freedom on account of that residence was denied because, as he concluded, slavery was not prohibited there by any valid law, that the provision of the compromise act of 1820, prohibiting slavery in the territories north of latitude 360 and 30' north, and not included within the State of Missouri, was in excess of the power conferred upon congress. The act had been supposed to be authorized by the grant to congress of the power "to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United States." He concluded, how ever, that a distinction should be drawn be tween the territory belonging to the United States when the constitution was adopted and that which it acquired subsequently, and that the power conferred did not include territory subsequently acquired. The distinction could not be sustained by reason, for it placed an important limitation upon an unlimited grant of power. It was a departure from views universally entertained and practised since the first acquisition of territory. It was in direct conflict with the former decision of the same court that territory acquired from Spain after the adoption of the constitution was within this grant of power. It was ex pressly disclaimed by one of the concurring justices. It was in the dissenting opinion shown to be untenable, and it has been con sistently repudiated throughout the forty-five years of our subsequent history. The de cision against the validity of the prohibitory provision of the compromise act did not aid in determining the rights of the parties be fore the court, for the residence for more than a year at Rock Island, Illinois, was an admitted fact, and in Illinois, slavery was pro hibited by enactments whose validity no one questioned. To the claim for freedom on account of that residence the answer of the Chief Justice was that the plaintiff's status was fixed by the laws of Missouri, not by
those of Illinois, and that the decision of the courts of Missouri adverse to the claim was final. The insufficiency of that answer has never been made apparent, but if it was suf ficient with respect to the residence at Rock Island, it was obvious to all that it was equally so with respect to the residence at Fort Snelling. The decision had unfortunate and excit ing incidents. The controversy concerning and slavery political was rapidly zeal, combined approaching withitsreligious climax, • fervor, stirred resentment against a decision which was believed to indicate that in that great controversy the court had taken the side of slavery. In the concurring opinion of one of the justices a desire to allay the public excitement was practically admitted. In the opinion of another a desire to avert a preponderance of the free States was but thinly disguised, if disguised at all. The decision was announced on the 7th of March, 1857. But three days before Mr. Buchanan had entered upon his term as President, and he was so indiscreet as to say in his inaugu ral address that a case was then pending in the Supreme Court whose decision might aid in staying the gathering storm. The denunciation which was hurled at the court, and especially at the Chief Justice, is his toric. Now and then there appeared among his critics some Abraham Lincoln who, with out defaming his character, could mercilessly assail his opinion for the want of logical and legal relation among its parts. But most of the criticism was highly denunciatory. Antislavery editors and orators filled the northern States with the charge that Judge Taney had officially declared that negroes " had no rights which white men were bound to re spect," and the people were taught to believe that one of the kindest and most philan thropic of men was a brute. The words were indeed quoted from his opinion, but so
