tion, involves nothing of the
original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point--the
right of a people to make their own constitution--upon which he and the
Republicans have never differed.
The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator
Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery, in its
present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The working
points of that machinery are:
Firstly, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no
descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense
of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. This point
is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible event, of the
benefit of that provision of the United States Constitution which declares
that "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several States."
Secondly, That, "subject to the Constitution of the United States,"
neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature can exclude slavery from
any United States Territory. This point is made in order that individual
men may fill up the Territories with slaves, without danger of losing
them as property, and thus to enhance the chances of permanency to the
institution through all the future.
Thirdly, That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free
State makes him free, as against the holder, the United States courts will
not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State
the negro may be forced into by the master. This point is made, not to
be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in for a while, and apparently
indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the logical
conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred
Scott, in the free State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do
with any other one, or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other
free State.
Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska
doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion,
at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted
down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now are; and partially,
also, wither we are tending.
It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back and run the mind
over the string of historical facts already stated. Several things
will now appea
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