tes courts,
are a part of the history of our country. What I am about to relate is
scarcely known outside of the old Court House and Hall of Records in
St. Louis.

Dred Scott was a negro slave of Dr. Emerson, a surgeon in the United
States Army, then stationed in Missouri. Dr. Emerson took Scott with
him when, in 1834, he moved to Illinois, a free state, and subsequently
to Fort Snelling, Wis. This territory, being north of 36 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. The case came to the
attention of Roswell Field, and at once enlisted all his human sympathy
and great legal ability. His first petition to the Circuit Court for
the County of St. Louis is too important and unique a human document
not to be preserved in full. It reads:

Your petitioner, a man of color, respectfully represents that
sometime in the year 1835 your petitioner was purchased as a slave
by one John Emerson, since deceased, who afterwards, to wit, about
the year 1836 or 1839, conveyed your petitioner from the State of
Missouri to Fort Snelling, a fort then occupied by the troops of the
United States, and under 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 petitioner in slavery at
said Fort during all that time; in violation of the act of Congress
of March 6th, 1820, entitled "An act to authorize the people of
Missouri Territory to form a constitution and State government and
for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing
with the original states and to prohibit slavery in certain
territories."

Your petitioner avers that said Emerson has since departed this
life, leaving a widow, Irene Emerson, and an infant child whose name
is unknown to your petitioner, and that one Alexander Sandford has
administered upon the estate of said Emerson and that your
petitioner is now unlawfully held by said Sandford as said
Administrator and said Irene Emerson who claims your petitio