The decision and arguments of the Supreme Court upon the Dred Scott
case were published on March 6, 1857, two days after the inauguration
of President Buchanan. The decision had been agreed upon many months
before, and the appeal of the negro, Dred Scott, had been decided
by rulings which in no way involved the validity of the Missouri
Compromise. Nevertheless, a majority of the judges determined to give
to the newly developed theory of John C. Calhoun the appearance of the
sanctity of law. According to Chief Justice Taney's dictum, those
who made the Constitution gave to those clauses defining the power
of Congress over the Territories an erroneous meaning. On numerous
occasions Congress had by statute excluded slavery from the public
domain. This, in the judgment of the Chief Justice, they had no right to
do, and such legislation was unconstitutional and void. Specifically the
Missouri Compromise had never had any binding force as law. Property in
slaves was as sacred as property in any other form, and slave-owners
had equal claim with other property owners to protection in all the
Territories of the United States. Neither Congress nor a territorial
Legislature could infringe such equal rights.
According to popular understanding, the Supreme Court declared "that the
negro has no rights which the white man is bound to respect." But Chief
Justice Taney did not use these words merely as an expression of his own
or of the Court's opinion. He used them in a way much more contemptible
and inexcusable to the minds of men of strong anti-slavery convictions.
He put them into the mouths of the fathers of the Republic, who wrote
the Declaration of Independence, framed the Constitution, organized
state Governments, and gave to negroes full rights of citizenship,
including the right to vote. But how explain this strange inconsistency?
The Chief Justice was equal to the occasion. He insisted that in recent
years there had come about a better understanding of the phraseology of
the Declaration of Independence. The words, "All men are created equal,"
he admitted, "would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if
they were used in a similar instrument at this day they would be so
understood." But the writers of that instrument had not, he said,
intended to include men of the African race, who were at that time
regarded as not forming any part of the people. Therefore--strange
logic!--these men of the revolutionary era who treated negroes actually
as citizens having full equal rights did not understand the meaning of
their own words, which could be comprehended only after three-quarters
of a century when, forsooth, equal rights had been denied to all persons
of African descent.
The ruling of the Court in the Dred Scott case came at a time when
Northern people had a better idea of the spirit and teachings of
the founders of the Republic regarding the slavery question than any
generation before or since has had. The campaign that had just closed
had been characterized by a high order of discussion, and it was also
emphatically a reading campaign. The new Republican party planted itself
squarely on the principles enunciated by Thomas Jefferson, the reputed
founder of the old Republican party. They went back to the policy of the
fathers, whose words on the subject of slavery they eagerly read. From
this source also came the chief material for their public addresses.
To the common man who was thus indoctrinated, the Chief Justice, in
describing the sentiments of the fathers respecting slavery, appeared to
be doing what Horace Greeley was wont to describe as "saying a thing and
being conscious while saying it that the thing is not true."
The Dred Scott decision laid the Republicans open to the charge of
seeking by unlawful means to deprive slaveowners of their rights, and it
was to the partizan interest of the Democrats to stand by the Court and
thus discredit their opponents. This action tended to carry the entire
Democratic party to the support of Calhoun's extreme position on the
slavery question. Republicans had proclaimed that liberty was national
and slavery municipal; that slavery had no warrant for existence except
by state enactment; that under the Constitution Congress had no more
right to make a slave than it had to make a king; that Congress had no
power to establish or permit slavery in the Territories; that it was, on
the contrary, the duty of Congress to exclude slavery. On these points
the Supreme Court and the Republican party held directly contradictory
opinions.
The Democratic platform of 1856 endorsed the doctrine of popular
sovereignty as embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska legislation, which
implied that Congress should neither prohibit nor introduce slavery into
the Territories, but should leave the inhabitants free to decide that
question for themselves, the public domains being open to slaveowners
on equal terms with others. But once they had an organized territorial
Government and a duly elected territorial Legislature, the residents of
a Territory were empowered to choose either slave labor or exclusively
free labor. This at least was the view expounded by Stephen A. Douglas,
though the theory was apparently rendered untenable by the ruling of the
Court which extended protection to slave-owners in all the Territories
remaining under the control of the general Government. It followed that
if Congress had no power to interfere with that right, much less had a
local territorial Government, which is itself a creature of Congress.
A state Government alone might control the status of slave property. A
Territory when adopting a constitution preparatory to becoming a State
would find it then in order to decide whether the proposed State should
be free or slave. This was the view held by Jefferson Davis and the
extreme pro-slavery leaders. Aided by the authority of the Supreme
Court, they were prepared to insist upon a new plank in future
Democratic platforms which should guarantee to all slave-owners equal
rights in all Territories until they ceased to be Territories. Over this
issue the party again divided in 1860.
Republicans naturally imagined that there had been collusion between
Democratic politicians and members of the Supreme Court. Mr. Seward
made an explicit statement to that effect, and affirmed that President
Buchanan was admitted into the secret, alleging as proof a few words in
his inaugural address referring to the decision soon to be delivered.
Nothing of the sort, however, was ever proven. The historian Von Holst
presents the view that there had been a most elaborate and comprehensive
program on the part of the slavocracy to control the judiciary of the
federal Government. The actual facts, however, admit of a simpler and
more satisfactory explanation.
Judges are affected by their environment, as are other men. The
transition from the view that slavery was an evil to the view that it
is right and just did not come in ways open to general observation, and
probably few individuals were conscious of having altered their views.
