The real historical fact is that the Springfield Argus broke the story that the real owners of Dred Scott were Massachusetts Congressman Calvin Chaffee and his wife Irene. That was quoted in the Boston Post on June 1, 1857. The Cleveland Plain Dealer commented, "The decision confirms to this free soil hypocrite [nc - Congressman Chaffee who had actually changed from Free Soiler to Abolitionist] by right of his wife, the body and blood of Dred Scott and his family."
Regarding Calvin Chaffee's attempts to lie his way out of responsibility, Fehrenbacher charitably wrote, "One suspects that either Chaffee was dissimulating or that he had been misled by his wife." He did not "dissimulate," he lied. He got caught. He did not run for re-election.
The Agreed Statement of Facts, falsely sworn to by the colluding parties, averred that Sanford purchased Scott directly from John Emerson. Emerson died in 1843, more than a decade before the alleged sale. Both sides knew that.
Fehrenbacher notes there is no evidence that Sanford so much as ever laid eyes on Scott.
"It looks," said Caleb Cushing in a speech in October, 1857, "like a fancy case, got up and carried on for the public edification and amusement."
The entire case was a pack of manufactured lies. It was falling apart.
It was Curtis who had already earned the title of the "Slave Catcher Judge."
Chief Justice Taney challenged Justice Curtis. Justice Curtis resigned.
[cr #898] Taney changed the decision between the time he delivered it from the bench, to the time it was published, contrary to the rules of the Court. Taney admitted it, and rationalized his conduct. There really isn't any more to be said on the subject.
This is merely a rerun of your dishonest comments about the case of Mitchell v. Harmony. After days of listening to capitan_kerryfugio blather, we wound up with this: LINK
I have not read Mitchell, but the description in the Hamdi footnote is that the plantiff was a US citizen. As such, it is not applicable to the southerners in the ACW.
So, you had to admit that you had never read the decision in Mitchell. I then proved that what you attributed to a footnote was not a footnote at all. Furthermore, I proved that it did not come from the decision of the court in Hamdi but it came from a petitition filed by a public defender.
And here we are again.
capitan_refugio, you have never seen any transcript of the comments of Chief Justice Taney as read from the bench.
capitan_refugio, you have never seen any copy of any draft of Chief Justice Taney's official opinion.
You have talked and talked about things you have never seen.
In your #663 to 4CJ you say "The documentation exists in the National Archives, which contain two sets of printer's proofs, demostrating (sic) Taney's substantial changes. (Supreme Court Records, RG 267, Opinion in Appellate Cases, Box no. 52, National Archives)"
Fehrenbacher at page 320 wrote, "If so the opinion was ultimately expanded about 50 per cent, making it some eighteen pages longer, as Curtis calculated. This conclusion is partly confirmed by more definite evidence in the National Archieves, where two different sets of page proofs of the Taney opinion have been preserved. Handwritten additions to the proofs constitute about eight pages of the version finally published. [34]
Footnote 34 at page 670 reads, "Supreme Court Records, RG 267, Opinions in Appellate cases, Rox no. 52, NA."
It demonstrates that there were drafts and handwritten changes made to drafts. It does NOT demonstrate "substantial" changes or material changes
Fehrenbacher does not provide a quote of anything from the archives. For that reason, neither does capitan_kerryfugio.
Fehrenbacher writes, "Now, if Taney added eight pages after the document had been set in type, it is not difficult to believe that he had expanded the original manuscript by as much as ten pages before he sent it to the printer."
That does not demonstrate anything. It says if A it is not difficult to believe B.
Fehrenbacher continues, "It therefore appears that Curtis was substantially correct in his critique of the published opinion.
It appears that Fehrenbacher and capitan_kerryfugio are unable to demonstrate much, they can only refer to appearances and things not difficult to believe.
Fehrenbacher continues, "Taney's denial of having made any significant changes, though perhaps not untruthful according to his own peculiar lights, must be labeled inaccurate."
It must be noted that Fehrenbacher's assertion that Taney denied he "made any significant changes" though perhaps not untruthful according to his own peculiar lights, must be labeled inaccurate. That is not what Taney wrote. What Taney wrote was, "There is not one historical fact, nor one principle of constitutional law, or common law, or chancery law, or statute law, in the printed opinion, which was not distinctly announced and maintained from the bench; nor is there any one historical fact, or principle, or point of law, which was affirmed in the opinion from the bench, omitted or modified, or in any degree altered, in the printed opinion."
Nobody has demonstrated any material change. By providing not one quote of the archival drafts, Fehrenbacher did not even make an attempt to do so. capitan_kerryfugio cannot even demonstrate that he has ever seen the draft material of which he "demonstrates" such knowledge.
