Election of 192-213; Schouler's United States, V, 349-356. The Dred Scott case, 1857. Schouler's United States, V, 376; *Rhodes's United inridge of Kentucky for Vice-President: they elected their 314. The Dred Scott Decision, 1857. — Dred Scott, as a slave, had been taken by his master to the free state of Illinois and to that region west of the Mississippi where slavery had been "forever forbidden" by the Missouri Compromise. Returning with his master to Missouri, he sued for his liberty on the ground that residence in the free North had made him free. The case finally came before the Supreme States, II, Court of the United States. The technical question before 251; Johnston's that tribunal was whether the federal courts had jurisdiction Orations, III, in the matter. The court, Justices McLean and Curtis dis154-167; MacDonald's senting, decided that they had no jurisdiction. This decision Documents, was based on the ground that neither a slave nor the descendant of a slave could be a citizen of the United States within the meaning of the Constitution and hence enjoy the right to appear as a party to a suit in a federal court. The Chief Justice, Roger B. Taney, then proceeded to outstep the No. 91. 1857] The Dred Scott Decision 449 proper function of the court and to settle the question of slavery in the territories—which was not before it at all. He said that slaves were property within the meaning of the Constitution; that property was guaranteed protection by the Constitution; that Congress could not legislate against property, and that, therefore, the Missouri Compromise was null and void, inasmuch as it prohibited the carrying of property into a certain part of the Union. Into the legal aspects of the case it is not necessary to enter here. The people of the North understood the court to say that under no circumstances whatever could Congress effect a lawful compromise on the question of slavery in the territories; they generally refused to regard the opinion of the Supreme Court as expressing the true interpretation of the Constitution; it remained to be seen what attitude the Northern Democratic leaders would take. 1858. Schouler's United States, V, 410. "house divided speech, 1858. Rhodes's 315. Lincoln and Douglas, 1858. In 1858 Senator Lincoln and Douglas sought a re-election to the Senate of the United Douglas, States; Abraham Lincoln stepped forward to contest the seat, and the campaign which followed was one of the most important in the history of the United States. In his first address, Lincoln startled his hearers and dismayed his party leaders by the outspoken frankness of his language: "Agi- Lincoln's tation [against slavery] has not only not ceased but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to fall, but I expect it will cease Johnston's to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Orations, Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it. . . or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South." Lincoln and Douglas held a series of joint debates, in the course of which Lincoln compelled Douglas to defend the doctrine of "popular sovereignty," and to assert that a territorial legislature could enact laws United States, II, 314; III, 168-182. hostile to slavery and thus completely nullify the Dred Scott decision. The Democrats won the state election and the state legislature returned Douglas to the Senate; but the admissions that Lincoln had wrung from Douglas made III, 184-194. the latter's candidature for the presidency distasteful to the Douglas's "Freeport Doctrine." Johnston's Orations, Seward's "irrepres sible con 1858. Hutchinson, slaveholders, while Lincoln by his plain speaking had at one stroke won a foremost place in the Republican party. His "house divided" speech, which had dismayed his friends at the time, proved to have been one of the wisest actions of one of the wisest of men. In the same year Seward made a speech which probably had more influence in forming Northern opinion than any flict" speech, other speech made before the war. He said, in speaking of the struggle between slavery and freedom, "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 slaveholding nation or entirely a free-labor nation.” The slaveholders were determined that it should become the former. They demanded that the opinion of the judges in the Dred Scott decision should be respected and, going even farther, peremptorily required that Congress should pass laws for the protection of slaves as property in their territories. While matters were in this state of great tension, John Brown appeared at Harper's Ferry to attempt the freedom of slaves. ston's Orations, 195207. John raid, 1859. 437-441; United States, II, 383. 316. John Brown's Execution, 1859. Born in Connecticut, John Brown had emigrated to Kansas at the beginning of the conflict between the forces of freedom and slavery in that territory. Self-willed and quick to resent wrong, he had engaged in several affairs in Kansas which met with strong disapprobation on the part of those foremost in the struggle against the extension of slavery. He now formed a scheme to free the slaves in the South. He asserted that "twenty men in the Alleghanies could break slavery in pieces in two years" - precisely how is not clear. It is clear, however, that it was his intention to free the slaves, not to excite a slave insurrection - although it is difficult to understand how the 1859] John Brown's Execution 451 former could be accomplished without bringing on the latter; it is also clear that his project met with strong disapproval from many persons to whom he applied for money. On the 16th of October, 1859, he suddenly appeared at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, at the confluence of the Potomac and Shen andoah rivers, with nineteen followers. He seized the United States arsenal at that place, but allowed a train to pass on its way to Washington. He was captured with all but two of his followers, indicted, tried, convicted, and executed on a charge of treason and conspiracy with slaves and others to rebel and murder. It is interesting to note how differently Brown's raid and execution appeared to different Contemporary opinion. Helper's Impending Crisis. Rhodes's United States, II, 419; Stedman and VIII, 4II. persons. For example, Emerson wished that we might 317. Helper's Impending Crisis, 1857. One of these keen-sighted men was Hinton Rowan Helper, a "poor white" of North Carolina. In a book entitled The Impending Crisis of the South he attacked slavery in the interests of the non-slaveholding Southern whites. Abolition, he argued, would improve the material position of the South. Hutchinson, He drew an interesting picture of the rise of thriving manufacturing villages in that section, where the farmers would find a market for their produce; schools also would be established, and the poorer children educated as they were in the North. As it was, the case of the South was desperate, and nothing except abolition could save her. The book attracted little attention at first, but in 1859 it suddenly increased in circulation. Nothing, not even John Brown's raid, did more to arouse the fears of the slaveholding oligarchy. Seven out of every ten voters in the South were non-slaveholding whites. Had they been able to read and understand the arguments set forth in this book, slavery would have been doomed to destruction. When a Southern white could assume such a position, it behooved the leaders of the slave power to take immediate action. |