Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions

manners against such men as Benton, Gamble, and Bates, who were the leaders of the Missouri bar when, in 1839, Roswell Field took up his residence in St. Louis. Now it was that his familiarit

erited through his mother, from her grim old Puritan ancestors, the positive opinions and unquenchable sense of duty that constitute the far-famed New England conscience. He was born with a repugnance to slavery, whether of the will or of the body, and grew to manhood in t

brated of the many important cases adjudicated by our highest tribunal, for not only did it settle the status of Dred Scott temporarily, but the decision handed down by Chief Justice Taney is the great classic of a great bench. It denied the legal existence of the African race as persons in American society and in constitutional law,

ensation. The details of this celebrated case, after it got into the United States courts, are a part of the history of

degrees and 30 minutes, was free soil under the Missouri Compromise of 1820. At Fort Snelling, Scott married a colored woman who had also been taken as a slave from Missouri. When Dr. Emerson returned to Missouri he brought Dred Scott, his wife, and child with him. T

the jurisdiction of the United States, situated in the territory ceded by France to the United States under the name of Louisiana, lying North of 36 degrees and 30 minutes North latitude, not included within the limits of the State of Missouri; and resided and continued to reside at said Fort Snelling for upwards of one year, and holding your petitione

r petitioner, and that one Alexander Sandford has administered upon the estate of said Emerson and that your petitioner is now unlawfully held by said

leave to sue as a free person in order to establish his right to

d) DRE

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a

ibed before me this

JOHNSTO

ordered that the said petitioner, Dred Scott, be allowed to sue, on giving security satisfactory to the Clerk of the Circuit Court for all costs that may be adjudged against him, and that he have reasonable liberty

ge of the St. Lo

cial Cir

2d,

no time in filing the following complaint, which I have no doubt Eugene Field would have mortgaged many weeks' salary to number among his most precious possessions. He would have cherished it above the Glad

OF MIS

F ST. LO

OURT OF S

OUIS

er Ter

d the said plaintiff and then and there, beat, bruised, and ill-treated him and then and there imprisoned and kept and detained him in prison there without any reasonable or probable cause whatsoever, for a long time, to wit for the space of one year, then next following, contrary to law and against the will of the said plaintiff; and the said plaintiff avers that before and at the ti

LL, Attys.

risonment was begun a long and stubbornly fought litigation, extending over

white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly an

cause of the variance of the complaint from the subsequently discovered facts. In the second suit Dred Scott and his family were declared free by the local court, but the judgment was reversed on appeal to the Supreme Court of the state. Judge Gamble, in dissenting from the o

wful property of Sandford." Roswell Field immediately appealed by writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the appeal was first argued early in 1856, and a second time in December of the same year. Mr. Field's connection with the case ended when he prepared the papers on appeal and sent hi

Buchanan campaign, and it was believed that the second hearing was ordered by a pro-slavery court after Buchanan's election, to permit more time in which to formulate the extraordinary decis

om the judgment of Chief Justice Taney a

records of the Superior Court of that state bear interesting and convincing testimony to the exceptional brilliancy of Eugene Field's father, while the tributes to his memory, by his brothers at the bar and the j

ssages from a brief memoir which is preserved in the history of Newfane, as throwing direct heredi

e Field's political convictions, let us begin thes

ey were in imminent danger of being drawn from their homes and of having their estates confiscated by rebels and traitors, General Lyon,

will recognize much that captivated t

is manners and bland and refined in his deportment. He was a skilful musician and passionately fond of children, and it was his wont in early life to gather them in groups about him and beguile them by

r, we have this testimony as to the remarkable ex

cience and art; endowed with a memory that retained whatever it received, with quick and clear perceptions, the choicest, most felicitou

r him such meed of fame as fell to his lot, let me quote from an interview with Melvin L. Gray, his guardian

shed by his keen wit, his intense appreciation of the humorous side of life, and his fondness for rare first editions of literary works. He was a profound student, and found much time to cultivate the fairer quali

equally negligent, although he did subsequently grow more thrifty, and when he died left the boys a little

s Kellogg. There was never such another for jest foolin'. He'd rather play a hoax on the parson that would embarrass him in the face of his congregation than eat." When they were boys, it was Charles that led Roswell into all kinds of mischief. "Uncle Charles Kellogg