Disunion Feed

Albany Evening Journal @AlbanyEvJournalMar 10, 1857 · Albany, N.Y.

We print to-day a sophistical, dogmatic, muddy and extreme Pro-Slavery document, which future historians will speak of as we speak of the Star Chamber. It falsifies history, belies the dead and stultifies the living — to make a local evil a National institution.

Original passage & context
"We print to-day a sophistical, dogmatic, muddy, and extreme Pro-Slavery document, which future historians will speak of as the present age speaks of the edicts of Jeffries and the Star Chamber. [...] It falsifies the most reliable history, abrogates the most solemn Law, belies the dead and stultifies the living, -- in order to make what has heretofore been a local evil, hereafter a National institution!"

Written the day the Journal printed Taney's full opinion. "Jeffries" is George Jeffreys, the Lord Chief Justice of the 1685 Bloody Assizes — in the Anglo-American press of 1857, the standard byword for a judge who serves power.

Where this sits

One passage from the Dred Scott decision, Mar 6, 1857 – May 14, 1857 — 28 posts, each linked to its primary source.

Part of 134 verified passages across 5 flashpoints, Jan 6, 1854 – Apr 13, 1861 — read the feed from the start.

How this was made