Roswell Martin Field (February 2, 1807 – July 12, 1869), was an American lawyer and politician. He served on the

Vermont House of Representatives The Vermont House of Representatives is the lower house of the Vermont General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Vermont. The House comprises 150 members, with each member representing around 4,100 citizens. Representatives a ...

. Field was one of the attorneys for the enslaved Dred and Harriet Scott and their daughters in 1853; as related to ''

Dred Scott v. Sandford ''Dred Scott v. Sandford'', 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that held the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and therefore they ...

,'' where he argued for the rights of African-Americans to earn United States citizenship. He was from the prominent Field family of Vermont.

Biography

Roswell Martin Field was born on February 2, 1807, in Newfane,

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

, to parents Esther Smith (née Kellogg) and Gen. Martin Field. He was born in southern Vermont to a prominent New England family. Field studied at

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists, Middlebury w ...

(class of 1822), where he studied under his uncle Hon. Daniel Kellogg. Field became a lawyer in Vermont in 1825. He served in the

from 1835 to 1837, and was succeeded by James Elliot. Field had married in October 1832 after a very short period of dating, and his new wife Mary Almira Phelps was asking for a private

annulment Annulment is a legal procedure within secular and religious legal systems for declaring a marriage null and void. Unlike divorce, it is usually retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is considered to be invalid from the beginning alm ...

their marriage after it was not

consummated The consummation of a marriage, or simply consummation, is the first officially credited act of sexual intercourse following marriage. In many traditions and statutes of civil or religious law, the definition usually refers to penile–vaginal p ...

. Phelps then married another man in Boston within one month of her marriage to Field, and Field spent the next nine years in courts trying to legally prove his marriage was valid. He lost his very public case in the

Vermont Supreme Court The Vermont Supreme Court is the highest judicial authority of the U.S. state of Vermont. Unlike most other states, the Vermont Supreme Court hears appeals directly from the trial courts, as Vermont has no intermediate appeals court. The court ...

. He left his home state after dealing with his marriage humiliation, and in 1839, Field moved to

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

. In 1848, Field married Frances Reed in St. Louis, who was also from Vermont.

''Dred Scott v. Sandford''

Roswell Field was of no family relation to lawyer Alexander Field, who had worked on the Dred Scott legal case earlier, but they were friends. In 1853, Roswell Field agreed to start work on the Scott case,

pro-bono ( English: 'for the public good'), usually shortened to , is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. The term traditionally referred to provision of legal services by legal professionals for people who a ...

, and suggested a lawsuit in the federal courts under the diverse-citizenship clause, to allow lawsuits between parties who are residents of different states. Field had arranged for

Montgomery Blair Montgomery Blair (May 10, 1813 – July 27, 1883) was an American politician and lawyer from Maryland. He served in the Lincoln administration cabinet as Postmaster-General from 1861 to 1864, during the Civil War. He was the son of Francis Pr ...

, a high-profile lawyer living in Washington, D.C. to serve as the defense counsel and argue the Scott's case before the United States Supreme Court.

Dred Scott Dred Scott ( – September 17, 1858) was an enslaved African American man who, along with his wife, Harriet, unsuccessfully sued for the freedom of themselves and their two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, in the '' Dred Scott v. Sandford'' case ...

was the slave of a United States Army physician, who had taken his enslaved servant along for prolonged stays in free territory. On Scott's behalf, Blair argued that the time the black man had spent in the free state of Illinois and in Minnesota, free territory since the

Northwest Ordinance of 1787 The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio and also known as the Ordinance of 1787), enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Co ...

, therefore it made him a free man.

Death and legacy

Field died on July 12, 1869, in St. Louis, Missouri. He had six children but four of them died in early childhood. His two sons became writers and poets, one was Roswell Martin Field (1851–1919), and the other was

Eugene Field Eugene Field Sr. (September 2, 1850 – November 4, 1895) was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays. He was known as the "poet of childhood". Early life and education Field was born in St. Louis, Missouri ...

. They all lived together in a house in St. Louis which is now a museum called the " Eugene Field House", or alternatively the "Field House Museum". Field was the subject of the biography, ''Dred Scott's Advocate: A Biography of Roswell M. Field'' (

University of Missouri Press The University of Missouri Press is a university press operated by the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri and London, England; it was founded in 1958 primarily through the efforts of English professor William Peden. Many publications ...

, 1996) by Kenneth C. Kaufman.

Biography

''Dred Scott v. Sandford''

Death and legacy

See also

References

Further reading