The Decision in the Case of Dred Scott.Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Gazette [Republican](7 March 1857)
We do not know how other persons may feel
in view of the recent dicta of the Supreme
Court in the case of Dred Scott, an abstract of
which was published in our telegraphic column
on Saturday morning, but it appears to us that
the almost diabolical spirit it evinces in going
out of the way to Freedom at the expense
of Slavery, ought to be sufficient to arouse to
indignation the coolest and most torpid of northern
men. The decision is a fitting crown to the
aborted tyranny which has just submerged with
Pierce; an iron clasp, well forged to link the
dead with the living administration. It comes
pat upon the recent inaugural, "rounds and caps
it to the tyrant's eye" and just fills up the cup
of inequity.
What matter is it that this decision upsets
those we have on record? New lights have
arisen with the progress of revolving years, and
Story and Marshall, Jefferson, Madison, and
Monroe hide their twinkling lights before the
full-orbed glory of Douglas, Pierce and Davis.
The Supreme Court has aimed a blow at State
Sovereignty which is baser and more iniquitous
than any thing we had before conceived of. The
State of Illinois for example, under this decision
in her legislative capacity, has no power to enact
such a law as can make a slave coming there
with the consent of his master a freeman! The
decision that the Court has no jurisdiction in
this case make all the other remarks from the
bench touching the ordinance of 1787, and the
compromise of 1820, mere obiter dicta, it is
true,
but the fact that the Court has gone out of its
way to say what it has, shows its animus, and
trumpets to the four corners of the earth the
eager alacrity with which it echoes the mouthings
of demagogues like Pierce and Douglas.
We may henceforth throw to the winds the
reasoning of Story and the decisions of Marshall,
so far as this court is concerned, and submit to
seeing the government surrendered, bound hand
and foot to the same power which has given
Kansas over to blood and desolation, elevated a
weak old man to the executive chair, given the
Treasury, the Post Office, the Army, the Navy
and the Department of the Interior to be its
willing servants and exhilarated and energized
by its success, pressed on to the Supreme Court,
made that the echo of its will and left no place
for hope to rest upon, but the virtue of the
masses of the people, to which we must henceforth
appeal. Let them come in their might
and at the ballot box root up the rotten fabric to
its foundations which four years of misrule has
served so much to weaken, and which the four
years to come will doubtless not improve or
strengthen.
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