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
85
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
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