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Cardozo Law Review

Abstract

Professor Earl Maltz has written an excellent brief account of Benjamin R. Curtis's judicial record as it relates to slavery, including his dissenting argument in the famous Dred Scott case. He found Curtis to be a perfect example of mid-nineteenth century Northern conservative Whigs-the "Cotton Whigs," as their antislavery critics called them. They disliked slavery, but, in equal measure, they disliked those who agitated against it. Both Southern proslavery extremists and Northern abolitionists appalled them, for both groups endangered the Union. Conservative Whig President Millard Fillmore would not have appointed Curtis to the Supreme Court if he had shared the antislavery views of the socalled "Conscience Whigs" such as Senator William H. Seward of New York. Like Daniel Webster, the Cotton Whigs were nationalists who considered the preservation of the Union worth any price-including respect for what they accepted as the constitutional rights of slaveholders.

Keywords

Constitutional Law, Slavery, Race and Ethnicity Issues, Legal History, Civil War, War

Disciplines

Constitutional Law | Law | Law and Race | Legal History

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