The most important decision ever made by any Court in this country. It fortifies as by a wall of brass the rights of the slaveholder in the States and in the common territories. The abolitionist idea that a slave is free the moment he touches free soil is exploded.
Original passage & context
"this is the most important decision every made by any Court in this country, and that it fortifies as by a wall of brass the rights of the slaveholder in the States and in the common territories. [...] The idea of the abolitionists, that a slave is free as soon as he touches the soil of a free State, is again exploded"
The Standard numbers the holdings one through six off the telegraphic dispatch and warns its own readers the summary "may not be strictly accurate." "every made" is the printed text, for "ever made." A Southern paper drawing the conclusion Northern editors most feared: the free states' soil no longer frees anyone.
Read it in the original — Weekly North Carolina Standard, Mar 11, 1857 ↗