Springfield 1636-1886, History of Town and City, by Mason A. Green ...

510 SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
Scott brought suit against John F. A. Sanford, the administrator of
the estate, chiiming that he and his family had been carried across
the border of the slave region into Illinois and Missouri, and still
compelled to suffer a slave's burden. The decision of the United
States Supreme Court upon this question amounted to nothing short of
nationalizing slavery, and its announcement was really the beginning
of the slaveholders' rebellion, as Northern revulsion from this politi-
cal theory and princple was deep and unalterable.
Mrs. Emerson, the owner of Dred Scott, had married, after the
doctor's death. Congressman Chaffee, of this town, and Mr. Sanford,
the administrator of the Emerson estate, Avas the brother of Mrs.
Chaffee, nee Emerson. Mr. Chaffee's political enemies were not slow
in piling the dry fagots of insinuation under his reputation and light-
ing a blaze. He was charged with the intent of making money out
of the very slave system which upon the floor of Congress he had
condemned. With a twenty years' honorable record as an anti-
slavery man, he was compelled to deny these strictures, and to say in
public, "•There is no earthly consideration that could induce me to
exercise proprietorship in any human being ;
for I regard slavery as
a sin against God and a crime against man," and he added, " If, in
the distribution of the estate, of which this decision affirms, these
human beings to be put, it appears that I, or mine, consent to receive
any part of the thirty pieces of silver, then, and not till then, let the
popular judgment, as well as the public press, fix on me the mark of
a traitor to my conscience."
Dred Scott said that the suit had cost him " a heap o' trouble, and
if I'd a known it was gwine to last so long I'd wouldn't a started
it." When the decision went against him he simply laughed at " de
fuss dey made dar in AVash'nton 'bout de old nigger." But the
North did not laugh. It was a dark day ; the Chaffees did not take
advantage of their decision and claina him as their property. The
charge that Dr. Chaffee did actually profit pecuniarily by the Dred
Scott decision makes a further statement necessary. Reuben A.