Dred Scott decision

Reactions

Southern Democrats considered Republicans to be lawless rebels who were provoking disunion by their refusal to accept the Supreme Court's decision as the law of the land. Many northern opponents of slavery offered a legal argument for refusing to acknowledge the Dred Scott decision on the Missouri Compromise. They argued, following Justice Curtis' dissenting opinion, that the Court's determination that the federal courts had no jurisdiction to hear the case rendered the remainder of the decision a non-binding obiter dictum—an advisement rather than an authoritative interpretation of the law. Stephen Douglas attacked that position in the Lincoln–Douglas debates: