The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, vol 3 | Page 6

things will now
appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were
transpiring. The people were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only to
the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders
could not then see. Plainly enough now,--it was an exactly fitted niche,
for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in, and declare the

perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the
amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people, voted down?
Plainly enough now,--the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche
for the Dred Scott decision. Why was the court decision held up? Why
even a Senator's individual opinion withheld, till after the Presidential
election? Plainly enough now,--the speaking out then would have
damaged the "perfectly free" argument upon which the election was to
be carried. Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement?
Why the delay of a reargument? Why the incoming President's advance
exhortation in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious
patting and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him,
when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty
after-indorsement of the decision by the President and others?
We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the
result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different
portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and
places and by different workmen, Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James,
for instance, and when we see these timbers joined together, and see
they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and
mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the
different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a
piece too many or too few,--not omitting even scaffolding,--or, if a
single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and
prepared yet to bring such piece in,--in such a case, we find it
impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and
James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked
upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.
It should not be overlooked that by the Nebraska Bill the people of a
State as well as Territory were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only
to the Constitution." Why mention a State? They were legislating for
Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people of a State
are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United States; but
why is mention of this lugged into this merely Territorial law? Why are
the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein lumped
together, and their relation to the Constitution therefore treated as being
precisely the same? While the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice
Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all the

concurring Judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United
States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial Legislature to exclude
slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to declare
whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the people of a
State, to exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission; but who can be
quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the opinion a
declaration of unlimited power in the people of a State to exclude
slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to get such
declaration, in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the Nebraska
Bill,--I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been voted
down in the one case as it had been in the other? The nearest approach
to the point of declaring the power of a State over slavery is made by
Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, Using the precise idea,
and almost the language, too, of the Nebraska Act. On one occasion,
his exact language is, "Except in cases where the power is restrained by
the Constitution of the United States, the law of the State is supreme
over the subject of slavery within its jurisdiction." In what cases the
power of the States is so restrained by the United States Constitution, is
left an open question, precisely as the same question, as to the restraint
on the power of the Territories, was left open in the Nebraska Act. Put
this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we
may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision,
declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a
State to exclude slavery from