The Court has aimed a blow at State Sovereignty baser and more iniquitous than anything we had conceived of. Illinois, under this decision, has no power to enact a law that can make a slave brought there by his master a freeman.
Original passage & context
"The Supreme Court has aimed a blow at State Sovereignty which is baser and more iniquitous than any thing we had before conceived of. The State of Illinois for example, under this decision in her legislative capacity, has no power to enact such a law as can make a slave coming there with the consent of his master a freeman!"
Written from the abstract that reached Pittsburgh by telegraph on Saturday morning. The Gazette goes straight to the point that would define Northern alarm for the next four years: if the master's title follows him, a free state's own laws cannot free anyone.
Read it in the original — Daily Pittsburgh Gazette, Mar 7, 1857 ↗