“Slavery must be maintained—­in the Union, if possible; out of it, if necessary:  peaceably if we may; forcibly if we must.”—­Senator Iverson, of Georgia.

“Lincoln and Hamlin, the Black Republican nominees, will be elected in November next, and the South will then decide the great question whether they will submit to the domination of Black Republican rule—­the fundamental principle of their organization being an open, undisguised, and declared war upon our social institutions.  I believe that the honor and safety of the South, in that contingency, will require the prompt secession of the slaveholding States from the Union; and failing then to obtain from the free States additional and higher guaranties for the protection of our rights and property, that the seceding States should proceed to establish a new government.  But while I think such would be the imperative duty of the South, I should emphatically reprobate and repudiate any scheme having for its object the separate secession of South Carolina.  If Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi alone—­giving us a portion of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts—­would unite with this State in a common secession upon the election of a Black Republican, I would give my consent to the policy.”—­Letter of Hon. James L. Orr, of S.C., to John Martin and others, July 23, 1860.]

[Footnote 34:—­The Hon. John A. Andrew, of the Boston Bar, made the following analysis of the Dred Scott case in the Massachusetts Legislature.  Hon. Caleb Cushing was then a member of that body, but did not question its correctness.

“On the question of possibility of citizenship to one of the Dred Scott color, extraction, and origin, three Justices, viz., Taney, Wayne, and Daniels, held the negative.  Nelson and Campbell passed over the plea by which the question was raised.  Grier agreed with Nelson.  Catron said the question was not open.  McLean agreed with Catron, but thought the plea bad.  Curtis agreed that the question was open, but attacked the plea, met its averments, and decided that a free-born colored person, native to any State, is a citizen thereof by birth, and is therefore a citizen of the Union, and entitled to sue in the Federal Courts.

“Had a majority of the court directly sustained the plea in abatement, and denied the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court appealed from, then all else they could have said and done would have been done and said in a cause not theirs to try and not theirs to discuss.  In the absence of such a majority, one step more was to be taken.  And the next step reveals an agreement of six of the Justices, on a point decisive of the cause, and putting an end to all the functions of the court.