sful, would place all our rights
and liberties at the mercy of passion, anarchy, and violence. I repeat,
therefore, that if resistance to the decisions of the Supreme Court of
the United States, in a matter like the points decided in the Dred Scott
case, clearly within their jurisdiction as defined by the Constitution,
shall be forced upon the country as a political issue, it will become
a distinct and naked issue between the friends and enemies of the
Constitution--the friends and the enemies of the supremacy of the laws."

I have said, in substance, that the Dred Scott decision was in part
based on assumed historical facts which were not really true, and I
ought not to leave the subject without giving some reasons for saying
this; I therefore give an instance or two, which I think fully sustain
me. Chief-Justice Taney, in delivering the opinion of the majority of
the court, insists at great length that the negroes were no part of the
people who made, or for whom was made, the Declaration of Independence,
or the Constitution of the United States.

On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissenting opinion, shows that in
five of the then thirteen States--to wit, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina--free negroes were voters,
and in proportion to their numbers had the same part in making the
Constitution that the white people had. He shows this with so much
particularity as to leave no doubt of its truth; and as a sort of
conclusion on that point, holds the following language:

"The Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the
United States, through the action in each State, of those persons who
were qualified by its laws to act thereon in behalf of themselves and
all other citizens of the State. In some of the States, as we have seen,
colored persons were among those qualified by law to act on the subject.
These colored persons were not only included in the body of 'the
people of the United States' by whom the Constitution was ordained and
established; but in at least five of the States they had the power to
act, and doubtless, did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of
its adoption."

Again, Chief-Justice Taney says:

"It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion, in
relation to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and
enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of
Independence, and when the Consti