Washington, DC
The long-trumpeted decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case was pronounced by Judge Taney yesterday, having been held over from last year in order not too flagrantly to alarm and exasperate the Free States on the eve of an important Presidential election. Its cardinal points are reported as follows:
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A negro, because of his color, is denied the rights of a citizen
of the United States-even the right to sue in our Courts for
the redress of the most flagrant wrongs.
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A slave being taken by his master into a Free State and
thence returning under his masters sway, is not therefore
entitled to his freedom.
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Congress has no rightful power to prohibit Slavery
in the Territories: hence the Missouri Restriction was
unconstitutional.
This decision, we need hardly say, is entitled to just so much moral weight as would be the judgment of a majority of those congregated in any Washington bar-room.
Greeley, Horace. (1857, March 7). New York Tribune.