If a State court may do this, on a question involving the liberty of a human being, what protection do the laws afford?
[Sidenote] Campbell to Tyler, Samuel Tyler.

"Life of Taney," pp.
383-4.
Had the majority of the judges carried out their original intention, and announced their decision in the form in which Justice Nelson, under their instruction, wrote it, the case of Dred Scott would, after a passing notice, have gone to a quiet sleep under the dust of the law libraries.

A far different fate was in store for it.

The nation was then being stirred to its very foundation by the slavery agitation.
The party of pro-slavery reaction was for the moment in the ascendant; and as by an irresistible impulse, the Supreme Court of the United States was swept from its hitherto impartial judicial moorings into the dangerous seas of polities.
[Sidenote] Campbell to Tyler, Tyler, p.

384.
Before Judge Nelson's opinion was submitted to the judges in conference for final adoption as the judgment of the court a movement seems to have taken place among the members, not only to change the ground of the decision, but also greatly to enlarge the field of inquiry.