During his relatively brief, 49-month tenure as U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln had opportunities to appoint a disproportionately large complement of five Supreme Court justices.

The case involved a Missouri slave who had lived for more than nine years in the free territory of Illinois, then returned to St. Louis and attempted unsuccessfully to obtain his freedom from the widow of his former owner.

A St. Louis court ruled in favor of Scott's freedom in 1850, but the members of the former owner's family, Irene Sanford Emerson and John Sanford, appealed. The matter proceeded to federal district court and, ultimately, to the Supreme Court.

Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, “Uncle Tom's Cabin, Or Life Among the Lowly,” had been published five years earlier, arousing public sentiment against slavery.

The Scott ruling split the Democratic Party into northern and southern factions and made it possible three years later for a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, to defeat three candidates of the splintered opposition.

Abraham Lincoln had delivered his first major speech against the Scott decision on June 26, 1857, in the Illinois House of Representatives. He noted a difference in the respective courses of the two political parties.

In Lincoln's words, “The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged.

“The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage; so far as possible, crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him …”

During the next year, in which Lincoln debated and campaigned against Stephen A. Douglas for election to the U.S. Senate, he gave more than 60 speeches that touched on the divisive issue of slavery.

He was a popular speaker throughout the country in 1859 and 1860, promising to see that the Scott ruling was overturned, and he was elected president on Nov. 6, 1860.

South Carolina seceded from the union on Dec. 20, and the Confederate States of America was formed Feb. 4 – one month before Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861.

The new president was faced immediately with three Supreme Court vacancies. They included that of John McLean, one of two dissenters from the Dred Scott decision, who had died in April 1861.

The others were of Peter Vivian Daniel, who died in May 1860, and John Archibald Campbell, who resigned to join the Confederacy. Both had sided with the Scott majority.

Lincoln replaced them with Noah Haynes Swayne, Samuel Freeman Miller and David Davis, his former colleague and judge who subsequently was president of the Illinois State Bar Association in 1884.

In 1863, Congress authorized a 10th seat on the Supreme Court, and Lincoln filled it with Stephen Johnson Field.

Then in 1864, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, author of the opinion that was a stepping stone to Lincoln's election, died Oct. 12. Lincoln nominated Salmon Portland Chase, who was confirmed as chief justice on Dec. 6 by a Senate voice vote.

John Catron, another member of the Scott majority, outlived Lincoln by 45 days, dying May 30, 1865. Three others – James Moore Wayne, Samuel Nelson and Robert Cooper Grier – served on the court for a few more years.

Born in Virginia about 1799, Dred Scott was the property of Peter Blow, who moved to Missouri in 1830. Financial problems caused Blow to sell Scott to John Emerson, a military surgeon who traveled in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Scott had married Harriet Robinson, also a slave, and they had two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie. Emerson died in 1843, and the Scotts sued his widow, Irene Sanford Emerson, three years later.

Irene Emerson remarried soon after the Supreme Court ruling ended the 11-year legal battle, and returned the Scott family to Taylor Blow, a descendant of the original owner. Blow granted freedom to the Scotts in May 1857.

Dred Scott died in September 1858 of tuberculosis, a free man but still without any legal protection. He was interred in Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, where visitors often leave Lincoln pennies on his marker. His wife is buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

On Feb. 1, 1865, Illinois became the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery. The law had been enacted the previous day by the U.S. House, 119 to 56, and signed by President Lincoln.

An administrator at the Bryan Cave law firm in St. Louis, Jackson is the daughter of John A. Madison, a graduate of the former Lincoln University School of Law.

A permanent exhibition, “Seeking St. Louis,” at the Missouri Historical Museum includes a portrait of Scott and information about how slavery and secession divided the city.

A special display of important documents, including the freedom bonds of Dred and Harriett Scott, will be on view in the museum's Whitaker Loggia until April 1.

A program on the emancipation of the Scotts by Taylor Blow will be presented May 26 in the historic old courthouse. Additional events are planned on Sept. 17 for Constitution Day.

The historical museum will conduct a guided discovery tour, “Dred Scott: Seeking Freedom,” of various sites related to the family and the litigation from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 31.

A Wellston Historical Residency Program for students will take place from June 11 to July 13 at the museum and library, with field trips and guest speakers.