“Let him come forward and take the oath.”
The oath was then administered by Mr. Middleton, Clerk of the
Court. At the same time, on motion of Mr. Sumner, Francis
V. Balch, Esq., of Boston, his private secretary, was also
admitted.
* * * * *
This incident, marking a stage in the battle for Equal Rights,
was extensively noticed at home and abroad. It occurred on the
day after the final passage in the House of Representatives
of the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery, and the
correspondent of the _Boston Journal_ remarked the association
of the two events.
“The Slave Power, which received its constitutional
death-blow yesterday in Congress, writhes this morning on
account of the admission of a colored lawyer, John S. Rock,
of Boston, as a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of
the United States.… The rage depicted in the countenances
of some of the old Hunkers present at this invasion of
their citadel beggars description.”
The correspondent of the _New York Tribune_ announced the event
as “The Dred Scott Decision buried in the Supreme Court,” and
then broke forth enthusiastically:--
“O augustly simple funeral _cortège_! O dead, wrapped in
the cerements that the divine hand of Revolution folds
its victims with, augustly exciting in your stormy birth,
transcendently mischievous in your little life!--Senator
Charles Sumner and Negro Lawyer John S. Rock the
pall-bearers,--the room of the Supreme Court of the United
States the Potter’s Field,--the corpse the Dred Scott
decision!
“Through the door that was too narrow to freely let out
the bearers that bore Charles Sumner’s inanimate form from
the Senate Chamber, where he had been stricken down by
the assassins of the Slave Power, Charles Sumner to-day
marched back, leading a negro by the hand, and, standing
upon the very spot that had been stained with his blood for
demanding freedom and equality for the blacks in America,
demanded of the Supreme Court of the United States to
enroll among its members an African lawyer, and to license
him to practise at its bar. The black man was admitted.”
Then mentioning the motion of Mr. Sumner, the same
correspondent says:--
“The grave to bury the Dred Scott decision was in that
one sentence dug, and it yawned there, wide open, under
the very eyes of some of the judges who had participated
in the juridical crime against Democracy and Humanity.
The assenting nod of the great head of the Chief Justice
tumbled in the corse and filled up the pit, and the black
counsellor of the Supreme Court got on to it and stamped it
down, and smoothed the earth for his walk to the rolls of
the Court.
“… A few lawyers of the old _régime_ looked on, stunned
somewhat, but rapidly growing in wisdom, and mixing
deference to destiny with their instinctive reluctance to
this revolutionary intrusion.”
Mr. Cobden, writing from England, also associated this event
with the Constitutional Amendment. In a letter shortly before
his much lamented death, he said:--
“I feel it a pleasant duty to give you my best
congratulations on the recent proceedings within and
without your Halls of Congress. The vote on the Amendment
of the Constitution was a memorable and glorious event in
your history. Another incident--that of your introduction
of a colored man to the Supreme Court--was hardly less
interesting. In all these proceedings at Washington _you_
ought to be allowed to indulge the feelings of a triumphant
general. You served as a volunteer in the forlorn hope,
when the battle of Emancipation seemed a hopeless struggle.
_Your_ position within the Halls of Congress was very
different from that of the agitators out of doors,
meritorious as were their labors. I have served in both
capacities, and know the difference between addressing an
audience of partisans at a public meeting and a hostile
parliamentary assembly.… I heartily congratulate you.”
Doubtless the admission of a colored lawyer to the Supreme
Court helped prepare the way for admission of his race to the
rights of citizenship, and especially the right to vote.
PARTICIPATION OF REBEL STATES NOT NECESSARY IN RATIFICATION OF
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS.