Disunion Feed

"That decision must be carried into effect -- that interpretation must be acquiesced in and acted upon, or else it must be resisted by force. There is no other alternative. [...] nothing but force, open rebellion, can successfully oppose the practical application and enforcement of the decision of the court in this case."

Franklin Pierce's home-state Democratic organ, meaning it as a warning to Republicans. Read forward instead of back, it is one of the plainest sentences in this feed: a Northern paper stating in March 1857 that the only remaining alternatives are submission or force.

Read it in the original — Daily Patriot (Concord), Mar 18, 1857 ↗

"Five of its nine silk gowns are worn by Slaveholders. More than half its long Bench is filled with Slaveholders. Its Chief Justice is a Slaveholder. [...] The majority represent a minority of 350,000. The minority represent a majority of twenty Millions! [...] The advocate who pleads there against Slavery, wastes his voice in its vaulted roof, and upon ears stuffed sixty years with cotton. His case is judged before it is argued, and his client condemned before he is heard."

Two weeks after the ruling, the argument has shifted from the decision to the institution: the Journal counts the Court's whole history and finds slave states held the majority for fifty-seven of its sixty-eight years. The turn from "this ruling is wrong" to "this Court is captured" is the shift that made the Republican party a national one.

Read it in the original — Albany Evening Journal, Mar 19, 1857 ↗