New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-05-22

The augmentation Of the FIVE shareholders who
cOncocted at least subscribed TO- the opinion OF
the Court in the bred Scott case, is based so far
as relates to the point that persons Of African
descent cannot be citizens of the United States,
upon the fact, that not only were large portion Of
these persons held in Slavery at the time when the
Federal Constitution was adopted, but that even
those of them who were free were subjected tocer-
tain restrictions and disabilities, going to show, in
deed establishing beyond all question: as the argu-
ment of the FIVE shareholders maintains, that in the
view of the trainers of the Federal Constitution, per-
sons ofAfrcan descent whether slaves OF free were,
in the words of these advocates for the extending
Of Slavery "beings Of an inferior order and Alto
"gether unfit to associate with the white race,
"eher in social or political relations; and so far
"inferiOr that they had no rights nhich the ,ohue
Imam naS bound 10 respect and that the negro
Knight justly and lawfully be reduced to Slavery
'.for his ii. e., the white mans ben.tt, being
"boueht and sold and treated as an ordinary article
"of merchandise and traffic. wherever profit
"could be made by it. This opinion" so the reck-
less and graceess calumniators Of Washington and
Jefferson, of Mason, Madison, Henry and Jay,
and the Revolutionary. Fathers generally,
proceed to assert, "was at that time
" fixed and unrersal in the civilized ~ portion of
" the white race"-Franklin, Washington, Jeffer-
son, Mason, Madison, Henry, and the other dis
tnguished men who openly proclaimed at that
time their hostility to negro Slavery as alike I'M
polite and wicked, being thus decided by
Chief Justice fancy and bis brethren to have been
no better than white savsges and barbarians.
" 1t was regarded" 80 these Judges allege as an
" axiom in morals, as well as in politics,
" which no one disputed Washington
Jefferson, Henry &c, being now decided
to have been not as before savages and barbarians
but mere nobodes-" or thought of disputing,
and men in every grade and position in society
" daily and perpetually acted upon it in
d" their private pursuits well as in
"matters of public concern, without doubt
" ing for moment the correctness of this
"opiniOn.' Starting from these premises, the FIVE
shareholders proceed at their leisure, and with inf
mite gravity and delberaton to draw the conclusion
that it is absurd and impossible to suppose that
such persons would have been recognized as citi-
gems under the Federal Constitution.
But though our FIVE stockholders were az patient
at drawing as so many yoke of oxen the conclusion
won't come till the premises are first established.
OF the facts relied upon 70 establish these premises
we have already given some specimens, namely, the
law in Massachusetts, against the intermarriage Of
blacks and whites, and the fact that the New
Hampshire militia law, passed in ISIS and reenacted
in 1855, provides only for the enrolment of free
white citizens The other facts of this class refer
red TO by the Court to sustain their statement to
the light in which the African race was regarded in
the revolutionary times are the following: Laws
against intermar1iages in Maryland Rhode Island
and Connecticut: law of Massachusetts, Of 1905
forbidding any negro mulatto to smite or strike
"any person of the English or other Christian ma
elton" under pain of being severely whipped; the
reason given in the preamble of the Connecticut
law of IVA prohibiting the further Importation OF
slaves namely, "that the increase OF slaves IN this
State is injurious to the poor and announcement"
whence ChieEJustice fancy and his brother slave
holders argue that Slavery was abolished In Con-
necticut. and indeed in all the Northern States
solely aud exclusively out Of regard TO the interests
of the whites. and not in the slightest degree from
any motive of humanity or justice toward the
blacks; the law passed at the same time in Con-
necticut, and not repealed till l799-about the year.
if we recolect right of the repeal of the Connect
cut law authorizing white debtors to be sold into
slavery till their debts were paddy which negro
Indian or muatto servants found wandering with
out written pass. or any free negro travelling with
out ps,s. was liable to arrest; the famous, or
rather Infamous. law of Connecticut of 1888, pro-
hbitng the establishment in snytOwn of that State
without the previous consent of the inhabitants of
schools for the instruction of persons Of the African
race not inhabitants of the State, and Judge Dag
pett's opinion sustaining the cOnstitutonslty Of
that law on the ground that negroes could not be
citizen. Of the United States-though We must do
Judge Daggett and the other supporters Of that
narrow souled and discreditabe act the justice TO
say that they would hardly have imagined the use
to which that act would subsequently be put for
backeninc the character of America and giving per-
petity 70 Slavery, so remarkably verifying in their
case the observation of the poet:
The =, IL that men 90 lives s.ter them;
The COED i. If, inferred u ith 'arir 5ouel"
Such are all the particular facts Of State legsla-
ton to which the hye shareholders refer TO verify
the extraordinary statements az to the feeling
and opinion Us to persons Vi African deseeG! Of