providing that all free negroes above the age of
eighteen years who shall be found in the State after
September, 1860, shall be sold into slavery; and
that all such negroes as shall enter the State after
September, 1861, and remain there twenty-four
hours, shall also be sold into slavery for ever. Mis-
sissippi, Kentucky, and Georgia, and in fact, I be-
lieve, all the slave States, are legislating in the same
manner. Thus the slaveholders make it almost im-
possible for free persons of colour to get out of the
slave States, in order that they may sell them into
slavery if they don't go. If no white persons travelled
upon railroads except those who could get some one
to vouch for their character in a penal bond of one
thousand dollars, the railroad companies would soon
go to the "wall." Such mean legislation is too low
for comment; therefore I leave the villainous acts to
speak for themselves.

But the Dred Scott decision is the crowning act
of infamous Yankee legislation. The Supreme Court,
the highest tribunal of the Republic, composed of
nine Judge Jeffries's, chosen both from the free and
slave States, has decided that no coloured person,
or persons of African extraction, can ever become a
citizen of the United States, or have any rights
which white men are bound to respect. That is to
say, in the opinion of this Court, robbery, rape, and
murder are not crimes when committed by a white
upon a coloured person.