A demonstration of shoddy scholarship on Lewis's part. Professor Fehrenbacher documents that, "Meanwhile, a few newspapers had awakened to the potential significance of Dred Scott v. Sandford. The first was the Washington Evening Star, which on February 12 [1856!] declared, 'The public of Washington do not seem to be aware that one of the most important cases brought up for adjudication by the Supreme Court is now being tried before that august tribunal' .... Horace Greeley reported that the Court would soon decide 'a most important case, involving the validity (in its day) of the Missouri restriction.'"
Fehrenbacher further shows that "By Christmas 1856, Dred Scott's name was probably familiar to most Americans who followed the course of national affairs. Major newspapers throughout the country carried summaries of the four-day reargument." The ramifications of the decision were important enough that at least two members of the Court (Catron and Grier) "tipped off" doughface President-elect Buchanan as to the verdict prior to his inauguration speech. DS was probably the most anticipated decision of the Supreme Court up to that time.
Fehrenbacher notes in Chapter 18, "The Judges Judged," that "The first wave of public comment on the Dred Scott Decision was in response to the newspaper summaries of the oral opinions delivered on March 6 and 7, 1857.... Horace Greeley's New York Tribune set the pace with editorials almost every day denouncing this 'atrocious,' this 'wicked,' this 'abominable' judgement, which was no better than what might be obtained in any 'Washington bar-room' - denouncing the 'cunning chief' who collation of false statements and shallow sophistries' reavealed a 'detestable hypocrisy' and a 'mean and skulking cowardice'.... The Chicago Democrat-Press "expressed 'a feeling of shame and loathing' for 'this once illustrious tribunal, toiling meekly and patiently this dirty job.'; and the Chicago Tribune, which declared: 'We scarcely know how to express our detestation of its inhuman dicta, or to fathom the wicked consequences which may flow from it.'" Interestingly, in footnotes Fehrenbacher remarks, "For extensive quotations from press opinion, see Albert J. Beveridge..."
Fehrenbacher then notes, "A new surge of public interest in Dred Scott's case during late May and early June, 1857, resulted from news of his manumission and the curious circumstance surrounding it, but also from the publication of the official version of the decision in Howards Report's." "Most remarkable, however, was the extensive newspaper coverage in a day when only a few major journals exceeded four pages." "Montgomery Blair heard John McLean's opinion read from a pulpit on the first Sunday after it was read in court. One of the most notable performances was a series of sermons denouncing slavery and the Supreme Court by George B. Cheever of the Church of the Puritans in new York City." The Congregationalist weekly, the Independent called the decision a "vain attempt to change the law by power of Judges who have achieved only their own infamy." The decision was a "deliberate, willful perversion, for a particular purpose," the paper said. "If the people obey this decision, they disobey God."
The statement that the politicians did not take note of the DS decision for some time is also incorrect and specious. Comment concerning the case from the Congress wasn't going to happen until the Congress was back in session - December 1857, if I am not mistaken. But notables such as Thomas Hart Benton, "... smelling far too much essence of Calhoun in Taney's opinion, turned aside [from his Debates in Congress] to write 'with incredible speed' a book of 130 pages (plus a 62-page appendix'" about the failings of the decision.
So Walker Lewis is just wrong. If for no other reason, however, Lewis's scholarship should be questioned for this boner: "Slavery violated [Taney's] conscience. His opposition to abolition was not because he wished to perpetuate slavery but because he believed abolitionists misguided."
If he wrote it fast, does that make it any more accurate? Benton's so called "legal examination" focused on two issues, the invalidation of the Missouri Compromise Act which reduced yankee political power ('affecting Congress in its legislative capacity, and on which the Supreme Court has no right to bind'), and the application of the Constitution to territories, which ended dictatorial Congressionl rule, and spelled the death of yankee dreams of a lily-white west.
Again, the Congress had the power to impeach any of the justices, yet none were impeached. A few hotheads that might actually have to share the territories with white or black Southerners got bent out ouf shape. Millions of yankees did not secede, nor threaten secession because of the decision.