THE DRED SCOTT CASE.
Richmond, Virginia, Enquirer [Democratic]
(10 March 1857)
In anticipation of the definitive decision of the Supreme Court of the United
States in the Dred Scott case some months or more ago, its adjudication was
announced through a respectable proportion of the press, emanating, we do not
now recollect precisely, whence or how; but, as the sequel shows, not from mere
conjecture, or without reliable data, for it was then stated that seven of the
nine judges constituting the court, agreed on the opinion that the Missouri
Compromise was unconstitutional, and consequently, that the rights originating
in it and under it, were even factitious and ineffective. And it will be seen
by the authentic annunciation of the grave and deliberate decision of that august
body, in another column, that what was rumor then is reality now. -- Thus has
a politico-legal question, involving others of deep import, been decided emphatically
in favor of the advocates and supporters of the Constitution and the Union,
the equality of the States and the rights of the South, in contradistinction
to and in repudiation of the diabolical doctrines inculcated by factionists
and fanatics; and that too by a tribunal of jurists, as learned, impartial and
unprejudiced as perhaps the world has ever seen. A prize, for which the athletes
of the nation have often wrestled in the halls of Congress, has been awarded
at last, by the proper umpire, to those who have justly won it. The nation has
achieved a triumph, sectionalism has been rebuked, and abolitionism has been
staggered and stunned. Another supporting pillar has been added to our institutions;
the assailants of the South and enemies of the Union have been driven from their
point d'appui; a patriotic principle has been pronounced; a great, national,
conservative, union saving sentiment has been proclaimed. An adjudication of
the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, in the Dred Scott case, inseparably
embraced collateral questions of such character, as also to involve incidental
issues, not unfrequently arising in the councils of the country, and which have
ever proved, points of irreconcilable antagonism between the friends and enemies
of the institutions of the South; all of which, it will be seen, have been uneqivocally
established in accordance with the sense of the Southern people. And thus it
is, that reason and right, justice and truth, always triumph over passion and
prejudice, ignorance and envy, when submitted to the deliberations of honest
and able men: that the dross and the genuine metal are separated when the ore
is accurately assayed.