EFFECT OF THE DECISION.

127

the name of Dred Scott had been carried by his master from Missouri, his native state, first to Illinois, a free state, and subsequently to the United States territory north of Missouri, which, under the Missouri Compromise, was free territory. On being brought back to Missouri, the slave claimed his freedom on the ground that his removal by his master to a free state and territory had emancipated him; and that, once free, he could not be enslaved by being brought again into a slave state. This demand was strictly in accordance with the prevailing course of decisions over the whole South up to that time; and was thus, in conformity with precedent, conceded by the state court of Missouri, before which it was in the first instance brought. But the defendant appealed against this decision, and the case came on under a writ of error first before the Supreme Court of the State, and ultimately, having in the interval passed through one of the circuit Federal courts, before the Supreme Court of the Union. The result was the reversal by a majority of the Supreme Court of the judgment of the court below. In announcing the decision, Chief Justice Taney, who delivered judgment, laid down two principles which went the full length of the views of the Slave party. He declared, first, that in contemplation of law there was no difference between a slave and any other kind of property; and secondly, that all American citizens might settle with their property in any part of the Union in which they pleased.

Such was the momentous decision in the Dred Scott case. Its effect was to reverse the fundamental assumption upon which up to that time society in the Union had been based; and, whereas formerly freedom had been regarded as the rule and slavery the exception, to make slavery in future the rule of the Constitution. According to the law, as expounded by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, it was now competent to a slaveholder to carry his slaves not merely into any portion. of the Territories, but, if it pleased him, into any of the Free States, to establish himself with his slave retinue in Ohio or Massachusetts, in Pennsylvania or New York, and to hold his slaves in bondage there, the regulations of Congress or the laws of the particular state to the contrary notwithstanding. The Union, if this doctrine were to be accepted, was henceforth a single slaveholding domain, in every part of which property in human beings was equally sacred. So sweeping were the consequences involved in the Dred Scott decision. Reading that decision in the light of subsequent events, we cannot but admire the sagacious foresight of De Tocqueville :-" The President who exercises a limited power may err without caus

128

SECOND REQUIREMENT OF THE SLAVE POWER.

ing great mischief in the state. Congress may decide,amiss without destroying the Union, because the electoral body in which Congress originates may cause it to retract its decision by changing its members. But if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent men or bad citizens, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war."

The Slave Power had thus accomplished its first object. The Constitution had been turned against itself, and, by an ingenious application of the "totidem literis" principle of interpretation, the right to extend slavery over the whole area of the Union was declared by the highest tribunal in the republic to be good in constitutional law. But it was further necessary to give practical effect to this decision; and this could only be accomplished through a government at Washington favourable to the principle it embodied.. It was therefore resolved that, in the approaching Presidential election, the party of the South should be reconstructed on the basis of this principle in its application to the Territories (for it was thought prudent for the present to abstain from extending the new doctrine to the Free States). This policy was, however, in the last degree hazardous. The South had hitherto carried its measures through an alliance with the Democratic party of the North; but this party was now led by Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Douglas was the author of the Kansas and Nebraska bill, the repeal of which was for the moment the main object of the South. Mr. Douglas was, therefore, plainly told that he must recant his former principles-principles which, at the cost of much loss of credit among his Northern friends, he had devised expressly for the benefit of the Slave Power-and that he must make up his mind to uphold slavery in the Territories in spite of anti-slavery decisions by the squatter sovereignty, or forfeit the support of the South. Now this was a length to which Mr. Douglas and the section which he led-highly as they prized the Southern alliance, and indulgently and perhaps approvingly as they regarded the institution of slavery—were not prepared to go.*

* Yet every point was strained to meet the views of the South. The distinction between the programmes of the two sections as they were ultimately amended, is so fine that it may easily escape the inattentive reader. The essence of the demand of the extreme (Breckenridge) section was contained in the second of the amendments made in the Cincinnati platform; which was to the effect "That it is the duty of the Federal government, in all its departments, to protect when necessary the right of persons and property in the Territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority extends;" while the Douglas party embodied in its amendments the principle of the Dred Scott decision. Theoretically, the positions were identical, but practically they involved an important difference. The Douglas programme, although acknowledging the right of slave property to protection in the Territories, gave to the slave

APOLOGY FOR SOUTHERN AGGRESSION.

129

Mr. Douglas was, therefore, cast aside. The combined phalanx which had so long ruled the Union was broken in two, and the Slave Power stood alone. This position of affairs could only lead to one result-that which actually occurred-the triumph by a large majority of the Republican party. The South having thus failed to make good the one alternative of its thorough' policy, at once accepted the other; and the dissolution of the Union was proclaimed.

Such has been the career of aggression pursued by the Slave Power in North America for the last fifty years. It forms, as it seems to me, one of the most striking and alarming episodes in modern history, and furnishes a remarkable example of what a small body of men may effect against the most vital interests of human society, when, thoroughly understanding their position and its requirements, they devote themselves deliberately, resolutely, and unscrupulously to the accomplishment of their ends. It has indeed been contended that "the action of the South on this subject [the extension of slavery], though in appearance aggressive, has in reality been in self-defence, as a means of maintaining its political status against the growth of the North."* And in one sense this is true, though by no means in the sense in which the author of this argument would have us believe it. What is suggested is, that the political ascendancy of the South has been necessary to prevent its being sacrificed to the selfish ends of the Northern majority; and that it has been with a view to this object-security against Northern rapacity—and not at all on its own account, that the extension of slavery has been sought. The policy of slavery extension by the South is thus represented as but a means to an end—that end being the legitimate development of its own resources. Such is the theory. One more strikingly at variance with the most conspicuous facts of the case it would perhaps be difficult to imagine. The extension of slavery sought as a means to an end! and that end free trade, fiscal equality, and the internal development of the Southern States! Why, if these were the real objects of the South, where was the need, and what was the meaning, of secession? They were all secured to it by the Cincinnati platform; they had all been

holders no other guarantee than a resort to the ordinary tribunals; whereas the assertion in the Breckenridge programme of the duty of the Federal government, “in all its departments, to protect" slavery, was understood to imply the necessity of drawing up a black code for use in the Territories. "There must," says the Richmond Enquirer, "be positive legislation. A civil and criminal code for the protec tion of slave property in the Territories ought to be provided."

