The Issue Forced Upon Us.
The three hundred and forty-seven thousand five hundred and
twenty-five Slaveholders in the Republic, accomplished day
before yesterday a great success -- as shallow men estimate
success. They converted the Supreme Court of Law and Equity
of the United States of America into a propagandist of
human Slavery. Fatal day for a judiciary made reputable
throughout the world, and reliable to all in this nation,
by the learning and the virtues of Jay,
Rutledge, Ellsworth, Marshall
and Story!
The conspiracy is nearly completed. The Legislation of the
Republic is in the hands of this handfull of Slaveholders.
The United States Senate assures it to them. The Executive
power of the Government is theirs. Buchanan
took the oath of fealty to them on the steps of the Capitol
last Wednesday. The body which gives the supreme law of the
land, has just acceded to their demands, and dared to declare
that under the charter of the Nation, men of African descent
are not citizens of the United States and can not be -- that
the Ordinance of 1787 was void - that the Missouri
Compromise was void -- that human Slavery is not
a local thing, but pursues its victims to free soil, clings
to them wherever they go, and returns with them -- that the
American Congress has no power to prevent the enslavement
of men in the National Territories -- that the inhabitants
themselves of the Territories have no power to exclude
human bondage from their midst -- and that men of color can
not be suitors for justice in the Courts of the United
States! The Lemmon Case is on its way to this corrupt
fountain of law. Arrived there, a new shackle for the North
will be handed to the servile Supreme Court, to rivet upon
us. A decision of that case is expected which shall
complete the disgraceful labors of the Federal Judiciary
in behalf of Slavery -- a decision that slaves can lawfully
be held in free States, and Slavery be fully maintained
here in New York through the sanctions of "property"
contained in the Constitution. That decision will be rendered.
The Slave breeders will celebrate it as the crowning success
of a complete conquest. But how they will reckon without
their hosts!
Beneath Courts and Congresses and Presidents is the great
PEOPLE. They love liberty --
they love justice -- they love humanity. Till they affirm
the decisions of Law embruting man's divine nature, and till
they approve of legislation which defies God,
and till they order Executives to execute iniquity, this
conspiracy of the Oligarchy is wholly incomplete. That
consent will forever and ever be wanting. But one thing
will not be wanting -- the resolute purpose of the humane,
the just and the free men of the Free States, to meet the
close issue forced upon them through the decision of the
case of Dred, squarely and fairly, and never to abate
their efforts to recover the entire administration of the
Republic away from Slavery and back again to Freedom.
All who love Republican institutions and who hate Aristocracy,
compact yourselves together for the struggle which threatens
your liberty and will test your manhood!
Transcribed and reverse-order proofread by Lloyd Benson
from the Albany, New York, Evening Journal, 9 March 1857.