Southwest Washington labor press. [volume] (Hoquiam, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1924-11-28

u Nhg OAtCa otAtIo htSs " AAotSu ~
an address on the life and character
Of the martyred President, by George
Bancroft, the noted historian.
In his address Mr.. Bancroft ana
lyzed the historical struggle for the
abolition of chattel slavery in the
United States and the development IN
the forepart of the last century of
NEW school Of politicians who said
that slavery was not evil but good"
and who sought to destroy the estab-
lished line in the territories between
freedom and slavery.
Coming down to the eighteen-ffties,
Mr.. Bancroft charged that slave own
ers and their politicians determined
to use the Supreme Court Of the Unit
ed States to carry their end and used
Chief Justice fancy and the bred
Scott decision as a means. Mr.. Ban
croft said:
"Our meeting today is, rs it were,
at the grave, in the presence of eter-
nifty, and the truth must be uttered in
soberness and sincerity. In 9 great
republic, as was observed more than
two thousand years ago, any attempt
to overturn the state owes its strength
to aid from some branch Of the gov
eminent. The Chief Justice Of the
United States, without any necessity
or occasion, volunteered to come to the
rescue of the theory of slavery; and
from this court there lay no appeal
but to the bar Of humanity and his
tory. Against the Constitution,
against the memory Of the nation,
against previous decision, against
series of enactments, he decided that
the slave is property; that slave prop
erty is entitled to no less protection
than any other property; that the
Constitution upholds it in every terri
tory against any act Of local legis-
lature, and even against Congress
itself; or, as the President of that
term tersely promulgated the saying,
Kansas is as much a slave State as
South Carolina or Georgia: slavery,
by virture of the Constitution, exists
in every territory" The municipal
character of slavery being thus taken
away, and slavery properly decreed to
be sacred the authority of the courts
was invoked to introduce it by the
comfy of law into States where slav-
cry had been abolished, and in one
Of the courts of the United States
Judge pronounced the African slave
trade legitimate, and numerous and
powerful advocates demanded its res
toration.
Moreover, the Chief Justice, in his
elaborate opinion, announced whati
had never been heard from any magl
istrate of Greece or Rome; what was
unknown to civil law, and canon law,
and feudal law; and common law, and
law; unknown to Jay,
II Rutledge, Ellsworth and Marshall
that there are slave races The spirit
IF evil is intensely logical. Having
the authority of this decision, five
States swiftly followed the earlier ex-
ample of a sixth, and opened the way
for reducing the free negro to bond |
age; the migration free negro became
a slave if he but entered within the
jurisdiction of a seventh and an
eighth, from its extent and soil, and
mineral resources detained to incalcu-
liable greatness, closed its eyes on its
coming prosperity, and enacted, as by
Taney's dictum it had the right to do,
that every free black man who would
live within its limits must accept the
condition of slavery for himself and
his posterity.
"Only one step more remained to be
taken. jefferson and the leading
statesmen of his day held fast to the
idea that the enslavement of the
African was socially, morally, and
politically wrong. The new school
was founded exactly upon the opposite
idea; and they resolved, first, to dis
eract the Democratic Party, for which
the Supreme Court had now furnished
the means, and then to establish new
government, with negro slavery for its
corner stone, as socially, morally, and
right.
"As the presidential election drew
on, one of the great traditional par
ties did not make it's appearance; the
other reeled as it sought to preserve
its old portion, and the candidate who
most nearly represented its best opin-