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118 james p. mcclure et al. Circumventing the Dred Scott Decision Edward Bates, Salmon P. Chase, and the Citizenship of African Americans Edited by James P. mcClure, leigh Johnsen, kathleen Norman, and michael vanderlan in August 1863, brig. Gen. George F. Shepley, military governor of louisiana, returned fromWashingtonwith authorityto registerAfricanAmericans asvoters in the selectionof delegates fora stateconstitutionalconvention. His instructions directed him to register “all the loyal citizens of the united States” in each parish . He also brought from Washington printed copies of an opinion byAttorney General Edward bates that declared, as summarized rather freely by Secretary of theTreasurySalmon P. Chase, “that all free persons born in the united States or naturalized of whatever color, are citizens of the united States.” According to Chase, Shepley’s instructions, written by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and PresidentAbraham lincoln,“have been framed with this opinion inview.”1 118 E 1. The Warof the Rebellion:ACompilation of theofficial Records of the Union andConfederateArmies, 128 vols. (Washington, D.C.:GPo, 1880–1901), ser. 1,vol. 26, 1:694–95;Salmon P. Chase to benjamin F. Flanders, Aug. 26. 1863, Dartmouth College library; and Chase to robert Dale owen, Sept. 6, 1863, Chase Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. These letters, along with those from Chase to Thomas J. Durant, Abraham lincoln, William Tecumseh Sherman, George opdyke et al., and John C. Hamilton cited in the notes below, will appear in volumes 4 and 5 of John Niven, James P. mcClure, and leigh Johnsen, eds., The Salmon P. Chase Papers (kent,ohio:kent Stateuniv. Press, 1993–).The National Historical Publications and recordsCommission (NHPrC), a branch of the National Archives (NA), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), an independent federal agency, provide financial support for the Salmon P. Chase Papers, directed by John Niven at The Claremont Graduate university in Claremont, California. Civil War History, vol. Xliii No. 4 © 1997 by The kent State university Press circumventing the dred scott decision 119 2. Chase to Flanders, Aug. 26, 1863, Dartmouth College library; and Chase to Thomas J. Durant, Nov. 19, 1863, Chase Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 3. Chase to lincoln, Apr. 12, 1865, lincoln Papers, library of Congress (lC); Chase to Sherman , Jan. 2, 1865, Sherman Papers, lC. 4. Niven et al., Chase Papers 1:387. Chase confessed that he had no “reason to believe that the instructions were intended to establish any imperative rule of registration,” and that “i do not know whether public sentiment will admit the application of this doctrine in louisiana.”2 in fact, as louisiana’sunionists held theirconstitutionalconvention and framed terms for the state’s reorganization, black voters did not receive the franchise. beyond the immediatecontextof the instructions toShepley, however, Chase relied on bates’s opinion as an official declaration thatAfricanAmericans had the rights of citizens.“youwill remember, doubtless,”Chase prompted lincoln in the spring of 1865, “that the first order ever issued for enrollment with a view to reconstruction went to General Shepley & directed the enrollment of all loyal citizens; and i suppose that, since the opinion of Attorney General bates, no one, connected with your administration, has questioned the citizenship of free colored men more than that of free white men.” And a few months earlier in a letter to maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, Chase cited bates’s “well considered opinion” and asserted: “in my judgment negroes as men have the same natural rights as other men.”3 The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, finally resolved the issue of citizenship forAfrican Americans. until then Chase had to rely on other means to assert the notion that blackAmericanswerecitizens.Theu.S. SupremeCourt, and especiallyChief Justice roger b. Taney, had declared to the contrary in Scott v. Sandford, the famous Dred Scott case of 1857. Chase did more than cite bates’s opinion—he had actually elicited it. on September 15, 1862, Chase noted in his journal that he “Called on AttorneyGeneral aboutcitizenshipof colored men.Found himaversetoexpressingofficial opinion.”4on September24, twodays afterlincoln presented the Emancipation Proclamation to the cabinet, Chase formally requested bates’s official opinion on a citizenship case. Two months later the reluctant bates replied in the form of a long letter to Chase (see Documents 5 and 6 below). Although his name did not appear either in Chase’s official request to bates or in the attorney general’s opinion, a key figure in the test case—the individual whose citizenship was technically at issue—was David m. Selsey. During the summerof 1862, the revenue Service...

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