To the friends of the Wilmot Proviso this decision will be crushing and annihilating. Hereafter they have no pretense whatever for keeping Congress and the country in a turmoil on the subject. The whole people, without distinction of party, trust that august tribunal.
Original passage & context
"To the friends of the "Wilmot Proviso" and the Abolition legislation for the Territories this decision of the Supreme Court will be most crushing and annihilating. Hereafter they will have no pretense whatever for keeping Congress and the country in a turmoil on that subject [...] The whole people, without distinction of party, have confidence in that august tribunal, the Supreme Court of the United States"
A Northern Democratic paper in a free state, reading the decision as the end of the argument rather than the start of one. The Enquirer's own city had produced the dissenter it goes on to chide — Justice John McLean of Cincinnati.
Read it in the original — Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, Mar 8, 1857 ↗