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The Late Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. 



Supreme Court at Washington for review. A cause more 

 important in its bearings or more simple in form, never 

 came up for decision before this august tribunal. The 

 real parties plaintiff, were four million strong, and the 

 real defendants numbered about sixty thousand. On the 

 side of the plaintiffs, was the silent divine sense of justice; 

 on that of the defendants there was law, capable of being 

 wielded either in favor of freedom or slavery. 



The indictment and trial of the seven bishops played 

 an important part in English history; the recoil against 

 the government, created by the verdict of the jury, de- 

 veloped an opinion, born of mingled reason and passion, 

 which at length drove James the Second from the throne. 

 It was a government prosecution, and it brought in a new 

 line of kings. 



The decision in the Dred Scott case was foreshadowed 

 in the inaugural message of President Buchauan; it was 

 hailed by him as the voice of authority that was to settle 

 forever the vexed question of slavery or ' freedom in the 

 territories of the Union. 



Let us recall the situation : ever since the Missouri com- 

 promise of 1820, for more than a generation, slavery had 

 been prohibited in the territories of the Union, by a law of 

 congress, north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes. 

 By a mad act of folly and ambition, this statute, whose 

 validity was not previously questioned, was repealed in 1854, 

 when the territories of Kansas and Nebraska were or- 

 ganized. The repeal reopened a great debate, and brought 

 in a fierce conflict ; a debate on the merits and rights of 

 slavery throughout the union, and a conflict on the terri- 

 tory of Kansas to secure the organization of the new state. 

 This controversy was going on with great heat and passion 

 when this remarkable cause was heard, and when Mr. 

 Buchanan was sworn into office. 



It was not a fictitious case, the facts were real ; but the 



