"The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."

The Chief Justice proceeds to affirm, not only that no persons who had been, or whose ancestors had been, slaves, were regarded as citizens previously to, or at the time of, adopting the Federal Constitution, but that no State has, or can have, any right to confer citizenship on such persons. Bearing in mind the citations from our revolutionary and post-revolutionary history, embodied in the earlier chapters of this work,2 the reader will be puzzled to decide whether Law, Humanity, or History, is most flagrantly defied in that portion of Chief Justice Taney's opinion which follows:

"In the opinion of the Court, the legislation and history of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become

2 See pages 51-2, 107-8, etc., etc.

free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.

"It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it, in a manner too plain to be mistaken.

"They had, for more than a century before, been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to Slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchan- | dise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals, as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men of every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.

"And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people. They not only seized them on the coast of Africa, and sold them or held them in Slavery for their own use, but they took them as ordinary articles of merchandise to every country where they could make a profit on them, and were far more engaged in this commerce than any other nation in the world.

"The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic. And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such, in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of Independence, and afterward formed the Constitution of the United States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies, as slave labor was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the time."

3 See, in refutation of this, the views of Henry Laurens, Dr. Hopkins, La Fayette, Washington,

The immortal language of the preämble to the Declaration of Independence, wherein "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," are proclaimed the self-evident, inalienable rights of all men, might well stagger the most brazen and subtle attorney, but not a case-hardened Chief Justice. He tosses them aside in this fashion:

"The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family; and, if they were used in a similar instrument at this day, would be so understood. But it is too clear to dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this Declaration; for, if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted; and, instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.

"Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men-high in literary acquirements-high in their sense of honor— and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not, in any part of the civilized world, be supposed to embrace the negro race; which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to Slavery. They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, and no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separated from the white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.

"This state of public opinion had undergone no change when the Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and language."

3

Mr. Taney here deliberately asserts that "the unhappy black race"

Jefferson, etc., as quoted in the earlier chapters of this work.

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TANEY ON THE SLAVE-TRADE.

و,

were "never thought of or spoken of except as property," before and when the Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and language." Had he been asked to say, then, what the Constitution can mean by declaring (Art. I. § 2) that "representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included in this Union, according to their respective numbers; which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons," he might have hesitated for an answer, but never blushed; since, very soon after this, he proceeds to argue that, when this same article of the Constitution (§ 9) declares that Congress shall not, prior to the year 1808, prohibit "the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit," but a tax or duty may be imposed" on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person," he coolly says, the importation which it thus sanctions, "was unquestionably of all persons of the race of which we are now speaking."

The Chief Justice proceeds to defy history and common sense by asserting that, in the days of the fathers, even emancipated blacks "were identified in the public mind with the race to which they belonged, and regarde as a part of the slave population rather than the free." He is so kind as to tell the people of the Free States that the efforts of Wesley, and Edwards, and Hopkins, and Franklin, and Jay, and all the other eminent divines, patriots, and statesmen, who

255

appealed to their consciences and their hearts against Slavery as unjust and cruel, had no existence, or, at least, no effect that Slavery was abolished by our fathers, not at all because it was felt to be wrong, but because it was found to be unprofitable in this particular locality. On this point, he says:

"It is very true that, in that portion of the Union where the labor of the negro race was found to be unsuited to the climate and un

But

profitable to the master, but few slaves were held at the time of the Declaration of Independence; and, when the Constitution was adopted, it had entirely worn out in one of them, and measures had been taken for its gradual abolition in several others. this change had not been produced by any change of opinion in relation to this race; but because it was discovered, from expericlimate and productions of these States: ence, that slave labor was unsuited to the for some of these States where it had ceased, or nearly ceased, to exist, were acing cargoes on the coast of Africa, and transtively engaged in the Slave-Trade; procurporting them for sale to those parts of the Union where their labor was found to be

profitable, and suited to the climate and productions. And this traffic was openly carried on, and fortunes accumulated by it, States where they resided. without reproach from the people of the And it can hardly be supposed that, in the States where it was then countenanced in its worst form that is, in the seizure and transportation - the people could have regarded those who were emancipated as entitled to equal rights with themselves."

How utterly mistaken this is, the recollection of thousands will establish.

The very few persons at the North who were openly engaged in this slave-trading, fifty or eighty years ago, though shrewd, wealthy, and powerful, were never held in good repute; and the stain of their nefarious traffic still sullies their innocent descendants. Bad as our great marts may be, and blinded by the lust of gain as our trading classes may seem, there never was an hour when it was desirable to be known

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