Just read - no comments needed

[L Verge]

(06-21-2018 04:14 PM)Wild Bill Wrote:  I call everyone's attention to Plutarch's quote at the bottom of each of Lockmiller's contributions.

And revisionist history sure ain't helping...

BTW, I didn't know this: Influence of President Buchanan

Historians discovered that after the Supreme Court had heard arguments in the case but before it had issued a ruling, President-elect James Buchanan wrote to his friend, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Catron, asking whether the case would be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court before his inauguration in March 1857.[20] Buchanan hoped the decision would quell unrest in the country over the slavery issue by issuing a ruling that put the future of slavery beyond the realm of political debate.

Buchanan later successfully pressured Associate Justice Robert Cooper Grier, a Northerner, to join the Southern majority in Dred Scott to prevent the appearance that the decision was made along sectional lines.[21] Both by present-day standards and under the more lenient standards of the time, Buchanan's applying such political pressure to a member of a sitting court would be regarded as highly improper.[22] Republicans fueled speculation as to Buchanan's influence by publicizing that Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had secretly informed Buchanan of the decision before Buchanan declared, in his inaugural address, that the slavery question would "be speedily and finally settled" by the Supreme Court.[23][24]

I also found out that Dred Scott died of tuberculosis just 18 months after gaining his freedom in 1858.