Page 27 - Civil War Curriculum Book

While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a law case involving the question of a negro's
freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free State and then into a
Territory covered by the Congressional prohibition, and held him as a slave for a long time in each,
was passing through the U. S. Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska bill and
law suit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The negro's name was "Dred
Scott," which name now designates the decision finally made in the case. Before the then next
Presidential election, the law case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme Court of the United
States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election, Senator
Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his
opinion whether the people of a Territory can constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and
the latter answers: "That is a question for the Supreme Court."

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was
the second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly
four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The
outgoing President, in his last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the
people the weight and authority of the endorsement. The Supreme Court met again; did not announce
their decision, but ordered a re-argument. The Presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of
the court; but the incoming President in his inaugural address, fervently exhorted the people to abide
by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision.

The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capital
indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new
President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that
decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained!

At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the
mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made
by the people of Kansas; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the
people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his
declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other
than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the public mind -- the principle for
which he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling
to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the only
shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision "squatter sovereignty"
squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding -- like the mould at the foundry
served through one blast and fell back into loose sand -- helped to carry an election, and then was
kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitution,
involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point -- the right of a
people to make their own constitution -- upon which he and the Republicans have never differed.

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: