A Study in Heredity and Contradictions. Slason Thompson
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 |
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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