Justice Rehnquist, the Supreme Court, and the Bill of Rights. Steven T. Seitz

and nation. The fugitive slave clause fit with neither the full faith and credit clause or the privileges and immunities clause. Comity would not resolve differences of law among the states. Taney used federal powers to intervene in the state struggles on behalf of slavery. His act put federal supremacy first, even though Congress had been bowing to state sovereignties. There was little or no Constitutional basis for Taney’s decision, thus extending raw federal power into state relations. Race was a topic upon which the states could not agree in the pre-Constitutional period and extending for decades thereafter.

      The Northern Abolitionists supplied an entirely new narrative. The Constitution recognized blacks as persons and the Abolitionists incorporated Jefferson’s phrase from the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” Individual sovereignty entered the power play. The fracturing of federal power between Congress and the courts and the standoff between free and slave states opened the door for a new player in the calculus of power. The triangle of sovereignties magnified the old divisions and thrust race front and center for state and nation.

      States can only legislate within their boundaries. The Abolitionists wanted to end slavery. The demand exceeded what any state action could deliver. International law provided little leverage. Individuals and their voluntary organizations led the fight against slavery. These attacks were beyond the reach of state actions in the South. The Southern states tightened their grip on slavery, but this further aggravated the Abolitionists. Dueling moralities pit calls for human dignity against calls for necessary paternalism. Whether North or South, the slavery problem became a personal issue. The regional demands were different, but the source of power was the same: individual sovereignty. The debate was over the size of and inclusion into the free community, not over the sovereignty of the individual per se. The individual slave states had no power save secession supported by wealthy landowners. The fear of secession immobilized the federal government. The Southern states seceded, the confederate government came to look more like the federal government, and the Radical Republicans took control of the remnants of the Union.

      Taney unleashed the dormant sovereignty pushed by the Abolitionists. Neither state nor nation could tame this power. The triangle of sovereignty was in full force.