But the Senator wandered into eulogy of that old Supreme Court, now departed, when Marshall was Chief Justice, and from the past claimed consideration for the present. Sir, I have been no careless student of that court in its great and palmy days. I know the learning, wisdom, and ability of its judgments, and am proud that there are such pages in the jurisprudence of my country. My sentiments toward the court of that day are warmed, also, by personal experience. It is among the cherished reminiscences of early life, that I was privileged to know, as a youth might know, the illustrious magistrate whom the Senator praises so well. He received me at his table, and allowed me to accompany him in his morning walks to the court-room. He was a venerable character. But I pray the Senator not to claim for the Dred Scott decision any of the reverence justly belonging to his name. There is no question of tribute to Chief Justice Marshall, or respect for the tribunal while he presided over it. The Dred Scott decision is more noticed from contrast with all that is good and great in the decisions of other days. It is sad that the tribunal that had established such an authority among us should do an act by which its authority has been endangered. This whole debate is in the nature of a diversion or a deviation, and therefore I bring it back to the precise point from which it started. The Senator from Maryland invoked the Dred Scott decision as a reason why Congress should not recognize colored persons as citizens. In reply I simply asserted the right of Congress to interpret the Constitution without constraint from the Supreme Court, and this I now repeat. Each branch of the Government must interpret the Constitution for itself, according to its own sense of obligation under the oath we have all taken. And God forbid that Congress should consent to wear the strait-jacket of the Dred Scott decision! Mr. Johnson closed his reply by saying: “And without meaning to offend the honorable member from Massachusetts, and with all the personal regard which I feel for him, and recollecting the courtesy that he has extended to me, and which I have reciprocated from the bottom of my heart, I say to him, without any purpose of offence, that, if I am obliged to act upon the weight of authority upon all questions of Constitutional Law, I shall prefer holding to the opinion of Taney than holding to the opinion of the honorable member.” Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, after remarking that he differed from Mr. Sumner, said: “I do not believe that I think any better of that decision than he does. I think it was an outrage upon the civilization of the age and a libel upon the law; but I do not think it was a disgrace to the Supreme Court of the United States.” [_Laughter._] The bill passed,--Yeas 29, Nays 8. * * * * *