Just read - no comments needed

[David Lockmiller]

Most northern states had earlier granted slaveowners the right of transit or temporary sojourn with their slaves. But by the 1850's all except New Jersey and Illinois had laws on the books offering freedom to any slave brought by a master within their borders. Pending in the New York courts was a case concerning a slaveholder's right to retain ownership of his slaves while in transit through a free state. Lemmon v. The People had originated in 1852 when a New York judge upheld the freedom of eight slaves who had left their Virginia owner while in New York City on their way to Texas.

The Dred Scott decision challenged the principle of these laws. Virginia therefore decided to take the Lemmon case to the highest New York court (which upheld the state law in 1860) and would undoubtedly have appealed it to Taney's Supreme Court had not secession intervened.

The Lemmon case might well have become Lincoln's "next Dred Scott decision" and opened the door to some form of slavery in free states. Thus in the context of Dred Scott, Lincoln's "warning that slavery might become lawful everywhere was . . . far from absurd."

("The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era," page 140-141, but note that I have rearranged the sentences to form a clearer argument.)

And, all of these recent posts together, was undoubtedly the reason that President Lincoln made an extensive statement regarding the Supreme Court in his First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861. The essence of this statement is as follows:

"If the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."