* * *
"Mr. Lincoln tells you that he is opposed to the decision of the Supreme
Court in the Dred Scott case. Well, suppose he is; what is he going to
do about it? * * * Why, he says he is going to appeal to Congress. Let
us see how he will appeal to Congress. He tells us that on the 8th of
March, 1820, Congress passed a law called the Missouri Compromise,
prohibiting Slavery forever in all the territory west of the Mississippi
and north of the Missouri line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes;
that Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, was taken by his master to Fort
Snelling, in the present State of Minnesota, situated on the west branch
of the Mississippi River, and consequently in the Territory where
Slavery was prohibited by the Act of 1820; and that when Dred Scott
appealed for his Freedom in consequence of having been taken into that
Territory, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that Dred
Scott did not become Free by being taken into that Territory, but that
having been carried back to Missouri, was yet a Slave.
"Mr. Lincoln is going to appeal from that decision and reverse it. He
does not intend to reverse it as to Dred Scott. Oh, no! But he will
reverse it so that it shall not stand as a rule in the future.
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