6 ing on their exertions in favor of a liberty which they denied to their fellow men. No such reproach, Judge Taney, can be brought on the heads of the great worthies of the Revolution. The honorable Senator from Louisiana, with that plausible and beautiful style of which he is so completely master, tried to escape from the rugged inconsistencies of this nefarious decision, by passing a eulogy on the old Chief Justice. It was beautiful; it relieved him from the burden of encountering the enormous, glaring un- constitutionalities and breaches of law summed up there. Why, sir, he went so far as to send the old man to Heaven even before he died. I do not think that decision will help him on his road. He coolly joins the current of popular opinion, turns away from the poor man who has sought the administration of law in his behalf, and says to him, “ you are a negro, and you cannot sue in court; if you have rights, we cannot investigate them; you are a mere chattel/’ Sir, if that helps a man to heaven, God forbid that I should act upon such principles. CONGRESS NOT BARRED OUT. Therb is another consideration connected with this decision. I have not time, and I have not made it a point, to go into all its enormities. There are only one or two points in it that I wish to bring before the Senate. So far as I have heard them, those who yield to the decision of the Supreme Court seem to suppose that it is obligatory on everybody, and that the Senate of the United States, like poor Dred Scott, are barred and thrown-out of court; that the President of the United States, and the House of Representatives, and every department of the Government, are ignored, and no better off than poor Dred Scott. I deny the doctrine—the most dangerous that could be admitted in a free country—that these judges, holding their । office for life, reposing with total immunity, have any right to decide the law of the land for every department of this Government. Sir, you would have the most concentrated, irresponsible despotism on God’s earth, if you give such an interpretation to the decisions of that or any other court. No, sir ; each department must act for itself. I stand here, clothed with the same power, to proclaim what is the Constitution upon the passage of any law that comes before us, as that or any other court. I follow my own interpretation of the Constitution; I am bound to do it; I have sworn that I would, and I beg of the Senate never to yield to this arbitrary doctrine that the Supreme Court can bind the other departments of the Government; that we must yield to the decisions that they make. No, sir ; never. They may decide on the poor man’s rights, who is so unfortunate as to fall within their grasp. They have decided that Dred Scott could not sue in the court. R'lght' or wrong, constitutional or unconstitutional, that stands. It is the highest court; it has decided in the last resort. Dred Scott’s rights have been determined, and determined barbarous ? The court tells us we have men among us so low that they can have no rights ; that they are mere merchandise. But I will not travel into that field, which has been so ably discussed by the Senator from New Hampshire, [Mr Hale ] They grounded their decision upon history, not the Constitution. They travelled out of the Constitution of the United States, and sought to found their decision upon what they picked up as scraps of history here and there; and that history was entirely and utterly perverted, as was proved by the Senator from New Hampshire, so palpably that no gentleman on the other side has yet risen to challenge its accuracy; and they cannot do it. I have a law of Virginia here in my drawer, which was passed at about the period of which the Supreme Court speak when they say that negroes were considered as chattels whom any man might seize and convert to his own use. At that very instant, in old Virginia, he was a citizen, made so by statute, if he was free; and I do not know but that he had all the rights of a white man. At all events, he was declared there to be a citizen. He was then a citizen in at least eight of the States of this Union. Mr. MASON. Will the Senator advert to that statute, and give me its title ? I will not interrupt him now, though. Mr. WADE. I will show it to the gentleman. •Mr. MASON. I will not interrupt the gentleman now. Mr. WADE. I have it here, though I may not be able to put my hands on the exact place at this moment. In eight States of the Union, a black man was a citizen; and I do not know but that he was entitled to all the rights of a white man; for at that period you will find, if you search the history of the country, that a distinction between black and white was not taken. It was between slave and free. That was the question. Up to the time alluded to by the Chief Justice, I can find nothing that discriminates between the color of men. The only question was, whether a man was a freeman. If he was, he was entitled to all the rights of a freeman ; if he was not, he was a slave. But the Chief Justice says that all of them were so held. Good heavens I Had he not heard of the scathing anathema of Thomas Jefferson, of Judge Tucker,- and of other great lights and worthies of ♦he Old Dominion, about that same period, in language more pointed than any other men could use ? When was it that Thomas Jefferson said he trembled for his country, when he reflected that God was just, and that his ven geance would not sleep forever? Yet the Chief Justice says it was not controverted by anybody. Sir, it was controverted by every man of the Revolution. They, seeking their own rights at the cannon’s mouth, claiming for themselves the utmost freedom, and invoking the aid of God to help them to work it out, had not the impudence to look to Heaven, and ask a bless
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