In a speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 26th, 1857, Lincoln referred
to the decision of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, of the United States
Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, in this manner:
“The Chief justice does not directly assert, but plainly assumes as a
fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favorable now
than it was in the days of the Revolution.
“In those days, by common consent, the spread of the black man’s bondage
in the new countries was prohibited; but now Congress decides that it
will not continue the prohibition, and the Supreme Court decides that it
could not if it would.
“In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all,
and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of
the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed and sneered at, and
constructed and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise
from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.
“All the powers of earth seem combining against the slave; Mammon is
after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows, and the theology of the
day is fast joining the cry.”