Davis notes that Breckinridge's December 21, 1859, address to the state legislature marked a change in his public statements about slavery. He decried the Republicans' desire for "negro equality", his first public indication that he may have believed blacks were biologically inferior to whites. He declared that the Dred Scott decision showed that federal courts afforded adequate protection for slave property, but advocated a federal slave code if future courts failed to enforce those protections; this marked a departure from his previous doctrine of "perfect non-interference". Asserting that John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry proved Republicans intended to force abolition on the South, he predicted "resistance [to the Republican agenda] in some form is inevitable". He still urged the Assembly against secession—"God forbid that the step shall ever be taken!"—but his discussion of growing sectional conflict bothered some, including his uncle Robert.