Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

BUCHANAN AND TANEY ON DRED SCOTT.

hence the following prelusive suggestions of his Inaugural Address:

"We have recently passed through a Presidential contest, in which the passions

of our fellow-citizens were excited to the highest degree by questions of deep and vital importance; but, when the people proclaimed their will, the tempest at once subsided, and all was calm.

"The voice of the majority, speaking in the manner prescribed by the Constitution, was heard; and instant submission followed. Our own country could alone have exhibited so grand and striking a spectacle of the capacity of man for self-government. "What a happy conception, then, was it for Congress to apply this simple rule—that the will of the majority shall govern-to the settlement of the question of domestic Slavery in the territories! Congress is neither to legislate Slavery into any territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.' As a natural consequence, Congress has already prescribed that, when the Territory of Kansas shall be admitted as a State, it shall be received into the Union with or without Slavery, as their Constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission.'

[ocr errors]

"A difference of opinion has arisen in regard to the point of time when the people of a territory shall decide this question for

themselves.

"This is, happily, a matter of but little practical importance. Besides, it is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs to the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is now pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally settled. To their decision, in common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit."

Not many days thereafter, the decision and opinions thus heralded, and commended as a new and admirable exemplification of "Popular Sovereignty," and the "happy conception" embodied in the KansasNebraska bill, were revealed, with due trumpeting and laudation, to an expectant world. Chief Justice Taney, in pronouncing the decision of the Court, which nullified the Missouri Restriction, or any restric

253

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

"The question before us is, whether the abatement compose a portion of this peoclass of persons described in the plea in ple, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."

The Chief Justice proceeds to affirm, not only that no persons who had been, or whose ancestors had been, slaves, were regarded as citizens previously to, or at the time of, adopting the Federal Constitution, but that no State has, or can have, any right to confer citizenship on such persons. Bearing in mind the citations from our revolutionary and post-revolutionary history, embodied in the earlier chapters of this work,' the reader will be puzzled to decide whether Law, Humanity, or History, is most flagrantly defied in that portion of Chief Justice Taney's opinion which follows:

"In the opinion of the Court, the legislation and history of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become

2 See pages 51-2, 107-8, etc., etc.

free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.

"It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it, in a manner too plain to be mistaken.

"They had, for more than a century before, been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to Slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals, as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men of every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.

"And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people. They not only seized them on the coast of Africa, and sold them or held them in Slavery for their own use, but they took them as ordinary articles of merchandise to every country where they could make a profit on them, and were far more engaged in this commerce than any other nation in the world.

"The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic. And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such, in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of Independence, and afterward formed the Constitution of the United States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies, as slave labor was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the time."

3 See, in refutation of this, the views of Henry Laurens, Dr. Hopkins, La Fayette. Washington,

The immortal language of the preämble to the Declaration of Independence, wherein "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," are proclaimed the self-evident, inalienable rights of all men, might well stagger the most brazen and subtle attorney, but not a case-hardened Chief Justice. He tosses them aside in this

fashion:

"The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family; and, if they were used in a similar instrument at this day, would be so understood. But it is too clear to dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this Declaration; for, if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted; and, instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.

K

"Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men-high in literary ac-quirements-high in their sense of honorand incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not, in any part of the civilized world, be supposed to embrace the negro race; which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to Slavery. They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, and no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separated from the white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.

3

"This state of public opinion had undergone no change when the Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and language."

Mr. Taney here deliberately asserts that "the unhappy black race"

Jefferson, etc., as quoted in the earlier chapters of this work.

were

TANEY ON THE SLAVE-TRADE.

255

never thought of or spoken | appealed to their consciences and their hearts against Slavery as unjust and cruel, had no existence, or, at least, no effect-that Slavery was abolished by our fathers, not at all because it was felt to be wrong, but because it was found to be unprofitable in this particular locality. On this point, he says:

[ocr errors]

of except as property," before and when the Constitution was adopted, "as is equally evident from its provisions and language." Had he been asked to say, then, what the Constitution can mean by declaring (Art. I. § 2) that "representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included in this Union, according to their respective numbers; which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons, he might have hesitated for an answer, but never blushed; since, very soon after this, he proceeds to argue that, when this same article of the Constitution (§ 9) declares that Congress shall not, prior to the year 1808, prohibit “the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit," but a tax or duty may be imposed" on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person," he coolly says, the importation which it thus sanctions, "was unquestionably of all persons of the race of which we are now speaking."

The Chief Justice proceeds to defy history and common sense by asserting that, in the days of the fathers, even emancipated blacks "were identified in the public mind with the race to which they belonged, and regarded as a part of the slave population rather than the free." He is so kind as to tell the people of the Free States that the efforts of Wesley, and Edwards, and Hopkins, and Franklin, and Jay, and all the other eminent divines, patriots, and statesmen, who

"It is very true that, in that portion of the Union where the labor of the negro race was found to be unsuited to the climate and un

But

profitable to the master, but few slaves were held at the time of the Declaration of Indeadopted, it had entirely worn out in one of pendence; and, when the Constitution was them, and measures had been taken for its gradual abolition in several others. this change had not been produced by any change of opinion in relation to thiş race but because it was discovered, from experience, that slave labor was unsuited to the climate and productions of these States: for some of these States where it had ceased, or nearly ceased, to exist, were actively engaged in the Slave-Trade; procuring cargoes on the coast of Africa, and transporting them for sale to those parts of the Union where their labor was found to be profitable, and suited to the climate and productions. And this traffic was openly carried on, and fortunes accumulated by it, States where they resided. without reproach from the people of the And it can hardly be supposed that, in the States

where it was then countenanced in its worst form that is, in the seizure and transportation- the people could have regarded those who were emancipated as entitled to equal rights with themselves."

