Opinions of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case.
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."
Transcribed and reverse-order proofed by T. Lloyd Benson
Department of History, Furman University, from the
Albany, New York, Evening Journal, 7 March 1857.