Statement of Significance (as of designation - March 29, 2007):
The Field House is significant as the home of Roswell Field, attorney for the slave Dred Scott, whose case, Scott v. Sandford (1857), was the most controversial Supreme Court case of the nineteenth century, and remains one of the most significant cases in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. Field formulated the legal strategy that placed Scotts suit for freedom before the Court. The Court declared that no slave could be a U.S. citizen and furthermore found unconstitutional the Missouri Compromise of 1820 that abolished slavery in the territories. The Scott decision widened the political gap between North and South and helped precipitate the Civil War.