vote, Mr. Cass and Mr. Benton among the latter. The motion was made to adjourn sine die, which, under the imminent circumstances of the occasion, the presiding officer refused to put. It was after four o'clock in the morning of the 4th of March when this contest was brought to an end by the recession of the Senate by the Senate receding from its amendment-and the General Appropriation Bill (the life of the government) permitted to pass.* It was passed on the morning of the 4th of March, and signed by the President on that day, but antedated of the third to prevent the invalidity from appearing on its face. Such were the portentous circumstances under which this new doctrine first revealed itself in the American Senate! and then as needing a legislative sanction, as requiring an act of Congress to carry the Constitution into the territories, and to give it force and efficacy there. Failing in that attempt, the higher ground was afterwards taken, that the Constitution went of itself, and enforced itself in these territories, so far as slavery is concerned: and this, I apprehend, is what the Supreme Court has decided. This being the decision of the Court, it becomes proper to give it in their own words, thus:

"This Territory being a part of the United States, the Government and the citizen both enter it under the authority of the Constitution, with their respective rights defined and marked out; and the Federal Government can exercise no power over his person or property, beyond what that instrument confers, nor lawfully deny any right which it has reserved.

"It seems, however, to be supposed, that there is a difference between property in a slave and other property, and that different rules may be applied to it in expounding the Constitution of the United States. And the laws and usages of nations, and the writings of eminent jurists upon the relation of master and slave and their mutual rights and duties, and the powers which Governments may exercise over it, have been dwelt upon in the argument.

"Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this opinion, upon a different point, the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it, like

*Only seven Senators voted against receding, Mr. Calhoun himself not voting in this last struggle—for what reason not stated. It is due to Mr. Webster to say, that his skill and perseverance passed this bill, and prevented the Government from being stopped until a new Congress could be assembled, of which a considerable number of members were yet to be elected.

an ordinary article of merchandise and property, was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States, in every state that might desire it, for twenty years. And the Government in express terms is pledged to protect it in all future time, if the slave escapes from his owner. This is done in plain words-too plain to be misunderstood. And no word can be found in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over slave property, or which entitles property of that kind to less protection than property of any other description. The only power conferred is the power coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting the owner in his rights.

"Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the Court, that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the Territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this Territory; even if they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident." *

*This opinion of the Court, and the reasons given for it, correspond with the following resolutions submitted by Mr. Calhoun in the Senate (February, 1847):

"Resolved, That the Territories of the United States belong to the several States composing this Union, and are held by them as their joint and common property.

"Resolved, That Congress, as the joint agent and representative of the States of the Union, has no right to make any law or do any act whatever that shall directly, or by its effects, make any discrimination between the States of this Union, by which any one of them shall be deprived of its full and equal rights in any Territory of the United States acquired or to be acquired.

"Resolved, That the enactment of any law which should directly, or by its effects, deprive the citizens of any of the States of this Union from emigrating, with their property, into any of the Territories of the United States, would make such a discrimination; and would, therefore, be a violation of the Constitution, and the rights of the States from which such citizens emigrated, and in derogation of that perfect equality which belongs to them as members of this Union, and would tend directly to subvert the Union itself."

These resolutions were in response to the Wilmot proviso; and the sincerity of their author in offering them has been since shown, in a confidential letter which has come to light, in which this proviso, thus presented to the Senate to be adopted as adequate cause for dissolving the Union, was considered by Mr. Calhoun as a God-send, absolutely necessary, or something like it, to keep up the slavery agitation in the South; and, of which any compromise, adjustment, or even its defeat, would be unfortunate for the South.-See Appendix II.—These resolutions were never brought to a vote in the Senate. They were denounced upon the spot as a "fire-brand," and suffered to die out there, but sent to the slave States for adoption; by a few of which (Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, and Missouri) they were legislatively adopted, and became the basis of new party organization.

It is believed that these positions are based upon errors of fact, which being corrected, the erroneous deductions fall of themselves. The prohibition of slavery in a Territory is assumed to work an inequality in the States, allowing one part to carry its property with it--the other, not. This is a mistake a great error of fact—the source of great errors of deduction. The citizens of all the States, free and slave, are precisely equal in their capacity to carry their property with them into Territories. Each may carry whatever is property by the laws of nature: neither can carry that which is only property by statute law: and the reason is, because he cannot carry with him the law which makes it property. Either may carry the thing which is the subject of this local property, but neither can carry the law which makes it so. The Virginian may carry his man slave; but he cannot carry the Virginian law which makes him a slave. The citizen of Massachusetts may carry the pile of money which, under a State law, constitutes a bank; but he cannot carry the law or charter which makes it a bank: and his treasure is only a pile of money; and, besides being impossible, it would be absurd, and confusion confounded to be otherwise. For, if the citizen of one State might carry his slave State law with him into a Territory, the citizens of every other slave State might do the same; and then what Babylonish confusion, not merely of tongues, but of laws, would be found there! Fifteen different codes, as the slave States now number, and more to come. For every slave State has a servile code of its own, differing from others in some respects and, in some, radically: as much so as land, in the eye of the law, differs from cattle. Thus, in some States, as in Virginia, and others, slaves are only chattels: in others, as in Kentucky and Louisiana, they are real estate. How would all these codes work together in a Territory under the wing of the Constitution, protecting all equally? no law of Congress there, or of the Territory, to reconcile and harmonize them by forming them into one; no law to put the protecting power of the Constitution into action; but of itself, by its own proper vigor, it is to give general and equal protection to all slaveholders in the enjoyment of their property-each, according to the law of the State from which he came. For, there being no power in Congress, or the Territorial Legislature, to legislate upon slavery, the whole subject is left to the Constitution and the State law!

