Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1857-03-25

The DECISION OF, TIE SUPREME CoURf N THE DRIED
Scorr CAsE.-The New York Journal Of Commerce.
Of the soundest and abest journals in the coun-
try thus notices the late decision Of the Supreme
Court:
1.-THE DECISION OF THE SUPREME CouRr.-It was
not to be expected that the abolition press would
readily concur in the wisdom, justice, and consttu-
tionality Of the decision recently delivered in the
Supreme Court of the United States in the case
of Scott %. Sanford; but it was hardly to be sup
posed that journals claiming to be respectable should
as to assert that the solemn and deliberate judgment
Of the highest tribunal in the land is entitled to no
more "moral weight than would be the judgment
Of a majority of those congrcgated in any Washing
ton bar-room" or to impugn the honesty and purity
Of the great constitutional lawyers who occupy the
exalted position of supreme and final judges of all
matters relating the Interpretation of the const-
tuition and the laws. We believe. however, that
these indecent and contemplate calumnies will meet
with no approving response beyond the limited cir
Gle of disappointed actionists whose vocation it is
to fomcnt strife and dscord to subserve individual
and selfish ends that by the great masses of the peo-
pie who prefer truth to error light to darkness, upon
important political questions, the decision will be
respected and honored, and that it will be accepted
permanent record stamped with the absolute
authority of the constitution itself
1t is now decided on authority which admits Of
sumo to dispute, that negroes, whether bond free,
cannot be citizens of the United States according to
the constitution that it is not in the power of any
one particular State, by comforting citizenship with
in its limits on negro, to endow him with full citi-
zenship in the other States of the Union without
thu consent that the ordinance of 1857 adopted by
the thirteen colonies while they formed q confede,a-
ton " for mutual protection" was superseded by
the present constitution, which was not framed un-
til after the passage Of that ordinance and which, SO
far from prohibiting slavery or involuntary servi-
tudc, expressly declare that I" nothing in the con.
sttution shall be so construed as to prejudice any
claims of the United States any particular State"
with regard TO the common property; that as a ne
cessary sequence of this decision, the act of 1920
known as the Missouri Compromise, is void and
unwarrante'l by the constitution, it not being in the
power Of Congress to draw arbitrary line across
the United States and to declare that north of that
line United States citizens forbidden to hold
slaves; that the temporary residence of a slave in
free State does not legally render him free when
he returns to slave State and that it is not in the
power Of Congress "to legisiate slavery into any
State or Territory, nor to exclude it therefrOm but
that the constitution vests that power in the people
of the States and Territories alone, who are "per-
fecty free to form and regulate their domestice in.
situations in their own way, subject only to the pro-
visions of the constitution of the United States"
The vast and comprehensive social and political
importance of this lucid and convincing judgment
of the first constitutional authorities in the republic
cannot be too highly estimated. 1t dissipates the
mist in which We have been developed for years; it
exposes in all their deormity the slavery heresies
by which have been disturbed for more than half
century; it lays down, in language stripped of all
sophstry sectional bias the relations which should
exist between the States and Territories ofthe Union
it gives to the North to the South to the East, and
to the West the true chart and compass by which to
steer, and it proclams to the people that they alone
have the right, at all times and under all circum-
stances, to provide their own local government, to
regulate their own affairs, and to decide for them
selves whether they will will not adopt domestic
servitude of their institutions.
The people, who reverence the constitution and
the laws and who only need to be shown the truth
to adopt and obey it, will hail the decision with
tisacton, and will regard its authoritative and final
settlement of grevious sectional issues as almost the
greatest political boon which has been vouchsafed
to since the foundation of the republic. The
demagogues who see the fuel upon which they re-
lied for knding the flames of dscoId and fanaticsn
thus snatched from their grasp may seek to assai
the ilusrious judges by whom this grand exposition
Of constitutional rights has been promulgated; bu
their shafts never reach the height which ihos,
gifted men occupy, as we'll by their official station
in the veneration and respect of the people,"