Roger Brooke Taney of Phillips, of Garrison, and the famous
and shrewd innuendo of Lincoln, who in the campaign with Stephen A. Doug lass carried with him a copy of Curtis’s great dissent, from which it is said he
163
Missouri and the other on a steamboat on the Mississippi River north of the north line of the state of Missouri. In 1838, Dr. Emerson removed Dred Scott with his wife and children to the state
,QAs the decade preceding the opening
of Missouri, where they had ever since Before suit was brought Dr. Emerson had sold and conveyed
of the Civil War advanced premoni tions of the coming storm multiplied, and casting about to find some relief by
Dred Scott, his wife and chifdren, to Sanford as slaves, and he thereafter claimed to hold them, and each of them,
which presumably it could be averted, President Buchanan in 1856 most un
suit for his freedom in the Circuit Court
drew many of his arguments in reply to
the author of the Kansas-Nebraska bill.l6 resided.
wisely said in his inaugural that a case was pending in the Supreme Court of the United States as to the occupation of the territories by slave owners by whose decision he should be governed,
and which might determine the vexed
as his property.
Dred Scott brought
of St. Louis county in the state of Mis
souri,17 and obtained judgment in his favor, but the Supreme Court of the state, on a writ of error reversed the judg ment and remanded the case to the state circuit court, where it was continued to await the decision of the case subse
question. He referred to the Dred Scott case, of which the best statement, taken
quently brought in the federal court.
from the reports, is given by George
When the last case came on for trial
Ticknor Curtis, who was of counsel for Dred Scott. Dred Scott was a negro
stated being proved, the jury under
slave, and belonged to one Dr. Emerson,
a surgeon in the army of the United States. Emerson took him from the state of Missouri to a military post at Rock Island, in the state of Illinois, and
held him there as a slave until 1836. Emerson then removed him to the mili tary post at Fort Snelh'ng in the terri tory of the United States north of 360
30' and north of the state of Missouri, where he held him as a slave until 1838. Dred Scott married Harriet, a negro slave of another officer of the army, and
she was'ltaken by her master to Fort Snelling and there held as a slave until 1836, when she was sold to Dr. Emer
at circuit, the facts which have been
instructions from the court returned a verdict that the plaintiff, his wife and children, were negro slaves, the lawful
property of the defendant.
When the
case reached the Supreme Court of the
United States it presented two principal questions :— First, Whether Scott by reason of his African descent from ancestors who were
imported into this country and sold as slaves, independent of the question of his personal freedom, could or could not be a citizen of one of the states of this union.
Secondly, Whether Scott, who was formerly a slave in the state of Missouri, having been taken by his master into the free state of Illinois and then into a part of the Louisana
son, and he held her as a slave at that
Purchase north of the parallel of 360 and 30'
place until 1838. In 1838 the plaintiff and Harriet with Dr. Emerson's consent
where slavery was prohibited by an act of Congress known as the Missouri Compromise and then brought back into the state of Missouri, was not legally and effectually emancipated by residence with his master in a free state or free territory so that the condi
were married.
There were two children
born of the marriage, one in the state of 1' See v. 2, p. 270, Rhodes’ History of the United States.
"Drad Scott v. Emerson, 15 M0. 576.
