Now, sir, let us look at the debates which took place at that time, because of course, one may always gather much more from the debates on one side and the other on any great question, as to the intention and meaning of a law, than can be gathered from the words of the statute itself. I have not had time to read these debates fully. That is what I complained of in the beginning. I have not had time to read, as thoroughly as I could wish, those voluminous reports for they fill the greater part of two or three thick quarto volumes; but in what I have read, I do not find a single word from which it appears that any member of the Senate or House of Representatives, at that time, believed that the territorial enactments of 1850, either as principle, or rule, or precedent, or by analogy, or in any other way, were to act retrospectively or prospectively upon any other Territory. On the contrary, I find much, very much, of a broad, distinct, directly opposite bearing. A single word, sir, in respect to this supposed principle of non-intervention on the part of Congress in the subject of slavery in the Territories. . . . Why, sir, from the first enactment in 1789, down to the bill before us, there is no such principle in our legislation. As far as I can see it would be perfectly competent even now for Congress to pass any law that they pleased on the subject in the Territories under this bill. But, however that may be, even by this bill, there is not a law which the Territories can pass, admitting or excluding slavery, which it is not in the power of this Congress to disallow the next day. This is not a mere brutum fulmen. It is not an unexecuted power. Your statute-book shows case after case. I believe, in reference to a single Territory, that there have been fifteen or twenty cases where territorial legislation has been disallowed by Congress. 137. Senator Douglas on the Principle of Popular Sovereignty.1 The principle which we propose to carry into effect by the bill is this: That Congress shall neither legislate slavery into 1 March 3, 1854. Congressional Globe, 33 Cong., 1 Sess., App., 326-37 passim. any Territories or State, nor out of the same; but the people shall be left free to regulate their domestic concerns in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. In order to carry this principle into practical operation, it becomes necessary to remove whatever legal obstacles might be found in the way of its free exercise. It is only for the purpose of carrying out this great fundamental principle of self-government that the bill renders the eighth section of the Missouri act inoperative and void. . . . Any Senator who will take the trouble to examine our Journals, will find that on the 25th of March of that year I reported from the Committee on Territories two bills including the following measures: the admission of California, a territorial government for Utah, a territorial government for New Mexico, and the adjustment of the Texas boundary. These bills proposed to leave the people of Utah and New Mexico free to decide the slavery question for themselves, in the precise language of the Nebraska bill now under discussion. A few weeks afterwards the committee of thirteen took those two bills and put a wafer between them, and reported them back to the Senate as one bill, with some slight amendments. One of those amendments was, that the Territorial Legislatures should not legislate upon the subject of African slavery. I objected to that provision upon the ground that it subverted the great principle of self-government upon which the bill had been originally framed by the Territorial Committee. On the first trial, the Senate refused to strike it out, but subsequently did so, after full debate, in order to establish that principle as the rule of action in territorial organization. Upon this point I trust I will be excused for reading one or two sentences from some remarks I made in the Senate on the 3d of June, 1850: "The position that I have ever taken has been that this [the slavery question], and all questions relating to the domestic affairs and domestic policy of the Territories, ought to be left to the decision of the people themselves, and that we ought to be content with whatever way they would decide the question, because they have a much deeper interest in these matters than we have, and know much better what institutions suit them than we, who have never been there, can decide for them." Now, sir, what becomes of the declaration which has been made by nearly every opponent of this bill, that nobody in this whole Union ever dreamed that the principle of the Utah and New Mexican bill was to be incorporated into all future territorial organizations? . . . Now, sir, if these gentlemen have entire confidence in the correctness of their own position, why do they not meet the issue boldly and fairly, and controvert the soundness of this great principle of popular sovereignty in obedience to the Constitution? They know full well that this was the principle upon which the colonies separated from the crown of Great Britain; the principle upon which the battles of the Revolution were fought, and the principle upon which our republican system was founded. They cannot be ignorant of the fact, that the Revolution grew out of the assertion of the right on the part of the imperial Government to interfere with the internal affairs and domestic concerns of the colonies. I will not weary the Senate in multiplying evidence upon this point. It is apparent that the Declaration of Independence had its origin in the violation of that great fundamental principle which secured to the people of the colonies the right to regulate their own domestic affairs in their own way; and that the Revolution resulted in the triumph of that principle, and the recognition of the right asserted by it. . . . It is the same doctrine, when applied to the Territories and new States of this Union, which the British Government attempted to enforce by the sword upon the American colonies. It is this fundamental principle of self-government which constitutes the distinguishing feature of the Nebraska bill. . . . ル CHAPTER XLVII DRED SCOTT v. SANDFORD THE pertinent facts in the history of the Dred Scott case may be briefly stated. Dred Scott, a negro belonging to Dr. Emerson, of the United States Army, had been taken by his master in 1834 from Missouri to Rock Island in the State of Illinois. Two years later he was taken to Fort Snelling in the northern part of the territory acquired from France in 1803, in which slavery had been forbidden by the Missouri Compromise. He there married. In 1838, Dr. Emerson returned to Missouri with Scott and his family. In 1847, Dred Scott brought suit in the circuit court of the State of Missouri to recover his freedom. Judgment was rendered in his favor, but in the supreme court of the State, to which the case was taken on appeal, the judgment was reversed. Meantime Scott and his family had been made over to Sandford, a citizen of New York; and though his case was still in the state court, he brought suit against Sandford to assert the title of himself and his family to freedom. The case of Scott v. Sandford in form a suit between citizens of different States was tried in the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Missouri. Sandford pleaded that this could not be a suit between citizens of different States because Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, being “a negro of pure African descent." The court overruled this plea, but sustained the defendant on other grounds. The case was then appealed on writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States. Seven of the nine judges concurred in the judgment that Scott was not a citizen of Missouri and that therefore the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction in the case; six judges concurred in declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. What is commonly called the opinion of the Court hardly merits the term, for none of the concurring judges accepted fully the process of reasoning by which the Chief Justice justified the judgment of the Court. On the technical question as to whether the plea in abatement was properly before the Court and on the further question as to the propriety of the so-called dictum relating to the Missouri Compromise, the reader may consult with profit an article on "The Dred Scott Decision," by Edward S. Corbin, in the American Historical Review for October, 1911. Extracts from Justice Curtis's dissenting opinion are appended to indicate the issue between him and Chief Justice Taney as to the sources of citizenship within the recognition of the Constitution. 138. Dred Scott, Plaintiff in Error, v. John F. A. Sandford.1 Mr. Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the Court: Supreme Court of the United States, 1857. 19 Howard, 393. There are two leading questions presented by the record: 1. Had the Circuit Court of the United States jurisdiction to hear and determine the case between these parties? And 2. If it had jurisdiction, is the judgment it has given erroneous or not? ... Before we speak of the pleas in bar, it will be proper to dispose of the questions which have arisen on the plea in abatement. That plea denies the right of the plaintiff to sue in a court of the United States, for the reasons therein stated. It is suggested, however, that this plea is not before us. . . . We think they [the plea and the judgment of the court upon it] are before us and it becomes, therefore, our duty to decide whether the facts stated in the plea are or are not sufficient to show that the plaintiff is not entitled to sue as a citizen in a court of the United States. The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution. In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. He may have all the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other State. For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with all its rights. But this character of course was confined to the boundaries of the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to him by the laws of nations and the |