ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the usual historical verdict with reference to it needs revision in three important particulars: first, as to the legal value of the pronouncement in that case of unconstitutionality with reference to the Missouri Compromise; secondly, as to the basis of that pronouncement. Thirdly, as to the nature of the issue between Chief Justice Taney and Justice Curtis upon the question of citizenship that was raised by Dred Scott's attempt to sue in the federal courts. Dred Scott, a slave belonging to an army officer named Emerson, was taken by his master from the home state, Missouri, first into the free state of Illinois and thence into that portion of the national territory from which, by the eighth section of the Missouri Compromise, slavery was "forever" excluded. For obvious reasons, hostile criticism of the Dred Scott decision has always found its principal target in the Chief Justice's opinion.
