“The courts are the tribunals prescribed by the Constitution and created by the authority of the people to determine, expound, and enforce the law.  Hence, whoever resists the final decision of the highest judicial tribunal aims a deadly blow at our whole republican system of government—­a blow which, if successful, 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 Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted.”

And again, after quoting from the Declaration, he says: 

“The general words above quoted would seem to include the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day, would be so understood.”