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Page 39
The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with
Senator Douglas's "care-not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery
in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained.
The working points of that machinery are: (1) That no negro slave,
imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever
be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in the
Constitution of the United States. This point is made in order to
deprive the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of that
provision of the United States Constitution, which declares that
"the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several States." (2) That, "subject to the
Constitution of the United States," neither Congress nor a Territorial
Legislature can exclude slavery from any United States Territory. This
point is made in order that individual men may fill up the Territories
with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus to
enhance the chances of permanency to the institution through all the
future. (3) That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free
State makes him free, as against the holder, the United States courts
will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave
State the negro may be forced into by the master. This point is made,
not to be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in for a while, and
apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the
logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with
Dred Scott, in the State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do
with any other one or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other
free State.
Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska
doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion,
at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted
down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now are, and partially,
also, whither we are tending.
It will throw additional light on the latter to go back, and run the
mind over the string of historical facts already stated. Several things
will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were
transpiring. The people were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only
to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders
could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche
for the Dred Scott decision to come in afterward, and declare the
perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was
the amendment expressly declaring the right of the people voted down?
Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for
the Dred Scott decision. Why was the court decision held up? Why even
a Senator's individual opinion withheld till after the Presidential
election? Plainly enough now: the speaking out then would have damaged
the "perfectly free" argument upon which the election was to be carried.
Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the
delay of a re-argument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation
in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious patting
and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it
is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after
indorsement of the decision by the President and others?
We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the
result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different
portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and
places, and by different workmen--Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James,
for instance,--and when we see these timbers joined together, and see
that they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons
and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the
different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not
a piece too many or too few--not omitting even scaffolding,--or, if a
single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted
and prepared yet to bring such piece in,--in such a case, we find it
impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James
all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a
common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.
It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, the people of a
State, as well as Territory, were to be left "perfectly free," "subject
only to the Constitution." Why mention a State? They were legislating
for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly, the people of
a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United
States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely Territorial
law? Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein
lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein
treated as being precisely the same? While the opinion of the court, by
Chief-Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions
of all the concurring judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of
the United States permits neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature
to exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to
declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the
people of a State, to exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission; but
who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the
opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a State to
exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to
get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a territory, into the
Nebraska bill--I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been
voted down in the one case as it had been in the other? The nearest
approach to the point of declaring the power of a State over slavery is
made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using the
precise idea, and almost the language, too, of the Nebraska act. On
one occasion, his exact language is: "Except in cases when the power
is restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of the
State is supreme over the subjects of slavery within its jurisdiction."
In what cases the power of the States is so restrained by the United
States Constitution is left an open question, precisely as the same
question, as to the restraint on the power of the Territories, was
left open in the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and we have
another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with
another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of
the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its
limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not
whether slavery be voted down or voted up," shall gain upon the public
mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained
when made.
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