Good morning.
Tuesday: a sunny and windy day for Whitewater, with a high of fifty-eight. There’s our taste of spring.
Common Council meets at 6:30 p.m. tonight.
On this day in 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in the Dred Scott case. The New York Times published a story on the decision, summarizing the holding:
Washington, Friday, March 6 – The opinion of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case was delivered by Chief Justice Taney. It was a full and elaborate statement of the views of the Court. They have decided the following important points:
First – Negroes, whether slaves or free, that is, men of the African race, are not citizens of the United States by the Constitution.
Second – The Ordinance of 1787 had no independent constitutional force or legal effect subsequently to the adoption of the Constitution, and could not operate of itself to confer freedom or citizenship within the Northwest Territory on negroes not citizens by the Constitution.
Third – The provisions of the Act of 1820, commonly called the Missouri Compromise, in so far as it undertook to exclude negro slavery from, and communicate freedom and citizenship to, negroes in the northern part of the Louisiana cession, was a Legislative act exceeding the powers of Congress, and void, and of no legal effect to that end.
The text of the full decision – easily the worst decision in federal court history – is available online.
Google daily puzzle asks about a discoveries not-yet-made: “The man who organized all known chemical elements into a table made a prediction that more elements would be discovered. What did he call his as-yet-undiscovered elements?”