Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Supreme Court & the Politics of Slavery

In his "House Divided" speech, Abraham Lincoln accused Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and Senator Stephen Douglas of a conspiracy to perpetuate slavery in the United States. According to Lincoln, this conspiracy took form in the 1857 Supreme Court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, which excluded African Americans from U.S. citizenship. Kluge Fellow Rachel Shelden re-examines Lincoln's conspiracy charge in the context of how the federal political system -- and particularly the Supreme Court -- operated in the mid-19th century.
For transcript and more information, visit www.loc.gov/tod...