relation to the Constitution therein treated
as being precisely the same? While the opinion of the Court by Chief
Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all
the concurring judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the
United States neither permits Congress nor a territorial legislature to
exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to
declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State or the
people of a State to exclude it. _Possibly_ this is a mere omission; but
who can be quite sure if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the
opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a State to
exclude slavery from their limits,--just as Chase and Mace sought to get
such declaration in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the
Nebraska Bill,--I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been
voted down in the one case as it had been in the other? The nearest
approach to the point of declaring the power of a State over slavery is
made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using the precise
idea, and almost the language too, of the Nebraska act. On one occasion
his exact language is "except in cases where the power is restrained by
the Constitution of the United States, the law of the State is supreme
over the subject of slavery within its jurisdiction." In what cases the
power of the State is so restrained by the United States Constitution is
left an open question, precisely as the same question, as to the
restraint on the power of the Territories, was left open in the Nebraska
act. Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche,
which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision,
declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit _a
State_ to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be
expected if the doctrine of "care not whether slavery be voted down or
voted up" shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise
that such a decision can be maintained when made.

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in
all the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming,
and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political
dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down, pleasantly
dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their
State free, and we shall awake to the r