CHAP. III. uents of Brooks sent him back to the House, so also the Legislature of Massachusetts, in January, 1857, with but few dissenting votes, reëlected Sumner to a new senatorial term, beginning the 4th of March. He came to Washington and was sworn in, but within a few days sailed for Europe, and during the greater part of the long interim between that time and the succeeding Presidential campaign his seat in the Senate remained vacant.

It was on the 4th of June, 1860, that he again raised his voice in debate. Some changes had occurred: both Butler and Brooks were dead;1 the Senate was assembled in its new hall in the north wing of the Capitol extension. But in the main the personnel and the spirit of the pro-slavery party still confronted him. "Time has passed," he said, "but the question remains." A little more than four years before, he had essayed to describe "The Crime against Kansas"; now, in an address free from offensive personalities but more unsparing in rhetoric and stronger in historical arraignment, he delineated what he named the "Barbarism of Slavery." Picturing to ourselves the orator, the circumstances, and the theme, we can comprehend the exaltation with which he exclaimed in his exordium: "Slavery must be resisted not only on political grounds, but on all other grounds, whether social, economical, or moral. Ours is no holiday contest; nor is it any strife of rival factions- of White and Red Roses; of theatric Neri and Bianchi; but it is a solemn battle between Right and Wrong, between Good and Evil. . . Grander debate has

1 Preston S. Brooks died in Washington, January 27, 1857; Andrew P. Butler died in South Carolina, May 25, 1857.

not occurred in our history, rarely in any history; CHAP. III. nor can this debate close or subside except with the triumph of Freedom."

With this speech Sumner resumed his place as a conspicuous figure and an indefatigable energy in national politics and legislation, tireless in attacking and pursuing slavery until its final overthrow.

CHAPTER IV

THE DRED SCOTT DECISION

CHAP. IV.

1854.

March 6, 1857.

D

EEP and widespread as hitherto had been the slavery agitation created by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and by the consequent civil war in Kansas, an event entirely unexpected to the public at large suddenly doubled its intensity. This was the announcement, two days after Buchanan's inauguration, of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott case. This celebrated case had arisen as

follows:

Two or three years before the Nebraska bill was thought of, a suit was begun by a negro named Dred Scott, in a local court in St. Louis, Missouri, to recover the freedom of himself and his family from slavery. He alleged that his master, one Dr. Emerson, an army surgeon, living in Missouri, had taken him as his slave to the military post at Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, and afterwards to Fort Snelling, situated in what was originally Upper Louisiana, but was at that time part of Wisconsin Territory, and now forms part of Minnesota. While at this latter post Dred Scott, with his master's consent, married a colored woman, also brought as a slave from Missouri, and of this mar

riage two children were born. All this happened CHAP. IV. between the years 1834 and 1838. Afterwards Dr. Emerson brought Dred Scott and his family back to Missouri. In this suit they now claimed freedom, because during the time of residence with their master at these military posts slavery was there prohibited by positive law; namely, at Rock Island by the ordinance of 1787, and later by the Constitution of Illinois; at Fort Snelling by the Missouri Compromise acts of 1820, and other acts of Congress relating to Wisconsin Territory.

The local court in St. Louis before which this action was brought appears to have made short work of the case. It had become settled legal doctrine by Lord Mansfield's decision in the Somersett case, rendered four years before our Declaration of Independence, that "the state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only positive law. . . It is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law." The learned chief-justice therefore ordered that Somersett, being claimed as a Virginia slave brought by his master into England, when it was attempted to carry him away against his will, should be discharged from custody or restraint, because there was no positive law in England to support slavery. The doctrine was subsequently modified by another English chief-justice, Lord Stowell, in 1827, to the effect that absence of positive law to support slavery in England only operates to suspend the master's authority, which is revived if the slave voluntarily returns into an English colony where slavery does exist by positive law.

CHAP. IV.

The States of the Union naturally inherited and retained the common law of England, and the principles and maxims of English jurisprudence not necessarily abrogated by the change of government, and among others this doctrine of Lord Mansfield. Unlike England, however, where there was no slavery and no law for or against it, some of the American States had positive laws establishing slavery, others positive laws prohibiting it. Lord Mansfield's doctrine, therefore, enlarged and strengthened by American statutes and decisions, had come to be substantially this: Slavery, being contrary to natural right, exists only by virtue of local law; if the master takes his slave for permanent residence into a jurisdiction where slavery is prohibited, the slave thereby acquires a right to his freedom everywhere. On the other hand, Lord Stowell's doctrine was similarly enlarged and strengthened so as to allow the master right of transit and temporary sojourn in free States and Territories without suspension or forfeiture of his authority over his slave. Under the complex American system of government, in which the Federal Union and the several States each claim sovereignty and independent action within certain limitations, it became the theory and practice that towards each other the several States occupied the attitude of foreign nations, which relation was governed by international law, and that the principle of comity alone controlled the recognition and enforcement by any State of the law of any other State. Under this theory, the courts of slave States had generally accorded freedom to slaves, even when acquired by the laws of a free State,