THE DRED SCOTT CASE
Vermont's loss was Missouri's gain. The young lawyer, who had been
admitted to the bar of his native state at the age of eighteen, was
fully equipped to match his learning, wit, and persuasive manners
against such men as Benton, Gamble, and Bates, who were the leaders of
the Missouri bar when, in 1839, Roswell Field took up his residence in
St. Louis. Now it was that his familiarity and facility with French,
German, and Spanish stood him in good stead and, combined with his
solid legal attainments, speedily won for him the rank of the ablest
lawyer in his adopted state.
But Roswell Field brought from Vermont something more than an
exceptional legal equipment and the familiarity with the languages that
is necessary to a mastery of the intricate old Spanish and French
claims which were plastered over Missouri in those early days. He had
inherited through his mother, from her grim old Puritan ancestors, the
positive opinions and unquenchable sense of duty that constitute the
far-famed New England conscience. He was born with a repugnance to
slavery, whether of the will or of the body, and grew to manhood in the
days when the question of the extension of negro slavery to the states
and territories was the subject of fierce debate throughout the union.
He had fixed convictions on the subject when he left Newfane, and he
carried them with him to the farther bank of the Mississippi.
It is to the uncompromising New England conscience of Roswell Field
that his countrymen owe the institution of the proceedings that finally
developed into the Dred Scott case, in which the question of the legal
status of a negro was passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United
States. This is very properly regarded as the most celebrated of the
many important cases adjudicated by our highest tribunal, for not only
did it settle the status of Dred Scott temporarily, but the decision
handed down by Chief Justice Taney is the great classic of a great
bench. It denied the legal existence of the African race as persons in
American society and in constitutional law, and also denied the
supremacy of Congress over the territories and the constitutionality of
the "Missouri Compromise." Four years of civil war were necessary to
overrule this sweeping opinion of Chief Justice Taney's, which is still
referred to with awe and veneration by a large minority, if not by a
majority, of the legal profession.
To Roswell Field belongs the honor of instituting the original action
for Dred Scott, without fee or expectation of compensation. The details
of this celebrated case, after it got into the United States courts,
are a part of the history of our country. What I am about to relate is
scarcely known outside of the old Court House and Hall of Records in
St. Louis.
Dred Scott was a negro slave of Dr. Emerson, a surgeon in the United
States Army, then stationed in Missouri. Dr. Emerson took Scott with
him when, in 1834, he moved to Illinois, a free state, and subsequently
to Fort Snelling, Wis. This territory, being north of 36 degrees and 30
minutes, was free soil under the Missouri Compromise of 1820. At Fort
Snelling, Scott married a colored woman who had also been taken as a
slave from Missouri. When Dr. Emerson returned to Missouri he brought
Dred Scott, his wife, and child with him. The case came to the
attention of Roswell Field, and at once enlisted all his human sympathy
and great legal ability. His first petition to the Circuit Court for
the County of St. Louis is too important and unique a human document
not to be preserved in full. It reads:
Your petitioner, a man of color, respectfully represents that
sometime in the year 1835 your petitioner was purchased as a slave
by one John Emerson, since deceased, who afterwards, to wit, about
the year 1836 or 1839, conveyed your petitioner from the State of
Missouri to Fort Snelling, a fort then occupied by the troops of the
United States, and under the jurisdiction of the United States,
situated in the territory ceded by France to the United States under
the name of Louisiana, lying North of 36 degrees and 30 minutes
North latitude, not included within the limits of the State of
Missouri; and resided and continued to reside at said Fort Snelling
for upwards of one year, and holding your petitioner in slavery at
said Fort during all that time; in violation of the act of Congress
of March 6th, 1820, entitled "An act to authorize the people of
Missouri Territory to form a constitution and State government and
for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing
with the original states and to prohibit slavery in certain
territories."
Your petitioner avers that said Emerson has since departed this
life, leaving a widow, Irene Emerson, and an infant child whose name
is unknown to your petitioner, and that one Alexander Sandford has
administered upon the estate of said Emerson and that your
petitioner is now unlawfully held by said Sandford as said
Administrator and said Irene Emerson who claims your petitioner as
part of the estate of said Emerson and by one said Samuel Russell.
Your petitioner therefore prays your Honorable Court to grant him
leave to sue as a free person in order to establish his right to
freedom and that the necessary orders may be made in the premises.
(Signed) DRED SCOTT.
his DRED X SCOTT mark
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 1st day July, 1847,
PETER W. JOHNSTONE, J.P.
