The argument that Courts in the pre-Civil War period were engaging in "packing" is only possible if you assume there was a clearly agreed upon ideal number of justices. But in fact, Americans disagreed about what the ideal number was, for both political and legal reasons. /2
There was a long train of events, but it was a significant escalation that played a major part in galvanizing the nascent Republican coalition. Certainly Lincoln, who was vocal & blistering in his denunciations, thought so at the time.
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If I’m a crank about anything, it is the recycling of old, threadbare claims about Dred Scott. I’d welcome any contribution based in fresh (or heck any) evidence and interpretation. Otherwise, let it go.
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Sure, it galvanized the Republicans. But more than the Fugitive Slave Act? More than the Caning of Charles Sumner? What you're arguing here, that there is a clear line from Jacksonian ideology to a pro-slavery Supreme Court issuing Dred Scott to the Civil War, is far too neat
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