The National tribune., 1908-04-16
THE DRIED SCOTT CASE.

THE DHfID SUIT SASTs
"The evil men do lives after them"
and the Dred Scott case bobs up again
most unexpectedly. Some men in Mis-
souri, have conceived the idea that un-
der the Dred Scott decision they can
secure payment for the slaves who were
emancipated. They allege that Dred
Scott could not have brought suit him.
self, but was so lazy and useless that
the trustee OF the estate to which he
belonged sought to get rid of him by
proof that having once been in free
State as a resident Scott was entitled
TO his liberty. The Supreme Court haV-
ing decided that Congress had no con-
stitutional power to limit or in any way
interfere with slavery, therefore the
United States is liable for the value oil
all the slaves who were freed.
The whole claim is absolutely base
less, and the story told is void of truth.
The gist of the Dred Scott decision mas
been much obscured by the fierce po-
litical discussions and the war. me
gist of the decision was sound law and
not questioned, but what made all me
trouble was the Supreme Courts going
outside of the case before them and
trying to settle the whole slavery ques-
ton in favor of the South. The facts
are that Dred Scott. who was the slave
of DR.. Emerson, a Surgeon in the Unit
tol hv him TO
Rock Island and then to Fort Smelling,
while stationed there in his duty lte-
turning with his master to st. LOUIS,
Dred some years afterward brought SUIT
for freedom on the ground that having
been taken by his master voluntarily
into free territory he had thereby ac-
auired his freedom. The case finally
reached the Supreme Court at time
when the slave power was at the hight
of its arrogance, and the court, after
deciding the case before it, went OH
into a wide discussion of almost every
thing under the sun in attempting toI
prove that the negro was an inferior
being, who had no rights which a white
man was bound to respect. The Mis-
souri, Supreme Court had held that the
residence of DR.. Emerson, Dred SCOTS
master in Rock Island and Fort Shell
ing, was only temporary and in the per-
formance of his duty as a Government
officer, and upon Government reserva-
tions; that he had no intention OF
changing his residence, and If there had
been any change in Dred's status while
residing there his servile condition
would revive upon his return to Mis-
souri,. Chief Justice Taney, with four
other Justices concurring, decided that
Dred Scott was not citizen of Missouri,
and that consequently the Circuit Court
of the United States, which had been
appealed to, had no jurisdiction, and II
should dismiss the suit. Had the Su-
preme Court confined itself to this point
it would have been generally accepted
as good, tho very harsh law, but in its
yea, 1t went on to deny that the African
race had or could have any legal exist
ence as persons" that Congress had
no control over the Territories, and that
the Missouri Compromise was uncon-
stitutionai. Justices Mclean and Curtis,
who dissented, held that there was in
the Constitution a plain distinction be-
tween citizens and ELECTORS and
that the negros were repeatedly men,
toned as persons" They supported
their position also by the undoubted
fact that at the time of the adoption of
the Constitution negros were not only
a.. in Of
of the States, and they were still voters
except where, as in North Carolina and
New Jersey, the right had been taken
away from them by changes in the
State Constitution. Even tho free ne
gros might not be electors" in any
particular State, they We're still always
citizens" capable of suing and being
sued, and at least on the same footing
as women and minors.
The majority of the Supreme Court
had held that the clause of the Consti-
tuition empowering Congress ito make
all necessary rules and regulations re-
specting the territory or other property
belonging to the United States only
referred TO the territory and property
i'm possession of the Government before
the acquisition of Louisiana. Therefore,
the rights of Congress as to that portion
of the public domain embraced in the
Louisiana Purchase was limited. The
slaves were found there as property"
and Congress was bound to protect that
property. The dissenting Justices held
that slavery was valid only by State
law, and when a slave was voluntarily
taken out of a slave State by his owner
he lost his character Of slave and took
on that of a free and natural person,
since the State law making him a slave
could not extend beyond the limits of
the State. In all this reasoning nothing
can be found to sustain the claim of the
Missourians who are wanting the United
States to pay for their slaves.
The immigration officers have found
sufficient reason for keeping Emma
Goldman out of the United States in
spite of her naturalization papers. They
held that she had forfeited all her