elf said it was "a fixed
principle of the law of England, that a slave becomes free as soon as he
touches her shores"--that he declared as law what was not the law of
civilized nations; that in 1762 Lord Northington declared that "as soon
as a man sets foot on English ground he is free"; and that Lord
Mansfield had, in 1772, held that "Slavery is so odious that it cannot
be established without positive law." He knew (or he declared what he
did not know) that at that day the sentiment in France was so directly
to the contrary, that in 1791 the law was "_Tout individu est libre
aussitot qu'il est en France_." At the time to which he referred, public
opinion in the American States and in foreign countries, and the
legislation of the various States, were just the opposite of what he
stated them to be. Liberty was just at the moment more truly the
sentiment of the country and of states in amity with it than at any
other. The assertion, that colored persons could not be and were not
citizens of the several States, was simply false. In most if not in all
of the States such persons were citizens. In 1776, the Quakers refused
fellowship with such as held slaves; that sect, through all the States,
enfranchised their slaves, who, on such enfranchisement, became
citizens. American courts were not behind the English courts. States
adopted the language of the Declaration into their Constitutions for the
purpose of universal emancipation, and the courts decided that that was
its effect. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution the leading
men of all sections considered emancipation essential to the realization
of the American idea; for their government was founded on a theory, and
avowed principles, which rendered it necessary, and which, with the
performance of the pledges of the States and the exercise of the powers
directly given to the Union, would make liberty universal and perpetual.

Taney even argued that persons of African descent could not be citizens,
because they could "enter every State when they pleased, without pass or
passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they
pleased, to go where they please, at every hour of the day or night,
without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for
which a white man would be punished; and it would give them full liberty
of speech, in public and in private, upon all subjects upon which its
own citizens might speak, to hold public meetings," a