Chief Justice Taney. severed from their connection and perverted in their meaning that the imputation was utterly unjust and substantially false. The paragraph in which the words occur shows at once the injustice of the accusation and the character of the reasoning in which he indulged to show that Scott was not a citizen, as citizenship was understood when the con stitution was adopted. Speaking of the African race he said : " They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far in ferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be re duced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public con cern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion." A few days later the Senate chamber was the scene of an exhibition of partisanship to which happily we have not become accustomed. A Senator with glowing rhetoric affirmed that before coming into office the President had ap proached, or was approached by, the Su preme Court of the United States, insinuated that this case was on the docket by chance or design, that it had been submitted to the court upon an admission of facts which were unsusceptible of proof, that counsel repre senting the plaintiff were ignorant of the purposes of the case, that its discussion was
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a mock debate, that a bargain was consum mated between the Chief Justice and the incoming President in the whispered con versation which occurred at the time of the inaugural ceremonies. The effect of this decision and the manner in which it was dis cussed in the fervid oratory of the times was pronounced and unfortunate. Within eight years from the announce ment of the decision, the subject of the con troversy with which it was so closely connected was destroyed by fire. In the years which have since passed, time has per formed its beneficent office of allaying bitter ness and securing a general acceptance of the obvious truth. Some general observa tions respecting the Dred Scott case now command nearly universal assent. The con clusion of the Chief Justice that a negro was not a citizen in the civilization of a cen tury and a quarter ago was sustained by much reason, and the dissenting opinions, able though they were, did not amount to a demonstration of its unsoundness. So the conclusion that Scott's status as free man or slave, was fixed by the law's of Missouri, and that his claim to freedom was concluded by the adverse decision of the Supreme Court of that State, was strongly supported by reason and authority. Either of these grounds being taken, a'decision leaving Scott in slavery was inevitable, and it cannot be said with confidence that upon the main question the conclusion of the court was wrong in any other sense than that laws which sanctioned slavery were wrong. There was no juridical reason for considering the constitutional validity of the compromise of 1820. Having entered upon its considera tion, the Chief Justice failed in his attempt ed distinction between territory owned by the United States when the constitution was adopted and that which was acquired subse quently. He not only failed in his attempt
