Pre-Civil War, the U.S. Supreme Court enjoyed a prestige that the elected branches of the federal government “could not emulate,” says James Simon, dean emeritus of New York Law School.
But for abolitionists, the stakes were too high to let the Supreme Court settle the slavery issue that was dividing the nation. “I would rather trust a dog with my dinner,” the New York Tribune‘s Horace Greeley wrote. The Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, Scott v. Sandford, bore out Greeley’s fears. Written by Chief Justice Roger Taney, the decision perpetuated slavery and is usually viewed as the worst ruling in the Court’s history. Whether or not it triggered the Civil War is still debated, but Simon argues that, at the very least, it propelled Abraham Lincoln into the presidency in 1860.
