The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-01-24
THURsDAY, JANUARY q, lse7.
A Cheap Job of Whitewashing.

a CneHp JOD Oh WnIteWdBnluR,
IT is amusing to behold the subterfuges re-
sorted to by our conservative brethren to
clear the memory of the late Chief Justice
Taney of that terrible shadow, the infamous
Dred Scott decision They now pretend that
the Chief Justice did not decide "that the
negro had no rights that the white man was
bound to respect" but that he merely
asserted as a historical fact that such was
the universal sentiment of the country at the
time of the adoption of the Federal Constitu-
ton, and for q hundred years before. But
this does not mend the matter any. The
assumed historical fact is no fact, but an
abominable falsehood. There never was
time in this country when such a sentiment
was generally entertained. At the very
period to which Chief Justice Taney ascribed
the prevalency Of that inhuman sentiment
negroes were citizens ofthe United States,were
voters on the same terms with other persons
in a majority OF the States, were soldiers in
the Revolutionary army and in the militia
of many OF the States. So that the late Chief
Justice is forced into the position either Of
having been grossly ignorant Of the history
nous sentiment, and falsely ascribed it to the
fathers Of the republic.
There is no escape from this. The line Of
defense resorted to by Taney's apollo
gists proves it, Thus, our Democratic
contemporary attempts to show that
TaDey's statement that the negro
race was regarded as having no rights
hot yuh ifa is
torically correct by the weak device Of
quoting the language of a Massachusetts
Judge, forty years after slavery had been
abolished in that State, in which the judge
describes the condition Of q sldUe, and de-
scribes it correctly, as slavery existed in the
United States from the beginning down to the
time of its abolition But the question is
not as to the condition of Sldoes, but that of
the negro race. Taney's sentiment was in
vented to justify the exclusion of free colored
men from citizenship in the United States.
That our contemporary should have resorted to
such O petty and transparent bubble shows
how desperate poor old Taney's case is. He
stands convicted before the bar of history, Of
inUenting an infamous and inhuman senti-
ment and then of falsely ascribing it to the
noble men who founded the American Re-
public; and he did all this for the purpose OF
decitizenizing an entire race, and OF extend
ing system oil terrible oppression over all the
Territories of the United States.
The history Of the Dred Scott decision is
instructive. That decision was the fruit Of
a conspiracy between the Supreme Court and
the slave power, to extend slavery into the
Territories of the United States, and, finally,
into the free States themselves. 1t was in
exposing this conspiracy against the iber-
ties of the country, that Abraham Lincoln
first achieved that distinction which after
wards made him the standard-bearer OF the
nation in it's great and bloody contest with
the slave power. The decision itself never
carried with il any moral weight, The con-
science of the nation condemned it. The
other departments OF the Government, and
the Court itself, have since ignored it.
Negroes are now recognized by all the De-
partments Of the Government as citizens, and
are admitted to practice at the bar OF the
very Court which decided that they were not
citizens, while the friends of the late Chief JUS
tice are vainly seeking to screen his memory
from the opprobrium OF the civilized world.
Let the Supreme Court Of to-day take warn
ingl There is an immortality OF infamy as
well as OF glory.