Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword Preface PART ONE. Introduction: The Dred Scott Case, Slavery, and the Politics of Law An Overview of the
Dred Scott Case
A Bad Decision
A Complex and Confused Case
Slavery in the Territories
Who Was Dred Scott?
Dred Scott Sues for Freedom
In the Federal Court
The Jurisdictional Issue and the Plea in Abatement
The Case in the Federal District Court
Before the Supreme Court The Judges
The Compromise Not Taken
The Jurisdictional Question
Free Blacks under Taney’s Constitution: "They Had No Rights" The Status of Slavery in the Territories under
Dred Scott The Territories Clause
The Fifth Amendment
Law as Politics The Politics of Law
The Republican Fear of a Conspiracy
The Nationalization of Slavery
The Democratic Response
Epilogue PART TWO. The Documents
1. Opinions of the Justices
Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney,
Opinion of the Court in Dred Scott, Plaintiff in Error v. John F. A. Sandford Justice James M. Wayne,
Concurring Opinion Justice Samuel Nelson,
Concurring Opinion Justice Robert Cooper Grier,
Concurring Opinion Justice Peter V. Daniel,
Concurring Opinion Justice John Archibald Campbell,
Concurring Opinion Justice John Catron,
Concurring Opinion Justice John McLean,
Dissenting Opinion Justice Benjamin Robbins Curtis,
Dissenting Opinion 2. Newspaper Responses to the Dred Scott Decision Varieties of Southern ProSlavery Opinion
Enquirer (Richmond),
The Dred Scott Case, March 10, 1857
Mercury (Charleston),
The Dred Scott Case – Supreme Court on the Rights of the South, April 2, 1857
Daily Picayune (New Orleans),
Citizenship, March 21, 1857
The Buchanan Administration’s Paper Endorses the Decision Union (Washington, D.C.),
The Dred Scott Case, March 12, 1857
Northern Support for the Dred Scott Decision Journal of Commerce (New York),
The Decision of the Supreme Court, March
11, 1857
Journal of Commerce (New York),
The Dred Scott
Case, March 12, 1857
Post (Pittsburgh),
The Dred Scott
Case, March 14, 1857
Post (Pittsburgh),
Seeking an Issue, March 17, 1857
Opposition to the Dred Scott Decision: A Spectrum of Northern Opinion Tribune (New York), March 7, 1857
Daily Times (New York),
The Slavery Question – The Decision of the Supreme Court, March 9, 1857
Evening Post (New York),
The Supreme Court of the United States, March 7, 1857
Independent (New York),
Wickedness of the Decision in the Supreme Court against the African Race,
March 19, 1857
Register (Salem),
The U.S. Supreme Court, March 12, 1857
Zion’s Herald and Wesleyan Journal (Boston),
The Late Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, March 18, 1857
Lincoln’s Paper Responds Tribune (Chicago),
Who Are Negroes? March 12, 1857
Tribune (Chicago),
The Dred Scott
Case, March 17, 1857
Tribune (Chicago),
Judge Curtis’s Opinion, March 19, 1857
A War for Public Opinion: The Washington Union and The New York Tribune Union (Washington, D.C.),
Unreasonable Complaints, March 21, 1857
Tribune (New York),
Judge Taney’s Opinion, March 21, 1857
Tribune (New York),
Editorial, March 21, 1857
Tribune (New York),
Editorial, March 25, 1857
Union (Washington, D.C.),
The Supreme Court and the New York Tribune, March 28, 1857
3. Political Debate in the North Frederick Douglass,
The Dred Scott
Decision:
Speech at New York, on the Occasion of the Anniversary of the American Abolition Society, May 11, 1857
Lincoln-Douglas Debates and the Dred Scott Decision Abraham Lincoln,
The "House Divided" Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858
Stephen A. Douglas,
Speech at Chicago, Illinois, July 9, 1858
Abraham Lincoln,
Speech at Chicago, Illinois, July 10, 1858
Stephen A. Douglas,
Speech at Springfield, Illinois, July 17, 1858
The Debate at Freeport: Lincoln’s Questions and Douglas’s Answers, August 27, 1858
The Debate at Jonesboro, September 15, 1858
Congressional Debate "Bust of Chief Justice Taney,"
Congressional Globe, February 23, 1865
APPENDICES Chronology of Events Related to
Dred Scott (1787-1870)
Questions for Consideration
Selected Bibliography
Index
