The decision of a majority of the Judges of the Supreme Court adverse to the right of citizenship of this individual, has called forth many severe comments from the press in the free states, and also from the pulpit. Personal abuse of the Judges expressing this opinion, and especially of Chief Justice Taney, has characterized many of these strictures. Judge Curtis seems to us to have given a correct decision or opinion in behalf of himself as a minority of the Court, but the other side are worthy of a candid and attentive hearing, and we think it no more than fair that the public should wait for the elaborate opinion of Judge Taney, which in a few weeks will be published, before they condemn the decision. In our country and in our times, every citizen feels himself competent to decide the most weighty questions, and even those which require a careful study of the Constitution and the Laws before coming to a decision; and not unfrequently, feeling takes the precedence of judgement, and party bias influences the decision. There can be no doubt that this questions of the citizenship of colored men, coming as it does so soon after an excited political election, is received at the North with disfavor more marked than it would have been received some years ago; nevertheless, it would at any time have been received with astonishment. We advise, however to be perfectly cool on the subject, and especially to wait for the documents, and read them fairly when they do come. The question seems to be mainly a historical one, for it is on this basis the Chief Justice seems to base his argument, and we, therefore, need not be afraid to meet the facts in the case, and if these are against the rights of the black man, let us use our efforts to give him redress by all lawful means in our power.
We go for equal rights to all men, without distinction of color, and the ideas of hereditary bondmen and civil disqualification by reason of African descent, are wholly repugnant to our feelings, believing as we do that the African is susceptible of high mental culture; but we mean to hold on to the laws and the constitution, until we can get them amended,, if the need it; and we have something of an idea the Judges of very mature age and great experience and study, know a little more of the business in their own particular line, than persons whose reading and experience have been in another direction.
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