On March 6th, 1857, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its ruling on the case of Scott v. Sandford. The ruling stated that no person of African descent could be a citizen of the United States. They therefore had no right to bring suit in Federal court. But the court did not stop at solely stripping blacks of all legal rights throughout the country, it also attempted to solve the entire question of slavery. In what would become most contentious issue the court ruled that Congress could not outlaw slavery in American territories. To do so would violate the due process rights of slaveholders. Their right to transport their personal property of slaves into a territory superseded any laws in force in that territory. The court then carried its assault on the boundaries of slavery to the next logical step. It ruled that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional because it denied slave holders their right to property in American territories. According to Chief Justice Taney, the question of the age had been settled. Slavery could not be banned in territories; blacks could not be citizens.

The opponents of the ruling were quick to question the extent of the court’s logic. If it was unconstitutional for Congress to ban slavery in a territory, how could a state legislature legally ban slavery in a state? If Federal law said that no black could be a citizen or enjoy the benefits of citizenship then every state must conform. If Federal law said that it was unconstitutional to restrict slavery in a territory, it wasn’t much of a leap to apply the same logic to the states. Defenders of the ruling disagreed. While they had trouble refuting the logic and reasoning of their opponents, they promised to respect the status quo and not extend the ruling’s logic to the states that had outlawed slavery. This question was argued violently across the country, perhaps the most eloquently in Illinois, by the two men who were running for a Senate seat.

Despite the incumbent Stephen Douglas’s stature and skill, he could not successfully rebut the pointed arguments put forth by his challenger Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln charged Douglas with asking the North to accept the good faith promise of the South that they wouldn’t push the ruling to its logical extremes. Hadn’t the South already shown that its promises couldn’t be trusted? The Missouri Compromise had just been voided. Douglas himself was leading the charge for Popular Sovereignty to give slavery a fighting chance in land that it had been banned from for over a generation. How could the North accept a promise of discretion from an opponent who had never shown any? The North didn’t have long to wait before the South proved to be as vicious as they feared. Only four years after the Dred Scott ruling was handed down, the South opened fire on a Federal Military base in South Carolina. The true causes of this war have been under debate since before the war started and it continues to this day.

The reason, as I see it, is simple. A ruling class had developed in part of the country that was incompatible with the stated goals of the nation. The aristocrat plantation owners of the South had become accustomed to ruling over the underlings, regardless of their color. No one, black or white, rich or poor, a slave from the fields or a lawyer from the Illinois was going to tell them what they could and couldn’t do. They claimed that they limited their imperial power to only their slaves, but the history of the nation showed that they had no qualms about ruling whites with the same iron fist. Whether it was manipulating the Federal government or attempting to beat a northern Senator to death in the Senate chamber, the southern aristocrats knew no master. The aristocrats might have lost the war, but they did not disappear with it. Their tactics and beliefs escaped the war to manifest themselves elsewhere, with different causes with the same aims, namely the subjugation of their lessors.

This year the Supreme Court ruled that Congress has the authority to levy taxes for simply existing. But don’t worry, they will only use their newfound power sparingly…. and always in your best interest as they perceive it. The aristocrats have learned their lesson, that obedience is best obtained with the carrot in place of the stick. The last century has been a battle of the progressive cause pushing for more and more power. Each compromise is quickly eclipsed by a new demand. Every program’s failure is blamed on not trying hard enough, one more chance and things will be perfect. One more freedom surrendered, one more responsibility lifted from your shoulders and you shall be happy.

A hundred and fifty years after the Court ruled that blacks have no rights or legal standing that are not subject to Congress, they extended that belief to cover all who reside in the country. Lincoln was the champion of the truest form of popular sovereignty; the idea that all men are entitled to freedom, regardless of what their self-confessed superiors believed to be best. Free men rallied behind the knowledge that no man aspires to be a slave, even if there are those who aspire to be their masters.

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