September 17th is Constitution Day.  In all its irony or better, Providential design, it is also the day that Dred Scott died.  He left this earth a free man, though surely battered for his weary fight, yet free.  The last 12 years of his life were all about law and ultimately what Justice Taney said the constitution meant.

The freedom of his family lay on the line.  In the end through subsequent events, the freedom of all Americans was secured by law with the advent of the 13th Amendment.  The 14th amendment legally declared citizenship, which which was denied in the Dred Scott Decision, as a right to all natural born persons in the United States of America. In effect, it reversed the infamous decision and was the centerpiece of the Reconstruction Amendments.

In recognition of this document, the Constitution - the foundational law that was interpreted and misinterpreted on his behalf - we submit to you a vast array of opinions that signers, abolitionists, suffragettes, poets, authors, professors, judges and presidents have offered over the years.  This most famous of human documents, second only to the Declaration of Independence, the U S Constitution, has many admirers and a few detractors. Read for yourself its influence as deemed by these most notables.

Constitution Day Quotes

Rest in Peace, Mr. Scott.