The Conspiracy against Freedom.Albany, New York, Evening Journal [Republican](11 March 1857)
The Oligarchy who breed men and women for
the market and make unceasing war on free
labor, laid broad the foundations of their
conspiracy against Liberty, in the convention which
nominated Buchanan for the Presidency. They
planned to inaugurate on the 4th of March,
1857, a Federal combination of influences in
behalf of Slavery, that should include the
Executive power, the Legislative power and the
Judicial power of the Republic. Through the
patronage of the President they calculated upon
corrupting and enlisting an army of ambitious
and energetic spirits in the Free States. Though
the 35th Congress they counted surely on
legislation that should expand Slavery and contract
Freedom. Through the Supreme Court of the
United States they reckoned, with audacious
cunning, on a conquest of all the subordinate
courts of Law in the law-abiding North -- on a
conquest of the vast body of Northern lawyers
trained by their profession to yield obedience
and respect to the final decisions of the judiciary,
and educated all of them into a veneration
of that high court over which Marshall presided
and in which Story was a justice -- counted on a
conquest of the great body of the Northern people,
through their habit of submission to law
and to public authority. To this end the appeal
of the case of Dred Scott had been prepared.
Its decision was certain and ready long and long
ago. But its influence was wanted for the
inauguration of the new pro-slavery administration
of James Buchanan. So the formal delay of a
re-argument was gone through with. The case
was ready again for decision and publicity. But
a Republican House of Representatives was in
session. The horrible wrong inflicted through
the person of Dred Scott upon half a million of
free colored citizens, and the great crime against
Freedom and Humanity enveloped in the denial
of this black man's petition for his unquestionable
rights, would inevitably have fired them to
indignation and protest. Their denunciation of
the Supreme Court was to be avoided by all
means, and their hostility to the legislation
necessary to the South and to the incoming
Administration, was especially to be avoided. So
the decision was withheld till Congress adjourned.
Then it came.
The army of "Democratic" applicants for office
came with it, and of course came under it
as a yoke, as was anticipated. The army of the
present "Democratic" incumbents of office,
hopeful of reappointment, accept the decision as
the highest expression of law and equity. Editorial
slaves din into the shocked ear of the public
their lying sophistries to persuade that a decision
which nationalizes Human Bondage, and
disfranchises citizens of African descent, is a
sacred one. But in vain is it all. The People
stand angry and implacable in front of this giant
judicial iniquity. No shaking of old ermines,
nor fluttering of moth-eaten silk gowns, nor
invocation of the shades of Marshall, Jay,
Ellsworth and Story -- no extent of snivel and
cant about the purity of the Federal Judiciary, and
the obligation to put up with false law and falser
equity, will avail at all to persuade the people of
the Free States that Slavery has unrestricted
rights in the Public Domain, and neither Freedom
nor Congress has any opposing rights
therein -- that people of African descent can no
be citizens of the United States -- and that men
and women can lawfully be held in slavery on
Free Soil. No, the People will from the hour of
this Dred decision, unintermittingly roll back
this mixed Conspiracy, till through a recovered
and reorganized Federal Judiciary and a republicanized
Executive, they can administer justice
and good government in the whole nation.
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