Page 29 - Civil War Curriculum Book

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 a 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 neither permits
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 where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United
States, the law of the State is supreme over the subject 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.

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States. Welcome, or
unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the
present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the
people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality
instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power of
that dynasty, is the work now before all those who would prevent that consummation. That is what
we have to do. How can we best do it?

There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet whisper us softly, that Senator
Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all,
from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty; and