d Jackson and their administrations. The Missouri
Compromise line had stood unassailed for above a third of a century.
In 1848 Polk and his Cabinet approved the Oregon Bill prohibiting
slavery; also Pierce and his Administration approved (1853) the
extension of the same prohibition over Washington Territory.

Earlier, in 1845, the Texas Annexation Act, as we have seen, re-
enacted the 36 deg. 30' line of restriction for slavery, and in 1848
the pro-slavery party in Congress voted to extend this line to
California. Congress again and again exercised the power of
legislating for the Territories; eleven times, between 1823 and
1838, it amended the laws of the Legislature of Florida, thus
asserting the absolute right to legislate for the Territories.
The Supreme Court of the United States for nearly seventy years
had assumed and acted on the principle of the right of Congress to
legislate for them.

Now all became changed, as though a new oracle of construction had
appeared, higher and wiser than all who had gone before--an oracle
who knew more of the Constitution than its makers. This new oracle
did not divine the fates. The announcement of the principle that
the Constitution treats negroes "as persons whom it is _morally_
lawful to deal in as articles of property and to hold as slaves,"
shocked the consciences of just men throughout the earth.

Referring to the times when the Declaration of Independence and
the Constitution of the United States were adopted, and speaking
of the African race, the Chief-Justice, in his opinion, said:

"They had, for more than a century before, been regarded as beings
of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the
white race, either in social or political relations: and so far
inferior, _that they had no rights which the white man was bound
to respect:_ and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced
to slavery for his benefit."

These and kindred expressions astonished all civilization and all
Christian people.

The North was stunned by the decision, some fearing that slavery
was soon to become national. The South exulted boastfully of their
cause,(95) loudly proclaiming the paramount, binding force of the
supreme judicial tribunal in the Republic. Free labor and free
laborers were decried. They were, in speech and press, called
"_mud sills of society:_" only negro slavery ennobled the white
race.

The over-zealous South was even persuaded that the