But slavery then dominated and permeated everything and everybody. Why should the justices of the Supreme Court be free from its influence? The Ordinance of 1787 was re-enacted by the First Congress under the Constitution, and its slavery restriction clause was enforced, without question, by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson and their administrations. The Missouri Compromise line had stood unassailed for above a third of a century. In 1848 Polk and his Cabinet approved the Oregon Bill prohibiting slavery; also Pierce and his Administration approved (1853) the extension of the same prohibition over Washington Territory. Earlier, in 1845, the Texas Annexation Act, as we have seen, re- enacted the 36 deg. 30' line of restriction for slavery, and in 1848 the pro-slavery party in Congress voted to extend this line to California. Congress again and again exercised the power of legislating for the Territories; eleven times, between 1823 and 1838, it amended the laws of the Legislature of Florida, thus asserting the absolute right to legislate for the Territories. The Supreme Court of the United States for nearly seventy years had assumed and acted on the principle of the right of Congress to legislate for them. Now all became changed, as though a new oracle of construction had appeared, higher and wiser than all who had gone before--an oracle who knew more of the Constitution than its makers. This new oracle did not divine the fates. The announcement of the principle that the Constitution treats negroes "as persons whom it is _morally_ lawful to deal in as articles of property and to hold as slaves," shocked the consciences of just men throughout the earth. Referring to the times when the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were adopted, and speaking of the African race, the Chief-Justice, in his opinion, said: "They had, for more than a century before, been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations: and so far inferior, _that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect:_ and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit." These and kindred expressions astonished all civilization and all Christian people. The North was stunned by the decision, some fearing that slavery was soon to become national. The South exulted boastfully of their cause,(95) loudly proclaiming the paramount, binding force of the supreme judicial tribunal in the Republic. Free labor and free laborers were decried. They were, in speech and press, called "_mud sills of society:_" only negro slavery ennobled the white race. The over-zealous South was even persuaded that the small farmers, trafficking merchants, and mechanics did not possess bravery enough to fight for _liberty_.