It involves a right claimed under an act of Congress and the Constitution of Illinois, and which cannot be decided without the consideration and construction of those laws....  Rights sanctioned for twenty-eight years ought not and cannot be repudiated, with any semblance of justice, by one or two decisions, influenced, as declared, by a determination to counteract the excitement against slavery in the free-States....  Having the same rights of sovereignty as the State of Missouri in adopting a constitution, I can perceive no reason why the institutions of Illinois should not receive the same consideration as those of Missouri....  The Missouri court disregards the express provisions of an act of Congress and the Constitution of a sovereign State, both of which laws for twenty-eight years it had not only regarded, but carried into effect.  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.  It is stated by one of the participants in that memorable transaction (Justice Campbell) that this occurred “upon a motion of Mr. Justice Wayne, who stated that the case had created public interest and expectation, that it had been twice argued, and that an impression existed that the questions argued would be considered in the opinion of the court.”  He further says that “the apprehension had been expressed by others of the court, that the court would not fulfill public expectation or discharge its duties by maintaining silence upon these questions; and my impression is, that several opinions had already been begun among the members of the court, in which a full discussion of the case was made, before Justice Wayne made this proposal.”