Feb 27, 2007 - Sale 2105

Sale 2105 - Lot 42

Price Realized: $ 1,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,200
A SCARCE DISSENT (DRED SCOTT.) Gray, Horace; and Lowell, John Jr. A Legal Review of the Case of Dred Scott, as Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. From the Law Reporter for June, 1857. By Horace Gray and John Lowell, Jr. 62 pages. 8vo, original printed wrappers; some edge-wear, spine with professional archival paper reinforcement. Boston: Nichols and Co., 1857

Additional Details

first separate edition. "One of the earliest and best argued legalistic attacks on Chief Justice Taney's opinion in Dred Scott. . . . the pamphlet is an excellent example of how conservative Northern lawyers were appalled by the partisan and unjudicial [sic] nature of Taney's opinion." In dissecting Taney's opinion they presented five points beginning with the fact that, under existing legal precedent (from Justice Curtis's dissenting opinion) Negroes could be citizens, and that any slave brought into a free jurisdiction by his master becomes free the moment that slave touches free soil. Finkelman, pages. 43-54.