A Study in Heredity and Contradictions. Slason Thompson
New England, took passage at the city of New York in an outward bound vessel, and retired to the other side of the Atlantic."
Out of one of the actions instituted in the name of Roswell Field and Mary Almira, his wife, grew a libel suit, brought by Mistress Susanna against him, in which the special pleas drawn and filed by Roswell Field were pronounced by Justice Story "to be masterpieces of special pleading." Through all these proceedings Mr. Field disclaimed all intention or wish "to visit legal pains and penalties" upon his wife, whom he regarded "as the victim and scapegoat of a wicked conspiracy."
Finally, and after the birth of a child, Jeremiah and Mary Almira were forced to bring a suit for the nullification of the Putney marriage. Field met the complaint with a plea that set out all the facts. He contended that, as the Putney marriage was between persons of legal discretion and consent, there could be no condition that would render it voidable at the election of either. Every law and precedent was in favor of the inviolability of the Putney marriage, and yet so powerful were the family influences and so distressing would have been the results of a finding in his favor, that the lower court preferred to disregard precedents and law rather than illegitimatize the innocent children of Jeremiah and Mary. The same view was taken by the higher court, which absolved Mary of "being fully acquainted with the legal consequences of a solemnization of marriage." The court itself was forced to regard the ceremony as "a promise or engagement to marry," rather than a completed and sacred contract. The opinion as rendered is one long apology for declaring the Putney marriage invalid, in order to save Mary Almira from the crime of bigamy and her children from being the offspring of an illicit union.
The conclusion of the opinion reflects the spirit in which it was rendered. "It may be proper to add," said the court, "that we are not disposed to animadvert on the conduct of the parties or of their respective friends and connections, nor to pronounce any opinion further than is required to show the grounds of our determination. The immediate parties may find some excuse or palliation in the thoughtlessness of youth, the strength of affection, the pangs of disappointment and blighted hopes, in versatility of feeling to which all are subject, and in constitutional temperament. The conduct of the friends of either is not to be judged of nor censured in consequence of the unfortunate results which have attended this truly unfortunate case. In judging of the past transactions of others, which have terminated either favorably or unfavorably, we are apt to say that a different course was required and would have produced a different effect. But who can say what would have been the inevitable consequences of a different line of conduct by the friends of either party? The infatuation and the determination of the parties to pursue that course which was most agreeable to their own feelings and views, placed their friends and acquaintances in a very unpleasant situation, and it would be wrong for us now to say that they were not actuated by good motives, and did not pursue that line of conduct which they thought at the time duty dictated. We inquire not as to the conduct of others, we censure them not, nor do we say anything as to the parties before us, except what has been thought necessary in deciding the case."
The decree of nullification was affirmed in July, 1839, and before the close of the year Roswell M. Field had shaken the dust of Vermont from his feet and taken up his residence in St. Louis. Thus Vermont lost the most brilliant young advocate of his day, and Missouri gained the lawyer who was to adorn its bar and institute the proceedings for the manumission of Dred Scott, the slave, whose case defined the issues of our Civil War.
CHAPTER III
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