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The Last Angry Man: Benjamin Robbins Curtis And The Dred Scott Case, Earl M. Maltz
The Last Angry Man: Benjamin Robbins Curtis And The Dred Scott Case, Earl M. Maltz
Chicago-Kent Law Review
The dissenting opinion of Justice Benjamin Robbins Curtis in Dred Scott has generally received lavish praise from commentators. Curtis is typically praised not only for his substantive conclusions, but also for his seemingly dispassionate analysis of the legal issues presented by the case. In many respects, this praise is well-deserved; Curtis's discussions of the issues of slavery in the territories and citizenship for free blacks are models of legal reasoning. However, a close analysis of other aspects of his opinion reveals that Curtis's analysis was at times distorted by his anger with the actions of Chief Justice Taney and other …
Legality And Legitimacy In Dred Scott: The Crisis Of The Incomplete Constitution, Michael P. Zuckert
Legality And Legitimacy In Dred Scott: The Crisis Of The Incomplete Constitution, Michael P. Zuckert
Chicago-Kent Law Review
The original Constitution was incomplete in that it contained a disparity between the principles of legitimacy of the system and the legality of the institution of slavery. Political communities marked by such disharmony are beset with pressures to make the system consistent in one way or another. Such indeed was the fate of the U.S. during the antebellum era. Three typical responses arose: to make legality correspond to legality (by redefining the principles of legitimacy of the system), to make legality conform to legitimacy (by doing away with slavery), or to maintain the tension in ever more creative ways. The …
Benjamin Curtis: Top Of The List, R. Owen Williams
Benjamin Curtis: Top Of The List, R. Owen Williams
Chicago-Kent Law Review
Among the many brave and brilliant dissents from the Supreme Court, few are more historically significant than that of Benjamin Curtis in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Earl Maltz insists that the traditional view of Curtis as a dispassionate Justice is incorrect; Curtis is better seen as the "Last Angry Man." This paper considers the famous dissent, the man who wrote it, and the technical analysis Maltz claims as sine qua non to a proper understanding of the opinion.