Five of its nine silk gowns are worn by Slaveholders. 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 upon ears stuffed sixty years with cotton.
Original passage & context
"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 ↗