8. The court i think knows to be very careful and cautious in how it proceeds in dealing with those difficult cases. Obamacare is another one. The Affordable Care act. All cases that are political charged questions and the court knows that they can only do so much in that regard or they risk makes the same mistakes. Justice breyer on the legacy of the dred scott. Theres a theory what he was trying to do was avoid the civil war. His friends in congress had been telling him that if you can get this thing decided once and for all by an institution with the prestige of the Supreme Court people will accept it, it will bring peace to the nation. Believed that . Perhaps, if he was being political. Dont be political for three one, its wrong. Two, the whole point of this institution that hamilton set up was to have a group of people who werent politicians who would be deciding this. If you wanted politicians to decide it give the job to congress. And third and just as important if judges are going to decide things on a political basis remember theyre terrible politicians. I mean, there are good politicians but theyre not judges. They have life in politics. If he was being political, remember hes about the worst politician youve ever saw because he brought about the exact opposition. If he wanted a peaceful nation, if anything, he helped produce a war. Did roger and the dred scott decision produce a war . Well, you know, as martha said earlier, sometimes that can be overstated. But heres what we do know the justice most forcefully rejected the idea of black citiz citizenship. He did that unapologetically. The ses sessionists will embo emboldened by this decision. That also created the preconditions that were necessary to be able to establish conclusively black citizenship. The 14th amendment. Did it bring about a civil war . No, there were many other contributing factors to the civil war but it certainly elevated the temperature and was a contributing factor and. Im going to take a last call and well get closing arguments from you on the significance of this case. Lets hear from david in rochester, new york caller hi, i have a book called the dred scott case, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979, is that book still relevant, more up to date books that you would recommend . Thank you. Just today i tweeted out that i was rereading the book this afternoon. Masterful treatment of the dred scott case. Questions, among those, these much more Human Dimensions of the case. The story of the scott family, that onot one that was really told. Still for me, its a book we go back to. The other thing, as he continues to write elsewhere we have an essay written by him more recently in a book, that one is available as well. Look at that book but also look for anything else the man has written. Hes made a significant contribution on the dred scott. One guide to this series that we published selling it at cost and its landmark cases, just the 12 cases that are in this series, the descriptions are written by Supreme Court reporter tony morrow and you can get a capsule summary of each of the cases. Youll see much more of the video than we were able to show you tonight of all the places we visited attached to the 12 cases. If you want to dig in deeper there are two opportunities. Martha jones, you have the floor as we close here, what should people think about this case after spending 90 minutes listening to it . I think there are two things. One is, we dont have to look backwards to appreciate what a failure dred scott was. He writes a second dred scott decision hoping that another case will come and that he can clarify his position and that he can make good. Now, the case might not have given us a civil war but it required a constitutional revolution. It set in place this bar against free black citizenship that had to be resolved by this nation and it was the civil war that gives us the 13th, 14th and 15th amendme amendments. That revolution was necessary for the nation to go forward. Thats it for our discussion on dred scott. Thanks to both of you for being here. Well be back next week with the third in our landmark cases. Later today a hearing looking at the Energy Department and its response during the coronavirus pandemic. Watch coverage of this house energy and commerce subcommittee hearing online at cspan. Org. Tonight, on American History tv, our series landmark cases, produced in cooperation with the National Constitution center, we watch landmark cases on cnn. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of Public Policy events, you can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television. Or through our social media feeds. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Up next on lectures and history, Gettysburg College professor allen guelzo teaches a class on abraham lincoln, his views on slavery, and the dred scott Supreme Court decision. His class is about 50 minutes. Welcome, once again, to civil war era studies 205, production to the american civil