AHC: No Recovery from Dred Scott

It has been suggested that the infamous Dred Scott decision dealt a nearly fatal blow to the American Supreme Court, specifically the citizenry's acceptance of its power of judicial review. Do you agree with this analysis?

If so, with post ACW PoDs (or at the very least without preventing Union victory), how can the recovery of Marbury v Madison be prevented?
 
It has been suggested that the infamous Dred Scott decision dealt a nearly fatal blow to the American Supreme Court, specifically the citizenry's acceptance of its power of judicial review. Do you agree with this analysis?


Not really.

It made Chief Justice Taney very unpopular in the North, but he solved that problem by dying in 1864. Another member of the Dred Scott majority, Justice Daniel, had already died in 1860, and Justice Campbell had resigned in 1861 to join the Confederacy.

Of the other four, three, Wayne Catron and Grier, took a strongly Unionist line during the war, so that the only Justices who gave the Lincoln Administration any trouble were Taney, Nelson and Clifford. The Court as a whole was firmly loyalist during the war, and such lingering rancour as remained was directed at Taney himself rather than at the Court as an institution. There could have been problems had it tried to strike down Reconstruction laws, but it chose to "lie low" on that issue and wait for public opinion to change before moving.

In short, all rather a storm in a teacup.
 
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