It proved injurious to the Court, which thenceforward was assailed most bitterly in the North and defended with intemperate zeal in the South.

Personally upright and honorable as the judges were individually known to be, there was a conviction in the minds of a majority of Northern people, that on all issues affecting the institution of slavery they were unable to deliver a just judgment; that an Abolitionist was, in their sight, the chief of sinners, deserving to be suppressed by law; that the anti- slavery agitation was conducted, according to their belief, by two classes,--fanatics and knaves,--both of whom should be promptly dealt with; the fanatics in strait-jackets and the knaves at the cart's tail.
Chief Justice Taney, who delivered the opinion which proved so obnoxious throughout the North, was not only a man of great attainments, but was singularly pure and upright in his life and conversation.

Had his personal character been less exalted, or his legal learning less eminent, there would have been less surprise and less indignation.

But the same qualities which rendered his judgment of apparent value to the South, called out intense hostility in the North.

The lapse of years, however, cools the passions and tempers the judgment.