The salient points established by this decision were:
1. That persons of the African race were not, and could not be,
acknowledged as "part of the people," or citizens, under the
Constitution of the United States;
2. That Congress had no right to exclude citizens of the South
from taking their negro servants, as any other property, into
any part of the common territory, and that they were entitled to
claim its protection therein;
3. And, finally, as a consequence of the principle just above
stated, that the Missouri Compromise of 1820, in so far as it
prohibited the existence of African servitude north of a
designated line, was unconstitutional and void.[28] (It will be
remembered that it had already been declared "inoperative and
void" by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854.)
Instead of accepting the decision of this then august tribunal--the
ultimate authority in the interpretation of constitutional questions--as
conclusive of a controversy that had so long disturbed the peace and was
threatening the perpetuity of the Union, it was flouted, denounced, and
utterly disregarded by the Northern agitators, and served only to
stimulate the intensity of their sectional hostility.
What resource for justice--what assurance of tranquillity--what
guarantee of safety--now remained for the South? Still forbearing, still
hoping, still striving for peace and union, we waited until a sectional
President, nominated by a sectional convention, elected by a sectional
vote--and that the vote of a minority of the people--was about to be
inducted into office, under the warning of his own distinct announcement
that the Union could not permanently endure "half slave and half free";
meaning thereby that it could not continue to exist in the condition in
which it was formed and its Constitution adopted.
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