Secession Era Editorials Project

The Decision of the Supreme Court.

Raleigh, North Carolina, Standard [Democratic]

(18 March 1857)

We publish to-day, at length, the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, delivered by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case.

The black Republicans of the North, and their allies in the South, may lament again and again the passage of the Nebraska-Kansas act, and the repeal of the Missouri restriction; but the whole question has been settled by the highest judicial tribunal in the country, and from this decision there can be no appeal.

Abolitionism has been stunned, faction and treason in both sections of the Union have been rebuked, and the Constitution has been restored. This decision concedes to the Southern people all they have ever asked -- the Constitution. If true to themselves, they will never take any thing less.

In our next we will publish the dissenting opinions of Judges McLean and Curtis, so that our readers may see for themselves the grounds occupied on both sides.

This decision of the Supreme Court will be often referred to in discussion hereafter, and is of the first importance to the South; and we therefore suggest to our readers that they preserve the copy of the paper containing it.