Suppose he did make a wrong decision.

No man is infallible.
He was a great, learned, able judge." Mr.Sumner rejoined with much temper.

He said that "Taney would be hooted down the pages of history, and that an emancipated country would fix upon his name the stigma it deserved.

He had administered justice wickedly, had degraded the Judiciary, and had degraded the age." Mr.Wilson followed Mr.Sumner in a somewhat impassioned speech, denouncing the Dred Scott decision "as the greatest crime in the judicial annals of the Republic," and declaring it to be "the abhorrence, the scoff, the jeer, of the patriotic hearts of America." Mr.Reverdy Johnson answered Mr.Sumner with spirit, and pronounced an eloquent eulogium upon Judge Taney.

He said, "the senator from Massachusetts will be happy if his name shall stand as high upon the historic page as that of the learned judge who is now no more." Mr.Johnson directed attention to the fact that, whether wrong or right, the Dred Scott decision was one in which a majority of the Supreme Court had concurred, and therefore no special odium should be attached to the name of the venerable Chief Justice.