Leading churches throughout the South began to preach the doctrine
that slavery is a divinely ordained institution, and by the time of the
decision in the Dred Scott case a whole generation had grown up under
such teaching.
A large proportion of Southern leaders had become thoroughly convinced
of the righteousness of their peculiar system. Not otherwise could they
have been so successful in persuading others to accept their views.
Even before the Dred Scott decision had crystallized opinion, Franklin
Pierce, although a New Hampshire Democrat of anti-slavery traditions,
came, as a result of his intimate personal and political association
with Southern leaders, to accept their guidance and strove to give
effect to their policies. President Buchanan was a man of similar
antecedents, and, contrary to the expectation of his Northern
supporters, did precisely as Pierce had done. It is a matter of record
that the arguments of the Chief Justice had captivated his mind before
he began to show his changed attitude towards Kansas. In August,
1857, the President wrote that, at the time of the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, slavery already existed and that it still existed
in Kansas under the Constitution of the United States. "This point,"
said he, "has at last been settled by the highest tribunal known in
our laws. How it could ever have been seriously doubted is a mystery."
Granted that slavery is recognized as a permanent institution in
itself--just and of divine ordinance and especially united to one
section of the country--how could any one question the equal rights of
the people of that section to occupy with their slaves lands acquired
by common sacrifice? Such was undoubtedly the view of both Pierce and
Buchanan. It seemed to them "wicked" that Northern abolitionists should
seek to infringe this sacred right.
By a similar process a majority of the Supreme Court justices had become
converts to Calhoun's newly announced theory of 1847. It undoubtedly
seemed strange to them, as it did later to President Buchanan, that any
one should ever have held a different view. If the Court with the force
of its prestige should give legal sanction to the new doctrine, it
would allay popular agitation, ensure the preservation of the Union, and
secure to each section its legitimate rights. Such apparently was the
expectation of the majority of the Court in rendering the decision.
But the decision was not unanimous. Each judge presented an individual
opinion. Five supported the Chief Justice on the main points as to the
status of the African race and the validity of the Missouri Compromise.
Judge Nelson registered a protest against the entrance of the Court
into the political arena. Curtis and McLean wrote elaborate dissenting
opinions. Not only did the decision have no tendency to allay party
debate, but it added greatly to the acrimony of the discussion.
Republicans accepted the dissenting opinions of Curtis and McLean as a
complete refutation of the arguments of the Chief Justice; and the
Court itself, through division among its members, became a partizan
institution. The arguments of the justices thus present a complete
summary of the views of the proslavery and anti-slavery parties, and the
opposing opinions stand as permanent evidence of the impossibility of
reconciling slavery and freedom in the same government.
It was through the masterful leadership of Stephen A. Douglas that the
Lecompton Constitution was defeated. In 1858 an election was to be held
in Illinois to determine whether or not Douglas should be reelected
to the United States Senate. The Buchanan Administration was using its
utmost influence to insure Douglas's defeat. Many eastern Republicans
believed that in this emergency Illinois Republicans should support
Douglas, or at least that they should do nothing to diminish his chances
for reelection; but Illinois Republicans decided otherwise and nominated
Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the senatorship. Then followed
the memorable Lincoln-Douglas debates.
This is not the place for any extended account of the famous duel
between the rival leaders, but a few facts must be stated. Lincoln
had slowly come to the perception that a large portion of the people
abhorred slavery, and that the weak point in the armor of Douglas was to
be found in the fact that he did not recognize this growing moral sense.
Douglas had never been a defender of slavery on ethical grounds, nor
had he expressed any distinct aversion to the system. In support of his
policy of popular sovereignty his favorite dictum had been, "I do not
care whether slavery is voted up or voted down."
This apparent moral obtuseness furnished to Lincoln his great
opportunity, for his opponent was apparently without a conscience in
respect to the great question of the day. Lincoln, on the contrary, had
reached the conclusion not only that slavery was wrong, but that the
relation between slavery and freedom was such that they could not be
harmonized within the same government. In the debates he again put forth
his famous utterance, "A house divided against itself cannot stand,"
with the explanation that in course of time either this country would
become all slave territory or slavery would be restricted and placed
in a position which would involve its final extinction. In other
words, Lincoln's position was similar to that of the conservative
abolitionists. As we know, Birney had given expression to a similar
conviction of the impossibility of maintaining both liberty and slavery
in this country, but Lincoln spoke at a time when the whole country
had been aroused upon the great question; when it was still uncertain
whether slavery would not be forced upon the people of Kansas; when the
highest court in the land had rendered a decision which was apparently
intended to legalize slavery in all Territories; and when the alarming
question had been raised whether the next step would not be legalization
in all the States.
Lincoln was a long-headed politician, as well as a man of sincere moral
judgments. He was defining issues for the campaign of 1860 and was
putting Douglas on record so that it would be impossible for him, as
the candidate of his party, to become President. Douglas had many an
uncomfortable hour as Lincoln exposed his vain efforts to reconcile his
popular sovereignty doctrine with the Dred Scott decision. As Lincoln
expected, Douglas won the senatorship, but he lost the greater prize.
The crusade against slavery was nearing its final stage. Under the
leadership of such men as Sumner, Seward, and Lincoln, a political party
was being formed whose policies were based upon the assumption that
slavery is both a moral and a political evil. Even at this stage the
party had assumed such proportions that it was likely to carry the
ensuing presidential election. Davis and Yancey, the chief defenders of
slavery, were at the same time reaching a definite conclusion as to
what should follow the election of a Republican President. And that
conclusion involved nothing less than the fate of the Union.