* Spence's American Union, p. 107.

130

IN WHAT sense defENSIVE.

advocated by Mr. Douglas. Why then reject the Democratic manifesto and the Democratic candidate, and break with the Democratic party-if this was all that was sought? Were state rights threatened by the Cincinnati platform? Was Mr. Douglas a protectionist? Yet if the South had not broken with this party—a party whose motto was state rights and free trade, a party which regarded slavery with something more than indulgence—the Democratic organization might never have been shaken, and the South might still have been in possession of the Federal Government. "But why discuss on probable evidence notorious facts? The world knows what the question between the North and South has been for many years, and still is. Slavery alone was thought of, alone talked of. Slavery was battled for and against, on the floor of Congress and in the plains of Kansas; on the slavery question exclusively was the party constituted which now rules the United States; on slavery Fremont was rejected, on slavery Lincoln was elected; the South separated on slavery, and proclaimed slavery as the one cause of separation."*

But, though not true in the sense suggested by the English champions of the Southern cause, there is a sense in which it is strictly true that the aggressions of the Slave Power have been defensive movements. This is indeed the essence of the case which I have endeavoured to establish. For I have endeavoured to show that, while the economic necessities of the South require a constant extension of the area of its dominion, and while its moral necessities require no less urgently a field for its political ambition, it is yet, from the peculiarity of its social structure, incapable of amalgamating with societies of a different type, and has no objects which it can pursue with them in common; and that, consequently, it can only attain its ends at their expense. It must advance; it cannot mix with free societies; and, where these meet it in the same field, it must push them from its path. In this sense it must be allowed that the aggressive movements of the South have been but efforts prompted by the instincts of self-defence; but whether the fact, when thus understood, is likely to help the argument of those who employ it, it is for them to consider. It is suggested, indeed, that this necessity of aggression arises from the relative inferiority of the South in wealth and numbers-that its encroachments are but "means of maintaining its political status against the growth of the North." But in all political confederacies particular members or groups of members must be inferior to other members or groups, or to the rest combined,

* Mr. Mill in Fraser's Magazine for February, 1862.

ATTEMPT OF JOHN BROWN.

131

and if this were a reason for political separation, there could be no such thing as political union. The Southern States are not more inferior in wealth and numbers to the Northern than is Ireland to Great Britain, or Scotland to England and Ireland; yet neither Ireland nor Scotland is compelled in self-defence to pursue towards the more powerful confederation of which they severally form a part a policy of aggression. Why should it be different with the Southern States of the Union? Let the champions of the South address themselves to this problem, and if they can solve it without being brought at last to slavery as the ultimate cause of all other dissensions-the one incompatibility in the case-they will show more ingenuity than they have even yet displayed. I venture to suggest that solution which has been foreshadowed by De Tocqueville, and which is at once the most obvious and the most profound. The South has been compelled to pursue a policy of aggression towards the North, not because it is less rich or less populous, but because it is different, and all the differences which divide North and South have originated in slavery-in an institution which prevents the growth of interests, ideas, and aims in which free societies can share, and which can prosper only by perpetually encroaching on their sphere.*

* Some explanation, perhaps, is needed why in the foregoing sketch no mention has been made of one of the most signal and devoted acts of heroism in modern times--the attempt of John Brown to open a guerilla warfare against slavery in Virginia. The omission has been made designedly. The enterprise, however worthy of being recorded, having yet originated exclusively in the noble heart of the man who conducted it, and having been carried into operation without the connivance of any considerable party in the United States, could not properly be included in a sketch of which the object was to trace the workings of those parties. The effort stood apart from the combination of agencies which were working towards the same end; yet it would not be correct to say that it was without influence on the cause which it was designed to serve. Its connexion with the history of the movement appears to have been this. The alarm which the attempt created in the South had the effect of strengthening the influence of the extreme party there, and of transferring the conduct of affairs in the Slave States from such men as Hammond and Hunter, Wise and Clingham, to such men as Jefferson Davis, Stephens, and Yancey-from the representatives of the Border to those of the Cotton States. (See Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1860, pp. 553-555.) It can scarcely be doubted that this hastened the split in the Democratic party, and thereby the triumph of the Republicans. In this manner the enterprise of John Brown conduced directly to the present crisis, and, through this, we may now with some confidence assert, to the downfall of the great crime against which he had sworn undying enmity. The reflection will be welcome to those who would deplore that an act of such serene self-devotion should be performed in vain.

"Actions of the just

Smell sweet in death, and blossom in the dust.”

The reader who desires to see a faithful and spirited sketch of this worthy representative of the sturdy virtue of the Pilgrim Fathers is referred to the Life and Letters of Captain John Brown, edited by Richard D. Webb. London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1861.