Why did the Court take this fateful step? Answers to this question have been uncertain and partisan. Only fragmentary accounts of the justices’ confidential discussions leaked out, some of them years later. One interpretation of this evidence maintains that the two non-Democrats on the Court, John McLean of Ohio and Benjamin Curtis of Massachusets, stated their intention to dissent from the narrow decision prepared by Nelson. Their dissent would not only uphold Scott’s freedom but would also affirm black citizenship and endorse the right of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories. Not
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