JOHN C. BRECKENRIDGE

(1821-1875)

OHN CABELL BRECKENRIDGE was born in Kentucky in 1821. After graduating at Transylvania University and studying law, he settled at Lexington. Using his power as an orator in the discussion of the slavery issue, he became popular as a radical opponent of the radical enemies of slavery. Elected VicePresident on the ticket with Buchanan in 1856, the events which culminated in the John Brown raid of 1859 increased his popularity, and in 1860 he was nominated for the presidency by one wing of the Democratic party. After the election of Lincoln, Kentucky sent Breckenridge to the United States Senate, from which he retired to become a major-general in the Confederate army. After the fall of the Confederacy he spent several years abroad, but finally returned to Kentucky. He died in 1875.

G

THE DRED SCOTT DECISION

(Delivered before the Kentucky Legislature, December 1859)

ENTLEMEN, I bow to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States upon every question within its proper jurisdiction, whether it corresponds with my private opinion or not; only, I bow a trifle lower when it happens to do so, as the decision in this Dred Scott case does. I approve it in all its parts as a sound exposition of the law and constitutional rights of the States, and citizens that inhabit them.

I was in the Congress of the United States when that Missouri line was repealed. I never would have voted for any bill organizing the Territory of Kansas as long as that odious stigma upon our institutions remained upon the statute book. I voted cheerfully for its repeal, and in doing that I cast no reflection upon the wise patriots who acquiesced in it at the time it was established. It was repealed, and we passed the act known as

case.

the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. The Abolition, or quasi Abolition, party of the United States were constantly contending that it was the right of Congress to prohibit slavery in the common Territories of the Union. The Democratic party, aided by most of the gentlemen from the South, took the opposite view of the A considerable portion of the Northern Democracy held that slavery was in derogation of common right and could only exist by force of positive law. They contended that the Constitution did not furnish that law, and that the slaveholder could not go into the Territories with his slaves with the Constitution to authorize him in holding his slaves as property, or to protect him. The South generally, without distinction of party, held the opposite view. They held that the citizens of all the States may go with whatever was recognized by the Constitution as property, and enjoy it. That did not seem to be denied to any article of property except slaves. Accordingly, the bill contained the provision that any question in reference to slavery should be referred to the courts of the United States, and the understanding was that, whatever the judicial decision should be, it would be binding upon all parties, not only by virtue of the agreement, but under the obligation of the citizen, to respect the authority of the legally constituted courts of the country.

The view that we in the Southern States took of it was sustained that in the Territories, the common property of the Union, pending their Territorial condition, neither Congress nor the Territorial government had the power to confiscate any description of property recognized in the States of the Union. The court drew no distinction between slaves and other property. It is true some foreign philanthropists and some foreign writers do undertake to draw this distinction, but these distinctions have nothing to do with our system of government. Our government rests not upon the speculations of philanthropic writers, but upon the plain understanding of a written constitution which determines it, and upon that alone. It is the result of positive law; therefore we are not to look to the analogy of the supposed law of nations, but to regard the Constitution itself, which is the written expression of the respective powers of the government and the rights of the States.

Well, that being the case, and it having been authoritatively determined by the very tribunal to which it was referred, that Congress had no power to exclude slavery from the Territories,

and judicially determined that the Territorial legislatures, authorities created by Congress, had not the power to exclude or confiscate slave property, I confess that I had not anticipated that the doctrine of "unfriendly legislation" would be set up. Hence, I need not say to you that I do not believe in the doctrine of unfriendly legislation; that I do not believe in the authority of the Territorial legislatures to do by indirection what they cannot do directly. I repose upon the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, as to the point that neither Congress nor the Territorial legislature has the right to obstruct or confiscate the property of any citizen, slaves included, pending the Territorial condition. I do not see any escape from that decision, if you admit that the question was a judicial one; if you admit the decision of the Supreme Court; and if you stand by the decision of the highest court of the country.

JOHN BRIGHT

(1811-1889)

OHN BRIGHT has been called the most eloquent of the Liberal orators of his day, and he was certainly the most strenuous, the most forcible, as he was no doubt the most effective of them all.

To appreciate his relations to the England of his time, to the British empire, and to the movement of the world in general, it is necessary to keep in view the fact that he stood for the largest possible measure of free intercourse and uncoerced co-operation among all men in all countries, and conversely for the minimum of forcible interference of nation with nation, class with class, individual with individual.

This idea gave him his strength in politics, and it also fixed his limitations. The England of his day was engaging more and more actively in "world-politics," while he preached nonintervention. His opposition to the Crimean War defeated him for Parliament in 1857 when he sought re-election before a Manchester constituency. Vindicated by election from Birmingham, he remained in Parliament for more than thirty years. In 1882, when a member of the Gladstone cabinet, he had presented to him the question of the coercive extension of "spheres of influence," as it was involved in the bombardment of Alexandria. However easily other Liberals might find reasons reconciling such aggressive acts to their party principles and to their ideas of public policy, the habits and tendencies of his lifetime governed him and compelled his resignation from the cabinet.

If honesty, strength of purpose, and courage to hold a predetermined course regardless of the opinions of others, constitute the chief grounds for respecting the character of a public man, then John Bright, regardless of the nature of his opinions, is one of the most respectable public men of his century. Perhaps it is true that a party under his leadership would have been reduced to a mere balance of power, but it is probable that the force he stands for would make such a balance of power the controlling factor in every real crisis. Mr. Gladstone was an organizer, because with many of the same qualities which made Bright admirable, and illustrating the same tendencies almost to the point of parallelism, he was more capable of looking into the immediate future and seeing all that in

looking to the long run Bright was likely to pass over as immaterial or even as contemptible. It would not be just or historical to call Gladstone an opportunist, but he was a party leader, a great organizer, a man who, while he was directed throughout his life by principle, had that desire for immediate practical results which increases political effectiveness in a given case, but often works to prevent the most effective operation of principle in shaping the course of events in that higher domain of politics where the forces which govern are too manifold and involved to be comprehended by any mind, however great. It is in this domain that men like Bright are most effective. It is not the fault of Bright that a strong conservative reaction has overtaken the English world at the close of the nineteenth century. He asked no quarter, and on questions of principle conceded nothing; yet few men have been really more conservative in method than he. It is not necessary to assume him correct in his methods of applying his theories, but if we look into his general plan of work in public affairs we cannot fail to see that he is, above everything, the advocate of quiet and peaceful growth,-of development through natural processes of education and evolution. He most ardently desired that the world should grow better, and, being an optimist by nature, he was fully convinced that, if given an opportunity to do so in peace, it would develop to the extent of the removal of those oppressive restrictions which check its progress.

He was the son of a Quaker cotton spinner of Lancashire, and the influence of this heredity affected him deeply, showing itself constantly in his work for the peaceful extension of industrial helpfulness and coöperation throughout the world, regardless of national boundaries. Born near Rochdale, in Lancashire, in 1811, he grew up at a time when the condition of manufacturing operatives was often miserable in the extreme. From his entrance into public life, in 1843, when he took his seat in Parliament, until within a short time of his death, he was at the front in every fight for reform. He worked with Cobden against the corn laws, and was himself the moving spirit in the agitation against the game laws, under which a man's liberty, or even his life, had often been accounted less important than the security of a rabbit warren. In all questions which concerned the United States, his principles almost inevitably carried him to the defense of American institutions. He dissented from Gladstone on Irish Home Rule,- for the same reason, no doubt, which led him to sympathize with the side of the Union in the American Civil War. He died March 27th, 1889.