Page:A legal review of the case of Dred Scott, as decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.djvu/11

 and, "for the reasons above staled, concurs with his brother judges" in the judgment. Mr. Justice McLean and Mr. Justice Curtis wholly dissent. It thus appears that the Chief Justice speaks only for himself and Mr. Justice Wayne, and that each of the other judges defines his own position.

We feel bound to say that the opinion of the Chief Justice is by no means the ablest or soundest of the opinions in this case. It bears marks of great labor, and of an anxiety to meet, and, as far as possible, to reply to, all objections which might be raised to its conclusions. But in its tone and manner of reasoning, as well as in the positions which it assumes, it is unworthy of the reputation of that great magistrate, who for twenty years has maintained the position of the intellectual, as well as the nominal head of the highest tribunal of the country, and to whose grasp of mind, logical power, keen discrimination, and judicial wisdom, the people have been accustomed to look, with a confidence rarely disappointed, in cases involving great principles of the Constitution of the United States, of the law of nations, and of conflicts between different systems of jurisprudence. For instances of his masterly treatment of such questions, we need only refer to his opinion in the case of Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 11 Peters, 536, which has been universally followed and assented to as a correct statement of the law of franchises; and to that in the case of the Rhode Island Rebellion, 7 Howard, 1, in which the extent to which the courts of the United States must be guided by the decisions of the State courts, and the acts of the executive department of the United States, in determining what is the true Constitution of a State, is defined even more clearly than was done by Mr. Webster in his celebrated argument in that case.

It must be a subject of deep regret to all who know how often Mr. Justice Wayne has been found on the side of true conservatism and sound law, when, in the unhappy divisions of the court, the old landmarks were in some danger, and who particularly remember the opinion delivered by him only three years ago on the power of congress to regulate the Territories, (which we shall hereafter cite,) to find him now one of the only two judges who can bring themselves fully to support the opinion of their chief, the other being Mr. Justice Daniel, a judge notorious for his eccentricities of constitutional interpretation, but who does not usually err against the rights of the States and their citizens. Perhaps, however, we are unable to appreciate