V.

The Dissents

Justices John McLean of Ohio and Benjamin R. Curtis of Massachusetts issued dissenting opinions. Curtis attacked Taney’s historical arguments, showing that blacks had voted in five states at the founding of the United States. Thus, they were citizens of the nation from the beginning and could not now be denied citizenship.

Republicans also opposed the Court’s decision. In speeches and throughout his famous debates with Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln alleged a conspiracy to nationalize slavery that had been hatched by Taney, Douglas, former U.S. president Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan, then the president of the United States (see Abraham Lincoln: Lincoln-Douglas Debates).