How utterly mistaken this is, the recollection of thousands will establish.

The very few persons at the North who were openly engaged in this slave-trading, fifty to eighty years ago, though shrewd, wealthy, and powerful, were never held in good repute; and the stain of their nefarious traffic still sullies their innocent descendants. Bad as our great marts may be, and blinded by the lust of gain as our trading classes may seem, there never was an hour when it was desirable to be known

on the exchange of New York or Bos- | § 3) which says "Congress shall have

ton as a slave-trader; and no man today blazons the fact that the wealth he inherits was obtained by successful ventures on the Slave-Coast.

Mr. Taney proceeds to show, after his fashion, that no State can make its black people citizens, because that would be very inconvenient and unsafe for the slaveholders of other States. "For," he says:

"If they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport; and, without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased; to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of

the State."

Having thus determined, to his own satisfaction, that Dred Scott, being a negro and descended from slaves, had no right to bring this suit, and no standing in the Federal Courts, and that the Court has no authority in the premises, the Chief Justice proceeds to take jurisdiction, in order to obtain a footing from which to nullify the Missouri Restriction and deny the right of Congress to exclude Slavery from any territory. To this end, he affirms that that clause of the Constitution (Art. IV.

power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States," applies only to such territory as belonged to the United States at the time the Constitution was framed! The territory covered by the Missouri Restriction, having all been acquired since that time, is not, in his view, subject to this provision.

He proceeds to affirm that, by the mere fact of our acquiring territory, "the Government and the citizen both enter it under the authority of the Constitution;" in other words, that the Constitution takes effect upon any territory that our Government may acquire, at the instant of such acquisition, in such manner as to create and uphold the right of every slaveholder to take his slaves thither and hold them there as property. But this particular and only clause of the Constitution relating to territory has no application or subsisting validity; because, if it had, it might enable Congress to prohibit Slavery therein. The Chief Justice, therefore, nullifies the Missouri Restriction, and all kindred restrictions, in the following terms:

"Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the Court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding property of this kind in the territory of

the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and it is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this territory, even if they had been carried there by the owner with the intention of becoming a permanent resident.”

But Dred's freedom was claimed on still another ground; viz.: that he had been taken by his master to

WAYNE, NELSON, GRIER, ETC., ON DRED SCOTT.

the Free State of Illinois, and there retained some two or three years. But this the Chief Justice disposes of by declaring that his claim was not properly before the court; that the question raised by it was to be adjudged by the tribunals of Missouri alone; and he concludes as follows:

"Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this Court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction."

Justice Wayne, of Georgia, concurred "entirely in the opinion of the Court, as written and read by the Chief Justice, without any qualification of its reasoning or its conclusions."

Justice Nelson, of New York, concurred also in the conclusion of the Court, and favored an astonished world with the following sample of judicial.logic:

"If Congress possesses power, under the Constitution, to abolish Slavery in a territory, it must necessarily possess the like power to establish it. It cannot be a onesided power, as may suit the convenience or particular views of the advocates. It is a power, if it exist at all, over the whole subject."

But the power against which Mr. Nelson is contending is a power to prohibit by legislation certain forms of injustice and immorality. If, then, according to his reasoning, Congress should, by law, prohibit adultery, theft, burglary, and murder, in the territories of the Union, it would thereby affirm and establish its right to reward and encourage those crimes.

257

Mr. Justice Grier, of Pennsylvania, emitted all the additional light he had power to shed on the subject in the following commendably brief, but not otherwise commendable, opinion:

"I concur in the opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Nelson on the question discussed by him.

"I also concur with the opinion of the Court, as delivered by the Chief Justice, that the act of Congress of 6th of March, 1820, is unconstitutional and void; and that, assuming the facts as stated in the opinion, the plaintiff cannot sue as a citizen of Missouri in the courts of the United States. But, that the record shows a prima facie case of jurisdiction, requiring the Court to decide all the questions properly arising in it; and as the decision of the pleas in bar shows that the plaintiff is a slave, and therefore not entitled to sue in a court of the United States, the form of the judgment is of little importance; for, whether the judgment be affirmed or dismissed for want of jurisdiction, it is justified by the decision of the Court, and is the same in effect between the parties to the suit."

Mr. Justice Daniel, of Virginia, in announcing his opinion, seemed appalled by the magnitude of the issues involved in the question be

fore the Court.

The tremor and awe

with which he had approached the subject may have blunted his judicial acumen, since his exhibitions of it were mainly confined to such assertions as these:

"Now, the following are truths which a knowledge of the history of the world, and particularly of that of our own country, compels us to know-that the African negro longing to the family of nations; that as race have never been acknowledged as beamongst them there never has been known or recognized by the inhabitants of other countries anything partaking of the character of nationality, or civil or political polity; that this race has been, by all the nations of Europe, regarded as subjects of capture

or purchase, as subjects of commerce or traffic; and that the introduction of that race into every section of this country was not as members of civil or political society, but as slaves-as property, in the strictest sense of the term.'

He proceeded in this vein to deny

« AnteriorContinuar »