DOUGLAS AND LINCOLN ON DRED SCOTT Manifestly, when the educated intellects of the learned judges differed so radically concerning the principles of law and the facts of history applicable to the Dred Scott question, the public at large could hardly be expected to receive the new dogmas without similar divergence of opinion.

So far from exercising a healing influence, the decision widened immensely the already serious breach between the North and the South.

The persons immediately involved in the litigation were quickly lost sight of;[1] but the constitutional principle affirmed by the court was defended by the South and denounced by the North with zeal and acrimony.

The Republican party did not further question or propose to disturb the final judgment in the case; but it declared that the Dred Scott doctrines of the Supreme Court should not be made a rule of political action, and precisely this the South, together with the bulk of the Northern Democrats, insisted should be done.
[Sidenote] 19 Howard, pp.

460-1.
A single phase of the controversy will serve to illustrate the general drift of the discussion throughout the Union.