Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/288

 282 Southern Historical Society Papers.

It was not the South which arrayed itself against the only sove- reignty known to this country the sovereignty of law. The con- stitutional position of the South received the sanction of the only umpire known to the Constitution. The final sanction, known as the Dred Scott decision, was the inevitable sequel to prior adjudica- tions, and could have been no other than it was; and those prior adjudications, like the votes of the two Houses in 1838, had been too- reasonable to awaken agitation or serious comment. The adjudica- tion was that the Territories secured to the States by the common blood and treasure (and, it might have been added, more largely secured by the blood and treasure of the South, if the donations to the general government be considered) that these Territories were secured equally to all the States, and not unequally to any, and that it was to deprive the citizen of his property without due process of law to take his slave from him merely because the latter was found in the common territory of the United States. The adjudication was that the Federal Union rested on the basis of Federal equality.

At least the school of construction, which proclaimed the judg- ment of this tribunal to be the ultimate reason, when it was planted on the side of the Bank of the United States, should have been estopped to denounce their own canonized authority.

WANTED THE SLAVE LAW NULLIFIED.

Fourteen Northern States passed laws to practically nullify the fugi- tive slave law, but in doing so they not only violated the compromise and the compact of the Constitution, but the law as their own courts expounded it. The highest courts of these States (including that of Massachusetts, speaking through Chief-Justice Shaw), whenever the occasion arose to pass upon this law, uniformly supported it. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin did give a hasty opinion against it, but quickly retracted it. The lawless legislation was not South, but North, as tried by the exclusive jurisprudence of the latter. Never were people more completely covered by all the planopy of law even the law of vindictive Commonwealths than the people of the South.

It was in this state of the law of the land, as expounded by the highest Federal tribunal, that a party arose which sought no suffer- age, offered no candidates, and excluded recognition in all that portion of the country which is called the South. It was a declara