Is where he dies for man."

The slave power, defeated in Kansas, fearful of the result of the vote
in other territories to determine their future status, found aid and
comfort from Judge Taney, a Supreme Judge of the United States.
Bancroft, the historian, has said: "In a great Republic an attempt to
overthrow a State owes its strength to and from some branch of the
Government." 'Tis said that this Chief Justice, without necessity or
occasion, volunteered to come to the rescue of slavery, and, being the
highest court known to the law, the edict was final, and no appeal could
lie, save to the bar of humanity and history. Against the memory of the
nation, against decisions and enactments, he announced that, slaves
being property, owners could claim constitutional protection in the
territories; that the Constitution upheld slavery against any act of a
State Legislature, and even against Congress. Slavery, previous to 1850,
was regulated by municipal law; the slave was held by virtue of the laws
of the State of his location or of kindred slave States. When he escaped
that jurisdiction he was free. By the decision of Judge Taney, instead
of slavery being local, it was national and freedom outlawed; the slave
could not only be reclaimed in any State, but slavery could be
established wherever it sought habitation.

Black laws had been passed in Northern States and United States
Commissioners appointed in these States searched for fugitives, where
they had, in fancied security, resided for years, built homes, and
reared families, seizing and remanding them back into slavery, causing
an era of terror, family dismemberment, and flight, only to be
remembered with sadness and horror. For had not the heartless dictum
come from a Chief Justice of the United States--the "Jeffry of American
jurisprudence," that it had been ruled that black men had no rights a
white man was bound to respect?

The slave power, fortified with this declaration, resolved that if at
the approaching election they did not _succeed_ they would _secede_.
Lincoln was elected, and the South, true to its resolve, prepared for
the secession of its States. Pennsylvania is credited with having then
made the last and meanest gift to the Presidency in the person of James
Buchanan. History tells of a Nero who fiddled while Rome burned. The
valedictory of this public functionary breathing aid and comfort to
secession, was immediately followed by South Carolina f