The Late Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. 



31 



the exercise of such high prerogatives. One does not like 

 to assert an ungracious thing ; but we must all admit that, 

 had this been the truth, it would have been only natural. 



It was his fortune to come upon a great duty, in the 

 ordinary course of judicial administration. Oddly enough 

 it came in the form of a civil suit for an assault. The 

 action was brought in the United States Circuit Court by 

 Dred Scott, a resident of Missouri, against John E. A. 

 Sandford of E"ew York, for the act of arresting and im- 

 prisoning the plaiutiff and his wife, and their two children, 

 Eliza and Lizzie, one of them seven, and the other fourteen 

 years of age. The defendant interposed a plea to the 

 jurisdiction of the court, on the ground that Scott was 

 not a citizen of Missouri, but a negro whose ancestors 

 were brought into the country and sold as slaves. Scott 

 admitted the facts alleged against his ancestors, by a de- 

 murrer; and the court held that these facts were not suffi- 

 cient to call for a dismissal of the suit. The defendant then 

 pleaded to the merits of the action, and averred that Scott 

 and his family were his slaves, his lawful property. 



The answer of Scott presented his claim to freedom on 

 these grounds; that in 1834, he was the slave of Dr. Emer- 

 son a surgeon in the army, and was taken by him first to 

 the military post of Rock Island in Illinois, a free state, and 

 from there to Fort Snelling on the west bank of the 

 Mississippi river, in the territory of upper Louisiana, 

 north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of north 

 latitude ; where he remained two years, and where he was 

 married to his wife who had also been taken there as the 

 slave of a major in the army ; their oldest child being born 

 on the river, north of Missouri, and the younger after they 

 were brought back into the state of Missouri. On these 

 facts a verdict was rendered affirming the defendant's right 

 to Scott and family, as his slaves. 



This was the celebrated case that came up before the 