that law which cannot cross the State line! and that Constitution which gives protection to slave property but in one instance, and that only in States, not in Territories-the single instance of recovering runaways. The Constitution protect slave property in a Territory! when by that instrument a runaway from the Territory or into the Territory, cannot be reclaimed. Beautiful Constitutional protection that! only one clause under it to protect slave property, and that limited, in express words, to fugitives between State and State! and but one clause in it to protect the master against his slaves, and that limited to States! and but one clause in it to tax slaves as property, and that limited to States! and but one clause in it to give a qualified representation to Congress, and that limited to States. No; the thing is impossible. The owner cannot carry his slave State law with him into the Territory; nor can he carry it into another slave State, but must take the law which he finds there, and have his property governed by it; and, in some instances, wholly changed by it, and rights lost, or acquired by the change. For instance, in Virginia slaves are a chattel interest, and belong to the husband, though come by the wife, and may be seized and sold for his debts-even those contracted before marriage; or he may give them away, or devise them to his own kin, or children by another marriage. Removed to Kentucky with these slaves, they become real estate, and belong to the wife, and her blood; and the husband has no more rights in them than in her land. If he removed again and got into Tennessee with his slaves, they return to their chattel condition; and go as they would in Virginia. And if he passed on as far as Louisiana, another metamorphosis of his property! for there they become real estate again, governed by its laws-and also become subject (the husband's own, if he has or acquires any) to the civil law partnership between husband and wife. So that the doctrine of the Supreme Court will not do-neither in States nor Territories: for the owners can in no case carry their slave law beyond the limits of their own State.*

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*This obvious view did not escape Mr. Webster when this novel doctrine was first broached in the Senate, in 1848, (on an Oregon Territorial Bill,) nor the dissenting justices in the Dred Scott case. Mr. Webster, with a few remarks, exposed the fallacy of the objection-thus: "The southern Senators say we deprive them of the right to go into these newly acquired Territories with their property. We certainly do not

In its terms the opinion of the Supreme Court stops at the invalidation of an act of Congress which shall prohibit slavery in a Territory: upon its principle and reasons it should invalidate any other act having the same effect-whether it be the

prevent them from going into those Territories with what is, in general law, called property. But these States have by their local laws created a property in persons, and they cannot carry these local laws with them. Slavery is created, and exists by a local law, which is limited to a certain section; and it is asked that Congress shall establish a local law in other Territories to enable southern Senators to carry their particular law with them. No man can be held as a slave unless the local law accompany him."

And thus Mr. Justice M'Lean :-"Will it be said that the slave is taken as property, the same as other property which the master may own? To this I answer, that colored persons are made property by the law of the State, and no such power has been given to Congress. Does the master carry with him the law of the State from which he removes into the Territory? and does that enable him to coerce his slave in the Territory? Let us test this theory. If this may be done by a master from one slave State, it may be done by a master from every other slave State. This right is supposed to be connected with the person of the master, by virtue of the local law. Is it transferable? May it be negotiated, as a promissory note or bill of exchange? If it be assigned to a man from a free State, may he coerce the slave by virtue of it? What shall this thing be denominated? Is it personal or real property? Or is it an indefinable fragment of sovereignty, which every person carries with him from his late domicil? One thing is certain, that its origin has been very recent, and it is unknown to the laws of any civilized country. It is said the Territories are common property of the States, and that every man has a right to go there with his property. This is not controverted. But the Court say, a slave is not property beyond the operation of the local law which makes him such. Never was a truth more authoritatively and justly uttered by man. Suppose a master of a slave in a British island owned a million of property in England; would that authorize him to take his slaves with him to England? The Constitution, in express terms, recognizes the status of slavery as founded on the municipal law: 'No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall,' &c. Now, unless the fugitive escape from a place where, by the municipal law, he is held to labor, this provision affords no remedy to the master. What can be more conclusive than this? Suppose a slave escape from a Territory where slavery is not authorized by law, can he be reclaimed? In this case, a majority of the Court have said that a slave may be taken by his master into a Territory of the United States, the same as a horse, or any other kind of property. It is true, this was said by the Court, as also many other things, which are of no authority."

And thus Mr. Justice Curtis :-"Is it conceivable that the Constitution has conferred the right on every citizen to become a resident on the Territory of the United States with his slaves, and there to hold them as such, but has neither made nor provided for any municipal regulations which are essential to the existence of slavery? Is it not more rational to conclude that they who framed and adopted the Constitution, were aware that persons held to service under the laws of a State are property only to the extent and under the conditions fixed by those laws; that they must cease to be available as property, when their owners voluntarily place them permanently within