Dred Scott decision

“ Why, sir, you might poll that party through the whole United States, and I would venture any thing upon the assertion that you cannot get one in a hundred thousand who would not deny that there could be property in man, especially under the common law. We thus lose the advantage of the Dred Scott decision. According to the Dred Scott decision, we can carry them into the territory of the United States and hold them, and it is decided that there is property in slaves—decided under the Constitution. ”

“ If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding; like the mould at the foundry, served through one blast, and fell back into loose sand; helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. ”

“ A government recognizing the validity of the Dred Scott decision at such a time as this, is not likely to have any very charitable feelings towards me, and if I am to meet its representatives I prefer to do so at least upon equal terms. If I have committed any offense against society I have done so on the soil of the State of New York, and I should be perfectly willing to be arraigned there before an impartial jury; but I have quite insuperable objections to being caught by the hounds of Mr. Buchanan, and "bagged" by Gov. Wise. ”

“ Slavery was established in all this country, without "local police regulations" to protect it. Dred Scott himself was held in a Territory, not only without "local police regulations" to favor his bondage, but in defiance of a general law which prohibited it. A man who believed that the Dred-Scott Decision was the true interpretation of the Constitution could not refuse to negro slavery whatever protection it needed in the Territories without incurring the guilt of perjury. ”

“ Judge Douglas does not discuss the merits of the decision, and in that respect I shall follow his example, believing I could no more improve on McLean and Curtis than he could on Taney.... We think the Dred Scott decision was erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this. We offer no resistance to it.... ”

“ Why was the amendment expressly declaring the right of the people to exclude slavery voted down? Plainly enough now: the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred-Scott Decision. ”

“ Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.
Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination—piece of machinery, so to speak—compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. ”

“ The principle of law is too well settled to be disputed, that a court can give no judgment for either party, where it has no jurisdiction; and if, upon the showing of Scott himself, it appeared that he was still a slave, the case ought to have been dismissed, and the judgment against him and in favor of the defendant for costs, is, like that on the plea in abatement, erroneous, and the suit ought to have been dismissed by the Circuit Court for want of jurisdiction in that court. ”

“ This regulated the rights of the master from the time the act took effect. But the decision of the Missouri court, reversing a former decision, affects all previous decisions, technically, made on the same principles, unless such decisions are protected by the lapse of time or the statute of limitations. Dred Scott and his family, beyond all controversy, were free under the decisions made for twenty-eight years, before the case of Scott v. Emerson. This was the undoubted law of Missouri for fourteen years after Scott and his family were brought back to that State. ”

“ Buchanan, delivered, we believe, only the day before the decision in this Dred Scott case was tendered, the Democratic President elect greatly eulogised this squatter sovereignty doctrine, "that the will of the majority shall govern the settlement of the question of domestic slavery in the Territories," and frankly admitted that it was upon this doctrine that the Democratic party had succeeded in the last election. ”

“ It is agreed that Dred Scott brought suit for his freedom in the Circuit Court of St. Louis county; that there was a verdict and judgment in his favor; that on a writ of error to the Supreme Court, the judgment below was reversed, and the same remanded to the Circuit Court, where it has been continued to await the decision of this case. ”

“ In this case of Dred Scott, the opinion of the Chief Justice is called by himself, and by the reporter, the opinion of the court. Let us consider, for a moment, its title to this distinction. When one judge, of a bench consisting of several, delivers an opinion as the opinion of the court, it is undoubtedly to be deemed the opinion of every judge, who does not express his own; but the judges who openly dissent from it are of course in no wise responsible for it ”

“ I think that the first party to whom the accommodation is proposed will snatch at it eagerly; that the other will be ashamed to reject an offer to rest the cause on the swords of their bravest men; that the national vanity, and factious hate to each other, will prevent them from seeing our purpose in adopting such a rule of decision; and that they will be more eager to cut each other to pieces than we can be to halloo them on. And now, as our counsels are finished, so far as I can aid, I will withdraw. ”

“ But in 1852, in a suit brought by this plaintiff, Dred Scott, to try his right to freedom, two judges, forming a majority of the court, overruled these decisions, in an opinion in which, admitting the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise Act, and the perfect freedom conferred upon the plaintiff by the laws governing the State and Territory in which he had resided, they refused to give any effect to those laws, because of the spirit which had lately prevailed in the free States in relation to the institution of slavery ”

“ No State is bound to carry into effect enactments conceived in a spirit hostile to that which pervades her own laws." "It is a humiliating spectacle, to see the courts of a State confiscating the property of her own citizens by the command of foreign law If Scott is freed, by what means will it be effected, but by the Constitution of the State of Illinois, or the Territorial laws of the United States? Now, what principle requires the interference of this court? Are not those governments capable of enforcing their own laws ”

“ The case, however, must be one of absolute and uncontrollable necessity; and this must be established beyond reasonable doubt. 'Nothing less,' says Sir William Scott, 'than an uncontrollable necessity, which admits of no compromise, and cannot be resisted,' will be held a justification of the offence. ”

“ The only hope there is of saving Scott lies with himself, and if he will persist in trying to hoodwink me and playing at this foolish game of hide-and-seek with his own attorney, I am afraid there is not a chance of saving him. ”

