Disunion Feed

"the black republicans have wasted more breath, ink and time on the Missouri compromise, as they were pleased to call it, than it took to bring it into existence. [...] The supreme court of the United States, the highest and most dignified tribunal in any civilized country, and composed of the very first order of talent in the world, and to whose decisions it is an honor to bow with respectful deference, have had the darling bantling of black republicanism under consideration, and announce it illegitimate."

The Democratic paper of Springfield, Illinois — Lincoln's own town, and the Illinois State Journal's rival across the street. A "bantling" is a bastard child; the Register is calling the Missouri Compromise illegitimate offspring, and enjoying itself.

Read it in the original — Illinois State Register, Mar 12, 1857 ↗

"We mean to show that this Dred Scott decision is deficient in every element which should entitle it to respect -- that it violates the truth of history and the logic even of the law; and in our humble way, we mean to assist in getting it overruled. [...] When we are ready to surrender sense and reason, conscience and intellect, and all pretension to mental and physical freedom [...] then, and not till then, will we get on our knees to Roger Taney."

Answering the charge that criticizing the Court was itself treason. The Tribune's defense is that the two dissenters said the same thing — that a court's word on questions not properly before it does not bind. Getting it overruled took the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Read it in the original — New-York Daily Tribune, Mar 12, 1857 ↗