Document 3.15.4: Excerpt from dissenting opinion written by Justice Benjamin Robbins Curtis of the United States Supreme Judicial Court, March 1857

Justice Benjamin Robbins Curtis of Massachusetts protested Taney’s conclusions. 

At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation [1781], all free native-born inhabitants of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, though descended from African slaves, were not only citizens of those states, but such of them as had the other necessary qualifications possessed the franchises of electors, on equal terms with other citizens. . . these colored persons were not only included in the body of ‘the people of the United States,’ by whom the Constitution was ordained and established, but in at least five of the States they had the power to act, and doubtless did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of adoption. . . .Curtis also argued that under a “reasonable interpretation of the language of the Constitution,” Congress had the power to regulate slavery in the federal territories.

Source:  dissenting opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court Case Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sanford, March 6, 1857; Case Files 1792-1995; Record Group 267; Records of the Supreme Court of the United States; National Archives.