Upon reading the above petition this day, it being the opinion of
the Judge of the Circuit Court that the said petition contains
sufficient matter to authorize the commencement of a suit for his
freedom, it is hereby ordered that the said petitioner, Dred Scott,
be allowed to sue, on giving security satisfactory to the Clerk of
the Circuit Court for all costs that may be adjudged against him,
and that he have reasonable liberty to attend his counsel and the
Court as occasion may require, and that he be not subjected to any
severity on account of this application for his freedom and that he
be not removed out of the jurisdiction of the Court.
A. HAMILTON,
_Judge of the St. Louis Circuit Court, 8th Judicial Circuit, Mo._
July 2d, 1847.
Having obtained the desired leave to sue from Judge Alexander Hamilton,
Roswell Field procured Joseph Charless, one of the leading citizens of
St. Louis, to execute the necessary bond for costs. Then he lost no
time in filing the following complaint, which I have no doubt Eugene
Field would have mortgaged many weeks' salary to number among his most
precious possessions. He would have cherished it above the Gladstone
axe, for, while that felled mighty oaks, this brief document laid the
axe at the root of a deadly upas-tree which threatened the destruction
of a free republic. I offer no apology for its insertion here:
STATE OF MISSOURI, ) COUNTY OF ST. LOUIS) ss.
CIRCUIT COURT OF ST. LOUIS, ST. LOUIS COUNTY. November Term, 1847.
Dred Scott, a man of color, by his attorneys, plaintiff in this
suit, complains of Alexander Sandford as administrator of the estate
of John Emerson deceased, Irene Emerson and Samuel Russell,
defendants of a plea of trespass. For that the said defendants
heretofore, to wit on the 1st day of July in the year 1846 at to wit
the County of St. Louis aforesaid with force and arms assaulted the
said plaintiff and then and there, beat, bruised, and ill-treated
him and then and there imprisoned and kept and detained him in
prison there without any reasonable or probable cause whatsoever,
for a long time, to wit for the space of one year, then next
following, contrary to law and against the will of the said
plaintiff; and the said plaintiff avers that before and at the time
of the committing of the grievances aforesaid, he the said plaintiff
was then and there and still is a free person, and that the said
defendants held and still hold him in slavery, and other wrongs to
the said plaintiff then and there did against the peace of the State
of Missouri to the damage of the said plaintiff in the sum of ($300)
Three Hundred Dollars, and therefore he sues.
FIELD & HALL, _Attys. for Plff._
With this brief and bald complaint for trespass to the person and false
imprisonment was begun a long and stubbornly fought litigation,
extending over ten years, and which was destined to end in Chief
Justice Taney declaring:
They [negroes] had for more than a century before [the Declaration
of Independence] been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and
altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social
or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights
which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might
justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was
bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise
and traffic whenever a profit could be made by it.
From the beginning of his connection with this case Roswell Field
contended for the broad principle enunciated by Lord Mansfield that
"Slavery is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but
positive law." He consented to a discontinuance of the original action
because of the variance of the complaint from the subsequently
discovered facts. In the second suit Dred Scott and his family were
declared free by the local court, but the judgment was reversed on
appeal to the Supreme Court of the state. Judge Gamble, in dissenting
from the opinion of the majority of the Court, held that "In Missouri
it has been recognized from the beginning of the Government as a
correct position in law that a master who takes his slave to reside in
a state or territory where slavery is prohibited thereby emancipates
his slave."
The subsequent sale of Dred Scott to a citizen of New York named
Sandford afforded Roswell Field the opportunity to renew the fight for
Scott's freedom in the United States Circuit Court at St. Louis. The
case was tried in May, 1854, and it was again declared that Scott and
his family "were negro slaves, the lawful property of Sandford."
Roswell Field immediately appealed by writ of error to the Supreme
Court of the United States, where the appeal was first argued early in
1856, and a second time in December of the same year. Mr. Field's
connection with the case ended when he prepared the papers on appeal
and sent his brief to Montgomery Blair, with whom was associated for
Scott on the second hearing George Ticknor Curtis. Both of these
eminent lawyers emulated the example of Eugene Field's father, who for
nearly nine years had devoted a large share of his time and energy to
the fight of a penniless negro slave for liberty.
