Opinions of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case.Albany, New
York, Evening Journal [Republican](7 March 1857)
WASHINGTON, March 6.
Chief Justice Taney delivered to-day the opinion of the
U. S. Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case.
The points are that Scott is not a citizen; that he was not
manumitted by being taken by his master when a slave into the then
Territory of Illinois, and that the Missouri
Compromise was an act unconstitutionally passed by Congress.
Justice Nelson, of New York, dissented.
Five Judges, Taney, Campbell,
Catron, Wayne, and Daniel, concur on the
constitutional point against the Missouri Compromise.
Nelson and Grier dodge by adopting the
Missouri decisions for their justification in joining the
majority.
McLean and Curtis meet the issue squarely and
sustain the jurisdiction of the Court, with the constitutionality of the
Compromises.
It is no novelty to find the Supreme Court
following the lead of the Slavery Extension party, to which most of its members
belong.
Five of the Judges are slaveholders, and two of the other four owe their
appointments to their facile ingenuity in making State laws bend to Federal
demands in behalf of "the Southern institution."
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