Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-10-09
0RED SCOTT DECISION.
Invoked by nocrats to Sus-
tain Ant.-E1oansion.
REPUBLICAN, POSITION III 1880.

!, o"k the Sem. Ground Thin ~ Nnu
ihst IoigreSs Ha. Fu,l Power Ia
Cavern AT Unied Siaies Territory
Wnicn Has Not keaoned statehu ID.
Ecw the deadly virus of states
rights, born of the determination to
destroy the Union, If need De, 10 Sis
tain human slavery, inhere in the De-
moCracy! David b. Hill, OF New YORK,
in speech ct BtOo!llyn recently de-
cllIed that lit is nlOnstrous doctrine
tl.lt the constitution does not extend
to the territories lie added, by way
of more complete explanation, that 1T
AG3 only nov been invoked to justify
the proposed establishment OF colonial
governments, which are ConfeSseGly to
bc and to remain outside OF the con
stltution." In this historical state
ment, Governor Hill is forty years out
vi the road; for the doctrine that he
donCunces was proudly Incorporated
by the Republican party in its national
platform OF 1850, upon which Abra
ham Lincoln stood at the time OF his
election to be president OF the United
States. The seventh plank in that plat
form reads:
-. That the new dogma,-that the
constitution, OF its own force, carries
slavery into any OF all of the terri
tories of the United States,-is dam
gerous political heresy, at variance
with the explicit provisions of that IL e.
strument itself, with contemporaneous
exposition, and with legislative and ju-
dicial precedent; is revolutionary IN its
tendency and subversive of the peace
and harmony or the country"
ii this quotation is not plain enough
to show the genesis OF the present
D7.Locratic way OF stating the doctrine
tE.t the constitution follows the
las," that had its birth in sup
pG.c of human slavery, it is put
be. Gnd question by the eighth section
o. tie Republican national platform OF
the same year, to-wit:
IS. That the normal condition of
all the territory of the United States
Is That OF freedom; that, as our repub
Iitan fathers, when they had abolished
slavery in all our national territory,
oraaiped that no person should be de-
pllyed OF lie, liberty, or property
without due process OF law, it becomes
cur duty, by legislation, whenever such
legislation is necessary, to maintain
l,t s,.~,,
against all attempts to violate it; and
We deny the authority of congress, of
territorial legislature, or OF any in
diyiduals, 10 give legal existence to
slavery in any territory OF the United
States
There is the Democratic party ar
raiGned forty years ago for setting
aside the express provisions of the
constitution itself, in order to force
slavery into free territory. That too,
as today, was done under the very
identical plea that they now put for
ward, that the constitution of its own
force carries slavery into any territory
of the United States" Mr.. Hill knows
pSiltNlly NcI NuSte lHe DeLlOCTdLIC
party got its pretended warrant for the
doctrine that it advocated forty years
ago, and which it has now revived. In
support Of 1.-THE quoted a United States
supreme court decision, which ne gave
as 'l9 Howard, 393-477," denying that
congress has plenary power to rule
territory at its discretion.
Mr.. Hill is too good lawyer not to
know that the quotation, whose origin
he thus concealed under technical
phrase, was really that most detested
opinion of Chief Justice Taney known
as the Dred Scott decision, by which
control over the extension of the area
of slavery was denied to congress and
10 any and every territory; and its
right TO indefinite expansion was de-
cared by majority of the supreme
court to be implied in the very terms
OF the constitution,
BY the Dred Scott decision slavery
WAS ordained to be the irreversible
Law of the republic and the basis OF
th,r decision survives today in the
Dnmocratic national platform adopted
at Kansas City July 8, l90O in the
smoothly stated but misleading words
that the constitution follows the
nag." This was born of that infamous
dc lsion, which the war shot to pieces
wnnn it destroyed human slavery. The
Ec. o2ratic occasion of that day for the
false doctrine has been destroyed, but
the doctrine still survives, as pernici-