Читать книгу American Civil War For Dummies - Keith D. Dickson - Страница 50

In one blow the Supreme Court unwittingly toppled the delicate house of cards built since 1820 to maintain sectional harmony over the issue of slavery’s expansion. Neither popular sovereignty (the authority for people in the territories to decide whether to allow slavery to exist) nor the geographical limitations laid out by the Missouri Compromise were valid any longer. The Court’s decision opened all of the United States and its territories to slave owners. Congress (with its Northern voting bloc majority in the House of Representatives) could do nothing about it. By declaring that no law could restrict the movement of slaves, the Court placed human beings in the same category as furniture or livestock. Property has no rights to itself, and as such under the Constitution, people cannot be deprived of their property without due process of law.