Page images
PDF
EPUB

transforming the various institutions of society. CHAP. IV. Gradually, and as yet unnoticed by the public, the motives disclosed in these opinions were beginning to control courts of justice, and popular discussion and excitement were not only shaping legislation, but changing the tenor of legal decisions throughout the country.

Not long after the judgment by the Supreme Court of Missouri, Dred Scott and his family were sold to a man named Sandford, who was a citizen of New York. This circumstance afforded a ground for bringing a similar action in a Federal tribunal, and accordingly Dred Scott once more sued for freedom, in the United States Circuit Court at St. Louis. The case was tried in May, 1854, and a decree rendered that they "were negro slaves, the lawful property" of Sandford. As a final effort to obtain justice, they appealed by writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal of the nation.

Before this court of last resort the case was argued a first time in the spring of 1856. The country had been for two years in a blaze of political excitement. Civil war was raging in Kansas; Congress was in a turmoil of partisan discussion; a Presidential election was impending, and the whole people were anxiously noting the varying phases of party politics. Few persons knew there was such a thing as the Dred Scott

1 The declaration in the case of Dred Scott vs. John F. A. Sandford was filed in the clerk's office of the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Missouri on the second day of

November, 1853. The trespass
complained of is alleged to have
occurred on the first day of
January, 1853. Manuscript
Records of the Supreme Court
of the United States.

CHAP. IV.

case on the docket of the Supreme Court; but those few appreciated the importance of the points it involved, and several distinguished lawyers volunteered to take part in the argument.1 Two questions were presented to the court: First, Is Dred Scott a citizen entitled to sue? Secondly, Did his residence at Rock Island and at Fort Snelling, under the various prohibitions of slavery existing there, work his freedom?

The Supreme Court was composed of nine justices; namely, Chief-Justice Taney and Associate Justices McLean, Wayne, Catron, Daniel, Nelson, Grier, Curtis, and Campbell. There was at once manifested among the judges not only a lively interest in the questions presented, but a wide difference of views as to the manner of treating them. Consultations of the Supreme Court are always shrouded in inviolable secrecy, but the opinions afterwards published indicate that the political aspects of slavery, which were then convulsing the country, from the very first found a certain sympathy and reflection in these grave judicial deliberations. The discussions yet turned upon certain merely technical rules to be applied to the pleadings under review; and ostensibly to give time for further examination, the case was postponed and a re-argument ordered for the next term. It may, however, be suspected that the nearness of the Presidential election had more to

1 At the first hearing Montgomery Blair argued the case for Dred Scott, and Senator Geyer, of Missouri, and ex-Attorney-General Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, for the claimant. At the second hearing Mr. Blair and

George Ticknor Curtis, of Boston, argued the case on behalf of Dred Scott, and Mr. Geyer and Mr. Johnson again made the argument for the claimant. All of them performed the service without compensation.

[graphic][merged small][subsumed]

do with this postponement than did the exigencies CHAP. IV. of the law.1

The Presidential election came, and Mr. Buchanan was chosen. Soon after, the court met to begin its long winter term; and about the middle of December, 1856, the Dred Scott case was once more elaborately argued. Again occupying the attention of the court for four successive days, as it had also done in the first hearing, the eminent counsel, after passing lightly over mere technical subtleties, discussed very fully what was acknowledged to be the leading point in the controversy; namely, whether Congress had power under the Constitution to prohibit slavery in the Federal Territories, as it had done by the Missouri Compromise act and various other laws. It was precisely the policy, or impolicy, of this and similar prohibitions which formed the subject of contention in party politics. The question of their constitutional validity was certain to take even a higher rank in public interest.

When after the second argument the judges took up the case in conference for decision, the majority held that the judgment of the Missouri Federal tribunal should simply be affirmed on its merits. In conformity to this view, Justice Nelson was instructed to prepare an opinion to be read as the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United

1"The court will not decide the question of the Missouri Compromise line-a majority of the judges being of opinion that it is not necessary to do so. (This is confidential.) The one engrossing subject in both Houses of Congress and with all the memVOL. II.-5

bers is the Presidency; and upon
this everything done and omitted,
except the most ordinary neces-
sities of the country, depends."-
[Letter of Justice Curtis to Mr.
Ticknor, April 8, 1856. G. T.
Curtis, "Life of B. R. Curtis,"
Vol. I., p. 180.]

« PreviousContinue »