Fehrenbacher writes that Taney's explanation, "was the plain acknowledgement that the Taney revisions were indeed rebuttal to certain parts of the dissenting opinions." Assuming that to be absolutely true, it does not aver any change to the holdings of the court as read from the bench.
Of course, as we know, capitan_kerryfugio can even "demonstrate" knowledge of Supreme Court cases that never existed. When speaking about Lemmon v. The People, at capitan_refugio #386, capitan regaled us with this mush about a case that never went to the Supreme Court: "Lemmon v the People was a case which foreshadowed Dred Scott. The Taney Court overturned a New York State statute which immediately freed slaves brought into the state. The decision guaranteed "sojourn and transit" and transit rights to slave-owners through free states. It did not address, to my knowledge, the issue of residence." Every stated position about the outcome of the case is wrong. Lemmon was decided by the New York State Court of Appeals in 1860, about 4 years after the U.S. Supreme Court decided Scott v. Sandford.
As for what the people got to read, we must follow the story of Benjamin Howard, the official Supreme Court reporter. He earned his living by his salary and publishing of Court decisions. Thus, besides being grossly unethical, the conduct of Curtis and McLean of releasing their opinions to the press deprived Mr. Howard of his livelihood. Howard protested and received $1500. Howard was unable to sell his own publication because, before the official release of the opinions, the New York Tribune had already flooded the market with a 25-cent pamphlet.
So, that 25-cent pamphlet was what the people read. That pamphlet contained the full version of the Curtis and McLean opinions. And the New York paper provided its own summary of the other opinions.
That is something like the people getting the O.J. trial from the evening news reports and talk shows and hearing over and over about how the limo driver, Alan Park, observed a black male, approximately OJ's height and weight, run across the lawn and enter the house.
Despite the great spin by the New York press, and others, the story was unraveling for what it was -- a conspiracy by colluding parties to manufacture a falsified set of "facts" and present a bogus case to the Supreme Court.
Two sets of printers proofs containing demonstrable changes:
(1). Five paragraphs from the proofs plus three other paragraphs (added after delivery from the bench) in rebuttal to dissent that "Taney's opinion was without authority."
(2). Fifteen paragraphs of rebuttal to McLean to explain why Taney differs from a prior opinion given by John Marshall.
(3). Three paragraphs "denouncing the manner in which the case had been brought before the Supreme Court ... introduc[ing] a new question that had not been argued by counsel.
These, as Professor Fehrenbacher notes, were just the more lengthly changes between the two sets of proofs. Fehrenbacher also provides convincing evidence which validates Curtis's charges of substantial changes by Taney.
All of this of this intrigue by the dishonest Chief Justice led Fehrenbacher to ask, in the last sentence of the chapter:
"Another complication is thereby added to an already labyrinthine case, and especially to the question that has fascinated and confused several generations of historians and legal scholars: What did the Court actually decide?"
"Personal spite is visible in Taney's treatment of his colleague from Massachusetts {Curtis], a state he detested. After all, Justice McLean had also sinned against judicial propriety by rushing his opinion into print, and yet there is no indication that the Chief Justice ever censured him for doing so...."
"In virtually forcing his younger associate off of the bench, the Chief Justice was undoubtedly venting his hostility to the antislavery movement and his resentment of the personal abuse to which he had been subjected since the announcement of the Dred Scott decision."
Fehrenbacher, p 318-319.
The Professor also notes, "[T]hat as a dissenter, [Curtis] was contributing nothing to the authoritative decision. All dissenting opinion is on level with dictum in the sense of being outside the ratio decidendi."
With regard to Benjamin Howard were read:
"For Benjamin C. Howard, the Dred Scott decision thus constituted 'a kind of windfall,' which his friend the Chief Justice was anxious to protect (Howard, a fellow Marylander and Democrat, and a family connection with Taney through the [Francis Scott] Key family). This was one reason Taney objected to the early release of the McLean and Curtis opinions. Competitive publication could not be prevented, however. Arrangements were soon being made to print 20,000 copies of the decision for senatorial distribution. Howard protested and received an indemnity of #1500, but that was about the extent of his good fortune. His own pamphlet edition, published by D. Appleton and company, did not become a best seller. In August 1858 he learned there had been 'no sales' during the previous six months and, indeed, an increase in stock owing to returns. By no means did this reflect a lack of public interest in the decision. Howard's expectations were blighted by just too much cheap competition, such as the twenty-five-cent pamphlet rushed into publication by the new York Tribune, containing the Taney and Curtis opinions in full, plus summaries of the others."
Your suggestion that Howard was damaged by the Tribune's release before the official release is incorrect. The Tribune pamphlet contained the full, rewritten Taney decision, and therefore must have been, and after from the "official release." Howard simply priced himself out of the market. Given that he had a negative number of sales in 1858, due to returns, I hesitate to think how he might have ranked on an antebellum Amazon list.