EXAMINATION

OF THAT PART OF THE

DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

IN THE

DRED SCOTT CASE,

WHICH DECLARES THE

UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE ACT,
AND THE SELF-EXTENSION OF THE CONSTITUTION TO
TERRITORIES, CARRYING SLAVERY ALONG WITH IT.

With an Appendix,

CONTAINING:

I. THE DEBATES IN THE SENATE IN MARCH, 1849, BETWEEN MR. WEBSTER And Mr. Calhoun,
ON THE LEGISLATIVE EXTENSION OF THE CONSTITUTION TO TERRITORIES, AS CONTAINED IN VOL
II. CH. CLXXXII. OF THE "THIRTY YEARS' VIEW."

II. THE INSIDE VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN SENTIMENT, IN RELATION TO THE WILMOT PROVISO,
AS SEEN IN VOL. II. CH. CLXVIII. OF THE "THIRTY YEARS' VIEW."

III. REVIEW OF PRESIDENT PIERCE'S ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS OF DECEMBER, 1856,
SO FAR AS IT RELATES TO THE ABROGATION OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE ACT AND THE CLASSI-
FICATION OF PARTIES.

BY THE

AUTHOR OF THE "THIRTY YEARS' VIEW."

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

346 & 348 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

1857.

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

NOTIFICATION TO THE READER.

The writer of this "Examination" was breaking down under the approaches of a terrible attack, while he was still engaged in writing it, and was prostrate before it was finished, leaving some heads untouched, and the outline of others only sketched. Among these last was the head which related to the temporary government in Florida, and the transactions under it; General Jackson being Governor, and commissioned (according to the act under which he was appointed) with the powers of CaptainGeneral and Intendant of Cuba, the Floridas having been a dependency of that Captain-Generalship. The "Examination " states (and all whose memory or home reading goes back twenty-five years, well know the fact), that the power of CaptainGeneral and Intendant was no barren sceptre in Jackson's hand; that he found occasion to use the power, and did so with the energy which belonged to his nature, and was sustained by Mr. Monroe's Administration. But the history of the transactions was not gone into, and the general assertion remained without the justification which this history would give it. That history is now supplied, and will be found in the Abridged Debates of Congress, text and notes (volume VII., now about ready for the press); and is surely of a character and of an authority to put an end to the "Opinion" which nullifies the Missouri Compromise Act, and self-extends the Constitution to territories. Without going further into that history in this brief post scriptum notification, and confining himself to the precise point in issue, the