Democratic Paper Endorses the Scott Decision, 1857

From Washington Union, March 12, 1857.

THE DRED SCOTT CASE.

On the 6th instant the Chief Justice of the United States delivered an elaborate opinion of the Supreme Court declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. We have not yet had the satisfaction of perusing a full and an authenticated report of that opinion, and therefore can only refer to it in general terms. That it will constitute a prominent era in our judicial history all will admit. It will receive universal attention in the country, from the fact that almost every reading man, to whatever party he may belong, has read the discussion of the history and revalidity of the Missouri Compromise, and is qualified to understand the reasoning of the court.

We cherish a most ardent and confident expectation that this decision will meet a proper reception from the great mass of our intelligent countrymen; that it will be regarded with soberness and not with passion; and that it will thereby exert a mighty influence in diffusing sound opinions and restoring harmony and fraternal concord throughout the country. It comes at an auspicious period. Had it been pronounced--which could hardly have been possible--during the excitement of a presidential canvass, its useful effect, for the present at least, would have been lost. Though no less just and constitutional than it is, it would have been temporarily overwhelmed in the forges of party clamor. Now, however, the excitement and strife of the late canvass are happily abated. The sober second thought has returned to the people; and they are well prepared to receive the judgment of the highest tribunal in the land, even if it, in many instances, differs from their own favorite political opinions.

The court which has settled the vexed constitutional question as to the power of Congress over Territories is entirely independent of the legislative branch of the government. It is elevated above the schemes of party politics, and shielded alike from the effects of sudden passion and of popular prejudice. Little motive, therefore, can the venerable jurists who compose that tribunal have for a deviation from the true principles of law.

It would be fortunate, indeed, if the opinion of that court on this important subject could receive the candid and respectful acquiescence which it merits. Such an exhibition of the moral conservation of the people would well correspond with that sublime example of the fitness of the people for self-government lately witnessed in the laying down and taking up of high executive trusts in the midst of orderly enthusiasm. But we expect this decision will for a while be questioned, and even ridiculed by the anti-slavery press. The judges who concurred in it will be abused. "We have a race of agitators all over the country," said Daniel Webster in his speech at Buffalo in 1851; "their livelihood consists in agitating; their freehold, their copyhold, their capital, their all in all, depend on the excitement of the public mind." To this class, which still exists, this decision will be a fresh topic of sectional agitation.

In 1842 the Supreme Court decided, in the case of Prigg ,i>vs. Pennsylvania, that Congress had the constitutional power to legislate for the return of fugitive slaves. The opinion of the court was on that occasion delivered by Mr. Justice Story, one of the ablest jurists of the country. Learned tribunals in various States have concurred in that decision. The unimpassioned judgment of the people approves of it. Nevertheless, when local prejudice were to be inflamed, or party purposes were to be served, that decision has been attacked by the press and by itinerant lecturers as if it was nothing more than the harangue of a stump orator. From similar sources we may apprehend that this decision will meet with similar treatment.

We refer to the judgment of the court in this case in no spirit of triumph. We would not subject it to the mere uses of party. Many men supported the Nebraska-Kansas act who believed Congress had the right to exclude slavery from the Territories, but who deemed it expedient to have the right exercised. They wished to keep the subject out of Congress. They thought as Mr. Webster did when he favored the organization of New Mexico without the application of the Wilmot proviso. These men may be unprepared for this decision. We know that in the non-slaveholding States there are many who sincerely deprecated the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. There are many who have been brought up in the faith of the Wilmot proviso. They, perhaps, have not examined both sides of the question, and will feel a regret at this decision as deep as the pleasure of our southern friends is ardent. We would appeal to such men in a spirit of candor and patriotism; and, without censoring them for sentiments which they have long honestly cherished, only invite them to review their opinions, and to conform their action to the adjudication of the highest judicial tribunal in the land.

Never perhaps, in the history of the country, has there existed so much bitterness between the North, and the South as within the past year. And it is remarkable that this bitterness has resulted not from measures so much as from transient excuses. The troubles in Kansas and some other accidental acts contributed to this state of things. But the chief cause of alienation was the unbridled license of a portion of the press and the intemperate language employed by many of our public speakers. It has been common for some of the ablest journals of the North to misrepresent and vilify the institutions and the people of the South. And these attacks have been reciprocated by some of the radical papers of the South. Orators have resorted to the same practice. Under such circumstances, what else but bitterness and alienation could follow? What else but distrust be excited? No State or community is perfect. The North and the South have different institutions. Each State is alone responsible for its institutions, and it is morally and constitutionally wrong for the people of one State to assail the institutions of another State. Nor is it at all remarkable to expect that people who have been differently advocated by social habits, by tradition, by parental precept, will think entirely alike. There must be toleration, and there must be forbearance. It is gratifying to see that a better feeling is beginning to exist between both sections of the country; and we invoke the temperate and intelligent public opinion of the country, so potent for wise purposes, to withhold every vestige of support from that claim whose livelihood is to create sectional animosity. In this way their shafts will be full impotent in the dust, and the wounds they have before made will become healed.