“ He leaped into his waiting sleigh and thrust a five-ruble note into the driver’s hands. “Back—at your best speed!” he cried—and though the driver laid the end of his lines upon the flanks of his galloping horse, Drexel constantly breathed, “Faster! Faster!”
He imagined every disaster as befalling Sonya. But when he had reëntered the little court, and rushed up the stairway, and burst into the room, it was to find Sonya still safely there—and not so poorly defended as he had thought, for Freeman was with her.
“Come,” he said breathlessly, “we must fly! The police may be here any moment!” ”

“ He rubbed his forehead. “Well, of all situations a sane man ever got into!” he muttered. When he next spoke there was again a touch of irony in his voice. “At least,” he drawled, “would it be considered an intrusion into matters which are none of my concern, if I asked what is going to happen to me?”
“You will merely be detained till we feel it is safe to release you. Ivan and Nicolai are treating you all right? We had to act instantly, and they were [56] the only persons we could upon the instant command.”
“Oh, they’re nice enough boys, I guess,” said Drexel. ”

“ The White One slowly nodded, “Yes, I know we can trust you, and I know you are too useful a person to be refused. You have shown both.”
She looked at the three men. “I say yes. What do you say?”
“Yes,” they responded.
She again gave Drexel her withered hand. “Then you shall help us,” said she.
Whereupon Sonya and the three men clasped hands with him. He now learned the two men he had before seen were Dr. Razoff, a distinguished physician, and Pestel, a leader of the working-people. ”

“ If you exercise it you will understand that it is a simple impossibility for Scott to be innocent. He may be innocent of intentional murder, and that is the only point we can try to make in his favour, but his hands are not clean in the matter as he tries to make us believe. ”

“ But that’s no fault of yours, captain!” He proffered his cigarette case. “Will you join me?”
“If you please. Thank you. And now I suppose the prisoners are ready?”
“They have merely to be brought from their cells. Will you let me have the order?”
[291] Drexel handed it forth, and life stood suspended in him while it underwent the scrutiny of the governor’s sharp eyes. If Sabatoff had made an error in the form!
But the governor thrust it into a drawer of his desk. “So you only want four of them?”
“Four, yes. The prisoners known as Borodin, Sonya Varanova, Razoff and The White One.” ”

“ In brief, I have been guilty of an error which the police consider serious; in fact, the police are this moment searching for me. So you see, I am in the same situation as Mr. De Peyster: I prefer my whereabouts to remain unknown. Since we are in each other's hands, and it is in our power each to betray the other, shall we not all, as a quid pro quo, agree to preserve Mr. De Peyster's and my presence in this house a secret? For my part, I promise."
"I'm willing," said Jack.
"And I," said Mary. "Anyhow, I never get a chance to tell, for I haven't been out of this house once." ”

“ Triumph gleamed through the fringe of her half-closed eyes, but her manner was languorously reposeful.
“Well, I think we have him!”
“A-a-h!” breathed the prince. “You have definitely involved him in some plan?”
“Not yet. I’m leading him gently toward one. But he’s ready. He said as much to-night.”
“Good! And what plan?”
“I thought the one we knew was uppermost in the revolutionists’ minds would be the best—the freeing of Borodin.”
“You must use haste. Drexel is to be in Russia less than two weeks longer. When are you going to lead him definitely into the thing?” ”

“ The years at Lasswade were marked by one of the most momentous decisions of Scott's life. He had reached the parting of the ways; one leading to the practice of the law; the other—and the more alluring one—to literature as a profession. Had his father been alive, it is probable that a high sense of duty and loyalty would have determined him to continue in the law, for the old gentleman had set his heart upon that, and Scott would have submitted to almost any irksome requirement rather than wound the feelings of his parent. ”

“ He could not but hug himself on having observed strict secrecy on the events of the chase, and then formed a resolution, which, for so young a person, had much prudence in it, that while he breathed the air of this secluded and mysterious Court, he would keep his thoughts locked in his bosom, and his tongue under the most careful regulation. ”

“ He said Eustace was innocent."
She remained quite still, without a sound, staring at him.
"The bank was robbed by the Rider and another, Durham said, but Eustace was not one of the two. He was absolutely innocent. We have wired to the general manager to say so."
"Fred, I don't believe it. I can't believe it. Why did he run away if he were innocent? I will never rest until I know who the man Mr. Durham shot really was. Where is Mr. Durham?"
"He has left Waroona, Jess. He told Brennan he could only report personally to his chief the truth about the man. ”

“ Drexel,” said Sonya. She took his arm and led him forward. “And this is The White One.”
It was to the wheeled chair that she led him. Drexel looked at the chair and stood amazed. For The White One, the leader feared and hated by the Government, the master mind, the very heart of the revolution, was a woman!
Aye, and an invalid at that! Her hands were twisted, her body bent, and he had no guess of what infirmities lay hid beneath the rug that warmed her lower body. But disease had stayed its withering hands at her shoulders. ”

“ But what is next to be done for our young friend, Master Heriot? You know how I am circumstanced. Scottish lords living at the English Court have seldom command of money; yet, unless a sum can be presently raised on this warrant, matters standing as you hastily hinted to me, the mortgage, wadset, or whatever it is called, will be foreclosed.”
“It is true,” said Heriot, in some embarrassment; “there is a large sum wanted in redemption—yet, if it is not raised, there will be an expiry of the legal, as our lawyers call it, and the estate will be evicted.” ”