March 13, 1857
A brief note calls attention to an abstract of the decision in another portion of the paper. “The decision is, to the last degree, infamous and tyrannical. None more cruel or abominable was ever given by Scroggs or Jeffries.”
The major points of the decision are included in another part of the paper. “The delivery of the opinion occupied about three hours, and was listened to with profound attention by a crowded court room. Among the auditors were gentlemen of eminent legal ability, and a due proportion of ladies.”
In a separate article, from the New York Tribune, that paper comments that the decision “has been heard and commented on here with mingled derision and contempt…If epithets and denunciation could sink a judicial body, the Supreme Court of the United States, would never be heard of again.” In regard to Taney, “His arguments were based on gross historical falsehood and bold assumptions, and went the whole length of the extreme Southern doctrine. He held that the Constitution was made only for white men, and that it carried slavery into the Territories. The decision, as it stands, is ample to head off all legislation by Congress on the slavery question, and effectually bridles the free States.”
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