It is a matter of record that the arguments of the Chief Justice had captivated his mind before he began to show his changed attitude towards Kansas.

In August, 1857, the President wrote that, at the time of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, slavery already existed and that it still existed in Kansas under the Constitution of the United States.

"This point," said he, "has at last been settled by the highest tribunal known in our laws.

How it could ever have been seriously doubted is a mystery." Granted that slavery is recognized as a permanent institution in itself--just and of divine ordinance and especially united to one section of the country--how could any one question the equal rights of the people of that section to occupy with their slaves lands acquired by common sacrifice?
Such was undoubtedly the view of both Pierce and Buchanan.

It seemed to them "wicked" that Northern abolitionists should seek to infringe this sacred right.
By a similar process a majority of the Supreme Court justices had become converts to Calhoun's newly announced theory of 1847.