ansas shall be trodden
under foot; they put forward the natural right of slavery. Why shall
they be prevented from settling in a Territory with the slaves, their
property? When this Territory shall be by and by transformed into a
State, there will doubtless be a right to determine the question; but to
abolish slavery is quite a different thing from excluding it.

If the South did not win the cause this time, it was not the fault of
the government of the United States, but of the inhabitants of Kansas.
As for Mr. Buchanan, he showed himself what he has constantly been, the
most humble servant of the slavery party. They came together into
collision with _squatter sovereignty:_ they found for the first time in
their path that solid resistance of the West which was manifested in the
last election, and which, I firmly hope, is about to save America. But
in the mean time, they had taken a new step forward--a formidable step,
and one which introduced them into the very bosom of the free States:
they had obtained a decision from the Supreme Court--the Dred Scott
decree. In the preamble of this too celebrated decision, the highest
judicial power of the Confederation did not fear to proclaim two
principles: first, that there is no difference between a slave and any
other kind of property; secondly, that all American citizens may settle
everywhere with their property.

What a menace for the free-soilers! How easy to see to what lengths the
South would shortly go! Since slavery constituted property like any
other, it was necessary to prohibit the majority from proscribing it in
States as well as in Territories. Who knew whether we should not some
day see slaves and even slave-markets (the right of property carries
with it that of sale) in the streets even of Philadelphia or Boston!

Let no one cry out against this: those who demanded and those who framed
the Dred Scott decision knew probably what they wished to do. With the
right of property understood in this wise, no State has the power either
to vote the real abolition of slavery, or to forbid the introduction of
slaves, or to refuse their extradition. And, effectively, horrible laws,
ordering fugitive slaves to be given up, were accorded to the violent
demands of the South. Liberty by contact with the soil, that great maxim
of our Europe, was interdicted America; the very States that most
detested slavery were condemned to assist, indignant and shuddering, in
the federal inva