Abraham Lincoln

abolished slavery throughout the French Colonies. Some years afterward, the French Government sought,

with an army of 60,000 men, to reinstate slavery, but were unsuccessful, and then the white planters were

driven from the Island.]

[Footnote 32:--Vide Jefferson's Autobiography, commenced January 6th, 1821. JEFFERSON'S Works, vol. 1,

p. 49.]

[Footnote 33:--"I am not ashamed or afraid publicly to avow that the election of William H. Seward or

Salmon P. Chase, or any such representative of the Republican party, upon a sectional platform, ought to be

resisted to the disruption of every tie that binds this Confederacy together. (Applause on the Democratic side

of the House.)" _Mr. Curry, of Alabama, in the House of Representatives_.

"Just so sure as the Republican party succeed in electing a sectional man, upon their sectional, anti-slavery

platform, breathing destruction and death to the rights of my people, just so sure, in my judgment, the time

will have come when the South must and will take an unmistakable and decided action, and then he who

dallies is a dastard, and he who doubts is damned! I need not tell what I, a Southern man, will do. I think I

may safely speak for the masses of the people of Georgia--that when that event happens, they, in my

judgment, will consider it an overt act, a declaration of war, and meet immediately in convention, to take into

consideration the mode and measure of redress. That is my position; and if that be treason to the Government,

make the most of it."--_Mr. Gartell, of Georgia, in the House of Representatives_.

"I said to my constituents, and to the people of the capital of my State, on my way here, if such an event did

occur," [_i.e._, the election of a Republican President, upon a Republican platform], "while it would be their

duty to determine the course which the State would pursue, it would be my privilege to counsel with them as

to what I believed to be the proper course; and I said to them, what I say now, and what I will always say in

such an event, that my counsel would be to take independence out of the Union in preference to the loss of

constitutional rights, and consequent degradation and dishonor, in it. That is my position, and it is the position

which I know the Democratic party of the State of Mississippi will maintain."--_Gov. McRae, of Mississippi._

"It is useless to attempt to conceal the fact that, in the present temper of the Southern people, it" [_i.e._, the

election of a Republican President] "cannot be, and will not be, submitted to. The 'irrepressible conflict'

doctrine, announced and advocated by the ablest and most distinguished leader of the Republican party, is an

open declaration of war against the institution of slavery, wherever it exists; and I would be disloyal to

Virginia and the South, if I did not declare that the election of such a man, entertaining such sentiment, and

advocating such doctrines, ought to be resisted by the slaveholding States. The idea of permitting such a man

to have the control and direction of the army and navy of the United States, and the appointment of high

judicial and executive officers, POSTMASTERS INCLUDED, cannot be entertained by the South for a

moment."--_Gov. Letcher, of Virginia_.

"Slavery must be maintained--in the Union, if possible; out of it, if necessary: peaceably if we may; forcibly if

we must."--_Senator Iverson, of Georgia_.

"Lincoln and Hamlin, the Black Republican nominees, will be elected in November next, and the South will

then decide the great question whether they will submit to the domination of Black Republican rule--the

fundamental principle of their organization being an open, undisguised, and declared war upon our social

institutions. I believe that the honor and safety of the South, in that contingency, will require the prompt

secession of the slaveholding States from the Union; and failing then to obtain from the free States additional

and higher guaranties for the protection of our rights and property, that the seceding States should proceed to

establish a new government. But while I think such would be the imperative duty of the South, I should

Abraham Lincoln

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emphatically reprobate and repudiate any scheme having for its object the separate secession of South

Carolina. If Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi alone--giving us a portion of the Atlantic and Gulf

coasts--would unite with this State in a common secession upon the election of a Black Republican, I would

give my consent to the policy."--_Letter of Hon. James L. Orr, of S.C., to John Martin and others, July_ 23,

1860.]

[Footnote 34:--The Hon. John A. Andrew, of the Boston Bar, made the following analysis of the Dred Scott

case in the Massachusetts Legislature. Hon. Caleb Cushing was then a member of that body, but did not

question its correctness.

"On the question of possibility of citizenship to one of the Dred Scott color, extraction, and origin, three

Justices, viz., Taney, Wayne, and Daniels, held the negative. Nelson and Campbell passed over the plea by

which the question was raised. Grier agreed with Nelson. Catron said the question was not open. McLean

agreed with Catron, but thought the plea bad. Curtis agreed that the question was open, but attacked the plea,

met its averments, and decided that a free-born colored person, native to any State, is a citizen thereof by

birth, and is therefore a citizen of the Union, and entitled to sue in the Federal Courts.

"Had a majority of the court directly sustained the plea in abatement, and denied the jurisdiction of the Circuit

Court appealed from, then all else they could have said and done would have been done and said in a cause

not theirs to try and not theirs to discuss. In the absence of such a majority, one step more was to be taken.

And the next step reveals an agreement of six of the Justices, on a point decisive of the cause, and putting an

end to all the functions of the court.

"It is this. Scott was first carried to Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, where he remained about two years,

before going with his master to Fort Snelling, in the Territory of Wisconsin. His claim to freedom was rested

on the alleged effect of his translation from a slave State, and again into a free territory. If, by his removal to

Illinois, he became emancipated from his master, the subsequent continuance of his pilgrimage into the

Louisiana purchase could not add to his freedom, nor alter the fact. If, by reason of any want or infirmity in

the laws of Illinois, or of conformity on his part to their behests, Dred Scott remained a slave while he

remained in that State, then--for the sake of learning the effect on him of his territorial residence beyond the

Mississippi, and of his marriage and other proceedings there, and the effect of the sojournment and marriage

of Harriet, in the same territory, upon herself and her children--it might become needful to advance one other

step into the investigation of the law; to inspect the Missouri Compromise, banishing slavery to the south of

the line of 36° 30' in the Louisiana purchase.

"But no exigency of the cause ever demanded or justified that advance; for six of the Justices, including the

Chief Justice himself, decided that the status of the plaintiff, as free or slave, was dependent, not upon the

laws of the State in which he had been, but of the State of Missouri, in which he was at the commencement of

the suit. The Chief Justice asserted that 'it is now firmly settled by the decisions of the highest court in the

State, that Scott and his family, on their return were not free, but were, by the laws of Missouri, the property

of the defendant.' This was the burden of the opinion of Nelson, who declares 'the question is one solely

depending upon the law of Missouri, and that the Federal Court, sitting in the State, and trying the case before

us, was bound to follow it.' It received the emphatic endorsement of Wayne, whose general concurrence was

with the Chief Justice. Grier concurred in set terms with Nelson on all 'the questions discussed by him.'

Campbell says, 'The claim of the plaintiff to freedom depends upon the effect to be given to his absence from

Missouri, in company with his master in Illinois and Minnesota, and this effect is to be ascertained by