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"I should have forfeited my own self-respect, and perhaps, the good opinion of my countrymen, if I had failed to resent such an injury, by calling the offender in question to a personal account. It was a personal affair, and in taking redress into my own hands, I meant no disrespect to the Senate of the United States, or to this House. [...] And now, Mr. Speaker, I announce to you and to this House, that I am no longer a member of the Thirty-fourth Congress."

The arc's coda, disclosed exception (July 14): the expulsion vote (121-95) fell short of two-thirds; Brooks resigned in defiance instead — and South Carolina's Fourth District re-elected him within weeks. Fragments joined with [...].

Read it in the original — 1856 pamphlet, Internet Archive ↗

Next post: Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, Mar 6, 1857 →

"It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. [...] They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit."

The most quoted sentence in the history of the Court. Read it precisely: Taney is stating what he claims the framing generation believed, not announcing his own moral view. But he is not describing it in passing — he uses that claimed 1787 consensus as the ground for holding that people of African descent were never included in the word "citizen" and so cannot sue in a federal court. The decision went further: it struck down the Missouri Compromise and held that Congress could not bar slavery from any territory.

Read it in the original — Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857) ↗