has risen in its might and declared its purpose to subjugate that Territory, and plant slavery there in defiance of the North. . . . It has armed its myrmidons, marshalled and sent them forth to execute its purposes. . . . The appeal is now made to arms. By the sword, they declare, shall Kansas be gained to slavery. . . . The first step taken has been to put beneath their heel the real residents and occupants of the soil. The next is to depose the Governor, and pronounce another in his place. A third is to declare war against all who dare oppose their plans. . . . On the other [side] stands a little band of the sons of freedom, just now borne down by numbers, but resolute in purpose, and ready to do their part in repelling the barbarian invaders. The question is whether they are to be seconded by the people of the North. Is there a genuine spirit of freedom in the country, ready to do something against the atrocious strides of the slave power to continental dominion? Are there those who are willing to migrate to Kansas to aid in maintaining the freedom of Kansas at the cost of such perils as may arise? Do the northern people mean that Kansas shall be free? If they do, that is enough. The force that shall drive out hordes of land pirates who have made their descent upon Kansas will not be long in forming. Swayed and inspired by the sentiments of freedom, they will scatter its enemies like chaff. . . . If it be otherwise, their degradation is unspeakable, and they are fit only to live as the slaves of slaves. Dred Scott March 6, The famous case of Dred Scott, Plaintiff in Error vs. 86. The John F. A. Sandford fills two hundred and forty pages in gist of the the Reports of cases argued before the Supreme Court of decision, the United States. The possibility of reconciling the Court's 1857 elaborate decision with the doctrine of squatter sovereignty [396] was the general subject of the great series of debates between Lincoln and Douglas for the Illinois senatorship in the summer of 1858. A year later Lincoln referring to those debates in a speech at Columbus, Ohio, said: "What is that Dred Scott decision? Judge Douglas labors to show that it is one thing, while I think it is altogether different. It is a long opinion, but it is all embodied in this short statement: The Constitution of the United States forbids Congress to deprive a man of his property, without due process of law; the right of property in slaves is distinctly and expressly affirmed in that Constitution; therefore if Congress shall undertake to say that a man's slave is no longer his slave, when he crosses a certain line into a Territory, that is depriving him of his property without due process of law, and is unconstitutional. There is the whole Dred Scott decision."1 The text of the opinion of the Court on this question, as delivered by Chief Justice Taney, reads as follows: The words "people of the United States" [Preamble to the Constitution] and citizens are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our Republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. . . . The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea [negroes] compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think that 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 1 Political Debates between Lincoln and Douglas, Columbus, 1860, p. 251. as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them. . . . 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 merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. . . . The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the Colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic. And, according, 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 afterwards formed the Constitution of the United States. . . . The Territory being a part of the United States, the Government and the citizen both enter it under the authority of the Constitution, with their respective rights defined and marked out; and the Federal Government can exercise no power over his person or property beyond what that instrument confers, nor lawfully deny any right which it has reserved. . . . And if the Constitution recognizes the right of property of the master in a slave, and makes no distinction between that description of property and other property owned by a citizen, no tribunal, acting under the authority of the United States, whether it be legislative, executive, or judicial, has a right to draw such a distinction. . . . Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this opinion, . . . the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it, like an ordinary article of merchandise and property, was guarantied to the citizens of the United States, in every State that might desire it, for twenty years.1 And the Government in express terms is pledged to protect it in all future time, if the slave escapes from his owner.2 This is done in plain words, too plain to be misunderstood. And no word can be found in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over slave property. . . than property of any other description. 8 4 Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the Court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the Territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned [36° 30′], is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this territory. Even if they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident. . . . But there is another point in the case which depends on State power and State law. And it contended, on the part of the plaintiff, that he is made free by being taken to Rock Island in the State of Illinois independently of his residence in the territory of the United States; and being so made free, he was not again reduced to a state of slavery by being brought back to Missouri. Our notice on this part of the case will be very brief: for the principle on which it depends was decided in this court, upon much consideration, in the case of Strader et al. v. Graham, reported in 10th Howard, 82. In that case, the slaves had been taken from Kentucky to Ohio, with the consent of the owner, and afterwards brought back to Kentucky. And this court held 1 Constitution, Art. I, Sect. IX, par. 1. 2 Constitution, Art. IV, Sect. II, par. 3. This is the first instance in our history of an act of Congress, not bearing on the judiciary itself, being declared null and void by the Supreme Court. The Constitution nowhere gives the Supreme Court this power. In this part of its decision the Court sanctioned the legislative repeal of the Missouri Compromise Act by the terms of the KansasNebraska Act of 1854. It denied Congress the power of legislating on slavery in any territory of the United States. that their status or condition, as free or slave, depended upon the laws of Kentucky when they were brought back into that State, and not of Ohio; and that this court had no jurisdiction to revise the judgment of a State court upon its own laws. . . . So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was held there as such and brought back in that character, his status, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois.1 . . . Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this Court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment upon it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed [that is, left to the Missouri state court] for want of jurisdiction. 1 This part of the decision completed the guaranty of the slaveholder by allowing him to travel where he would with his slave property without thereby impairing his property rights in it. The advance in Southern claims may be seen by comparing this decision with the words of Alexander H. Stephens nine years earlier (August 7, 1848): "If my slave escapes and gets into a free State, the Constitution secures me the right of pursuing and retaking him [Art. IV, Sect. II, par. 2]; but if I voluntarily take my Slave into a State where slavery by law is prohibited, I have no right to retake him; he becomes free. No man will question this."-Congressional Globe, 30th Congress, Ist session, Appendix, p. 1105. |