The Dred Scott decision is more noticed from contrast with all that is good and great in the decisions of other days.

It is sad that the tribunal that had established such an authority among us should do an act by which its authority has been endangered.

Overthrow Slavery here, and our Republic ascends to untold heights of power and grandeur.

Let this shameful obscuration cease, and our example will be the day-star of the world.

In reply I simply asserted the right of Congress to interpret the Constitution without constraint from the Supreme Court, and this I now repeat.

Each branch of the Government must interpret the Constitution for itself, according to its own sense of obligation under the oath we have all taken.

And God forbid that Congress should consent to wear the strait-jacket of the Dred Scott decision!

No, Sir, the Senator will allow me: because there did not seem to be any practical sense in adhering to it; because to adhere to it defeated the bill; because to adhere to it accomplished no earthly purpose, gave nobody any right.

And the question is, Which shall adhere, the side that is right or the side that is wrong?

I hope the Senate will adhere to its original position, and I believe that the assertion of that principle at this moment is more important than the bill.

It is something to declare a principle, and I cannot hesitate to say that at this moment the principle is much more important than the bill.

The bill may be postponed, but the principle must not be postponed.

For myself, I believe you cannot too often assert a prohibition of Slavery, nor too often assert human rights, wherever they may be called in question; and especially do I believe in the importance of such assertion when you are laying the…

Would my friend from Maine have the tree that he plants grow up with a generous and protecting shelter for all mankind, or shall it be the bent and crabbed product of unhappy prejudices which are only a growth of Slavery?

I know my friend means no such thing; but I insist that the policy he recommends tends to such fatal end.

I make them mine, wherever human rights are in question.

The welfare of the Republic requires that there should he an end of “suits,” lest, while men are mortal, these should be immortal.

Of all claims in our history, these are most associated with great events and great sacrifices.

First in time, they are also first in character, for they spring from the very cradle of the Republic and the trials of its infancy.

And yet these sufferers, thus unique in situation, have been compelled to see all other claims for foreign spoliations satisfied, while they alone have been turned away.

Down to this day there is a standing committee of the Senate, entitled “Committee on Revolutionary Claims”; but if a claim traced to the Revolution must be rejected for staleness, there can be little use for this committee.

But, as from the beginning of the century they have occupied the attention of Congress, and been sustained by speeches, reports, and votes, it is impossible to say that they have been allowed to sleep.

It was only in 1826, under the administration of John Quincy Adams, by the communication to Congress of the ample materials accumulated in the Archives of State, that the true strength of the case was fully revealed.

Liberty, everywhere, in all her struggles, will be animated anew, and the down-trodden in distant lands will hail the day of deliverance.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.