Looking back now it is almost impossible to realize how the issue in
this case stirred the nation to its depth. It was first argued while
the country was in the throes of the fierce Fremont-Buchanan campaign,
and it was believed that the second hearing was ordered by a
pro-slavery court after Buchanan's election, to permit more time in
which to formulate the extraordinary decision at which the majority of
the court arrived. The decision was political rather than judicial, and
challenged the attention of the people beyond any act of the Supreme
Court before or since.
The Civil War was virtually an appeal from the judgment of Chief
Justice Taney and his associates to the God of Battles.
It must not be thought that a single case, although the most celebrated
in the annals of American jurisprudence, was Roswell Field's sole claim
to the title of leader of the Missouri bar during his lifetime. The
records of the Superior Court of that state bear interesting and
convincing testimony to the exceptional brilliancy of Eugene Field's
father, while the tributes to his memory, by his brothers at the bar
and the judges before whom he appeared, prove that in all the relations
of life he fulfilled the promise of ability and genius given in his
graduation from college at an age when most boys are entering a
preparatory school.
Before dismissing Roswell Field to take up the story of his son's
career, I wish to quote a few passages from a brief memoir which is
preserved in the history of Newfane, as throwing direct hereditary
light on the peculiar character, fascinating personality, and
entertaining genius of his son.
As I may hereafter have occasion to refer to Eugene Field's political
convictions, let us begin these quotations with one as to his father's
politics:
"In the dark days of the Rebellion, during the years 1861 and 1862,
when the friends of the Union in St. Louis and Missouri felt that they
were in imminent danger of being drawn from their homes and of having
their estates confiscated by rebels and traitors, General Lyon, General
Blair, and R.M. Field were among the calm, loyal, and patriotic men who
influenced public action and saved the city and state."
Those of my readers who knew the son will recognize much that
captivated them in this description of the father:
"In his social relations he was a genial and entertaining companion,
unsurpassed in conversational powers, delighting in witty and sarcastic
observations and epigrammatic sentences. He was elegant in his manners
and bland and refined in his deportment. He was a skilful musician and
passionately fond of children, and it was his wont in early life to
gather them in groups about him and beguile them by the hour with the
music of the flute or violin. He was actually devoid of all ambition
for power and place, and uniformly declined all offers of advancement
to the highest judicial honors of the state."
From the lips of Samuel Knox, of the St. Louis bar, we have this
testimony as to the remarkable extent and versatility of Roswell M.
Field's talents:
"Uniting great industry and acquirements with the most brilliant wit
and genius, well and accurately informed on all subjects, both in
science and art; endowed with a memory that retained whatever it
received, with quick and clear perceptions, the choicest, most
felicitous, and forcible language in which to clothe his thoughts, no
one could doubt his meaning or withhold the tribute of wonder at his
power."
[Illustration: CHARLES KELLOGG FIELD.]
To clinch the evidence as to the source from which Eugene Field derived
pretty nearly everything that won for him such meed of fame as fell to
his lot, let me quote from an interview with Melvin L. Gray, his
guardian and foster-father, printed in the Helena Independent,
September 6th, 1895, shortly before his idol's death:
"If I had never believed in the influence of heredity before, I would
now, after having known Eugene Field and his father before him. The
father was a lawyer of wonderful ability, but he was particularly
distinguished by his keen wit, his intense appreciation of the humorous
side of life, and his fondness for rare first editions of literary
works. He was a profound student, and found much time to cultivate the
fairer qualities that some lawyers neglect in the busy round of their
profession. Eugene is not a lawyer, but he has his father's tastes, his
father's keen wit, and much of the same fineness of character and
literary ability."
"Another point of similarity is found in Eugene's neglect of financial
matters. In his youth the father was equally negligent, although he did
subsequently grow more thrifty, and when he died left the boys a little
patrimony. As executor I apportioned the money as directed. Both the
boys spent it freely while it lasted."
I find no trace in the father of what, all through life, was the
pre-eminent characteristic of Eugene, the inveterate painstaking,
mirth-compelling practical-joker. But in Brattleboro, Newfane, and
throughout Vermont everybody says, "That's jest like his uncle Charles
Kellogg. There was never such another for jest foolin'. He'd rather
play a hoax on the parson that would embarrass him in the face of his
congregation than eat." When they were boys, it was Charles that led
Roswell into all kinds of mischief. "Uncle Charles Kellogg"--they
always give him the benefit of the second name in Brattleboro--had a
reputation for wit and never-ending badinage throughout the
neighborhood that still survives and leaves no room to question whence
Eugene inherited his unquenchable passion "for jest foolin'."