6, 1857.

Deep and widespread as hitherto had been the slavery agitation created
by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and by the consequent civil
war in Kansas, an event entirely unexpected to the public at large
suddenly doubled its intensity. This was the announcement, two days
after Buchanan's inauguration, of the decision of the Supreme Court of
the United States in the Dred Scott case. This celebrated case had
arisen as follows:

Two or three years before the Nebraska bill was thought of, a suit was
begun by a negro named Dred Scott, in a local court in St. Louis,
Missouri, to recover the freedom of himself and his family from
slavery. He alleged that his master, one Dr. Emerson, an army surgeon,
living in Missouri, had taken him as his slave to the military post at
Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, and afterwards to Fort
Snelling, situated in what was originally Upper Louisiana, but was at
that time part of Wisconsin Territory, and now forms part of
Minnesota. While at this latter post Dred Scott, with his master's
consent, married a colored woman, also brought as a slave from
Missouri, and of this marriage two children were born. All this
happened between the years 1834 and 1838. Afterwards Dr. Emerson
brought Dred Scott and his family back to Missouri. In this suit they
now claimed freedom, because during the time of residence with their
master at these military posts slavery was there prohibited by
positive law; namely, at Bock Island by the ordinance of 1787, and
later by the Constitution of Illinois; at Fort Snelling by the
Missouri Compromise acts of 1820, and other acts of Congress relating
to Wisconsin Territory.

The local court in St. Louis before which this action was brought
appears to have made short work of the case. It had become settled
legal doctrine by Lord Mansfield's decision in the Somersett case,
rendered four years before our Declaration of Independence, that "the
state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being
introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only positive
law.... It is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but
positive law." The learned chief-justice therefore ordered that
Somersett, being claimed as a Virginia slave brought by his master
into England, when it was attempted to carry him away against his
will, should be discharged from custody or restraint, because there
was no positive law in England to support slavery. The d