Your petitioner, a man of color, respectfully represents that sometime in the year 1835 your petitioner was purchased as a slave by one John Emerson, since deceased, who afterwards, to wit, about the year 1836 or 1839, conveyed your petitioner from the State of Missouri to Fort Snelling, a fort then occupied by the troops of the United States, and under the jurisdiction of the United States, situated in the territory ceded by France to the United States under the name of Louisiana, lying North of 36 degrees and 30 minutes North latitude, not included within the limits of the State of Missouri; and resided and continued to reside at said Fort Snelling for upwards of one year, and holding your petitioner in slavery at said Fort during all that time; in violation of the act of Congress of March 6th, 1820, entitled “An act to authorize the people of Missouri Territory to form a constitution and State government and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states and to prohibit slavery in certain territories.”

Your petitioner avers that said Emerson has since departed this life, leaving a widow, Irene Emerson, and an infant child whose name is unknown to your petitioner, and that one Alexander Sandford has administered upon the estate of said Emerson and that your petitioner is now unlawfully held by said Sandford as said Administrator and said Irene Emerson who claims your petitioner as part of the estate of said Emerson and by one said Samuel Russell.

  Your petitioner therefore prays your Honorable Court to grant him
  leave to sue as a free person in order to establish his right to
  freedom and that the necessary orders may be made in the premises.

  (Signed) DRED SCOTT.

  his DRED X SCOTT mark

  Sworn to and subscribed before me this 1st day July, 1847,
  PETER W. JOHNSTONE, J.P.

Upon reading the above petition this day, it being the opinion of the Judge of the Circuit Court that the said petition contains sufficient matter to authorize the commencement of a suit for his freedom, it is hereby ordered that the said petitioner, Dred Scott, be allowed to sue, on giving security satisfactory to the Clerk of the Circuit Court for all costs that may be adjudged against him, and that he have reasonable liberty to attend his counsel and the Court as occasion may require, and that he be not subjected to any severity on account of this application for his freedom and that he be not removed out of the jurisdiction of the Court.

  A. HAMILTON,
  Judge of the St. Louis Circuit Court, 8th Judicial Circuit, Mo.
  July 2d, 1847.

Having obtained the desired leave to sue from Judge Alexander Hamilton, Roswell Field procured Joseph Charless, one of the leading citizens of St. Louis, to execute the necessary bond for costs.  Then he lost no time in filing the following complaint, which I have no doubt Eugene Field would have mortgaged many weeks’ salary to number among his most precious possessions.  He would have cherished it above the Gladstone axe, for, while that felled mighty oaks, this brief document laid the axe at the root of a deadly upas-tree which threatened the destruction of a free republic.  I offer no apology for its insertion here: