Reality of Dred Scott Decision

Auburn NY Daily American Saturday Evening, March 26, 1859.

Another Reality of the Dred Scott Decision.

   Another consequence has been deduced from the Dred Scott decision, which renders it still more repulsive to the people of the free States, and of course still more attractive to those for whose benefit that decision was made.
   The Pittsburg Gazette mentions that a company of colored people of that city, thinking that the lest thing they could do for themselves and their families, would be to remove West, and take up and settle upon the public land, and secure a pre-emption right to purchase the same, had their counsel address a letter on the subject to the Commissioner of the General land Office at Washington, to which the Commissioner returned the following reply:

General Land Office, March 7, 1859.
John M. Kirkpatrick, Esq., Pittsburg, Penn:

Sir:
In reply to your letter of the 24th ult., I have to state that under the now settled ruling of this office, which has been sanctioned by the Secretary, colored persons are not citizens of the United States as contemplated by the pre-emption law of the 4th September 1841, and are, therefore, not legally entitled to pre-empt public lands.
Very respectfully, your ob'd't servant,
Joseph A. Wilson, Acting Com.

   This is consistent following out of the doctrine of the Dred Scott decision, and shuts out all colored persons from the benefits of the pre-emption laws, because they are not citizens of the United States, as declared in that opinion.
   There is but one step more to be taken before colored persons will be effectively stripped of every show of rights, even in the free States, and that step can be justified by the same decision of the Supreme Court. It is this: that being declared not citizens of the U.S. Courts, they cannot by State laws become citizens of the several States, or parties of judicial proceedings.
   It is time for those who have not already thought seriously on these matters to give the subject their earnest attention. Unless averted by a change of Administration, a conflict between the State and the U. S. Government is inevitable.


Editor's note: The Auburn NY Daily American was published by William J. Moses. He supported the American Party (local political party) which eventually merged with the Republican Party. Moses joined the Democratic Party by the start of the Civil War and remained a loyal Democrat for the rest of his life. On April 12, 1861, the first shots of the American Civil War were fired by Confederates upon Fort Sumter in South Carolina.