Disunion Feed

"The fact is, the more the question has been settled, the more it has needed settling. The space between the different settlements has been strikingly on the decrease. [...] The first stood fifteen years — the second, ten years- — the third, five years — the fourth stood four years — and the fifth has stood the brief space of two years. [...] This last settlement must be called the Taney settlement."

From the pamphlet Douglass printed at his own press in Rochester later that year. He is counting the compromises — 1820, 1833, 1845, 1850, 1854, and now 1857 — and pointing out that each one holds for less time than the last. The stray hyphen after "ten years" is in the pamphlet's own printing.

Read it in the original — Two Speeches by Frederick Douglass (Rochester, 1857) ↗

"The Supreme Court of the United States is not the only power in this world. [...] Judge Taney can do many things, but he cannot perform impossibilities. He cannot bale out the ocean, annihilate this firm old earth, or pluck the silvery star of liberty from our Northern sky."

Asked how the decision affected him, Douglass answered that his hopes were never brighter. His reasoning was strategic, not consoling: a ruling this extreme could not be absorbed quietly, and would force the country to decide. The one voice in this feed belonging to a man the decision declared could never be a citizen.

Read it in the original — Two Speeches by Frederick Douglass (Rochester, 1857) ↗