Today’s word of the day, courtesy of the Words Coach website, is rectitude (https://www.wordscoach.com/dictionary). Rectitude is a noun that means “the quality or state of being straight; moral integrity, righteousness; the quality or state of being correct in judgment or procedure” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rectitude). M-W continues, “Rectitude is a formal word that comes from the Latin adjective rectus, which means both ‘right’ and ‘straight,’ and ultimately from the Latin verb regere, meaning ‘to lead straight.’ Rectitude today typically refers to moral integrity—that is, to ‘straightness’ or ‘rightness’ of character. (An early use referred literally to a straight line, but that sense is now rare.) Rectus has a number of other descendants in English, including rectangle (a closed four-sided figure with four right angles), rectify (‘to make right’), rectilinear (‘moving in or forming a straight line’), and even rectus itself, a medical term for any one of several straight muscles in the body” (ibid.).

According to Etymonline.com, the word entered the language in the “early 15c., ‘straightness, quality of being straight or erect,’ from Old French rectitude (14c.) and directly from Late Latin rectitudinem (nominative rectitudo) ‘straightness, uprightness,’ from Latin rectus ‘straight’ (from PIE root *reg- ‘move in a straight line,’ with derivatives meaning ‘to direct in a straight line’). Sense of ‘uprightness in conduct or character, rightness of principle or practice’ is from 1530s” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=rectitude).

The Etymonline entry continues with a long recital of words that may have derived from that PIE root word: “It might form all or part of: abrogate; address; adroit; Alaric; alert; anorectic; anorexia; arrogant; arrogate; bishopric; correct; corvee; derecho; derogate; derogatory; Dietrich; direct; dress; eldritch; erect; ergo; Eric; Frederick; Henry; incorrigible; interregnum; interrogate; maharajah; Maratha; prerogative; prorogue; rack (n.1) ‘frame with bars;’ rail (n.1) ‘horizontal bar passing from one post or support to another;’ Raj; rajah; rake (n.1) ‘toothed tool for drawing or scraping things together;’ rake (n.2) ‘debauchee; idle, dissolute person;’ rakish; rank (adj.) ‘corrupt, loathsome, foul;’ real (n.) ‘small Spanish silver coin;’ realm; reck; reckless; reckon; rectangle; rectify; rectilinear; rectitude; recto; recto-; rector; rectum; regal; regent; regicide; regime; regimen; regiment; region; regular; regulate; Regulus; Reich; reign; resurgent; rex; rich; right; Risorgimento; rogation; royal; rule; sord; source; subrogate; subrogation; surge; surrogate; viceroy” (ibid.). It’s a broad collection of derivatives.

On this date in 1857, Taylor Blow filed manumission papers for slaves he owned in Missouri.

The freeing of this slave family came just three months after one of the most hated decisions in the history of the United States Supreme Court, the Dred Scott decision. Most of us learned the name red Scott in US history classes in school, but the story is actually pretty complicated.

“Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia. He was sold to Army Major John Emerson in Missouri, in 1830. Scott accompanied Emerson on multiple assignments in territories which outlawed slavery.  Emerson allowed Scott to marry and left Scott and Scott’s wife in Wisconsin and traveled to Louisiana on assignment.  Emerson then married Eliza Sandford. Shortly after, Emerson had Scott and Scott’s wife travel to Louisiana to serve Emerson’s family. Emerson died in 1843. Scott attempted to purchase freedom from slavery for himself and his family but Eliza Sandford, after inheriting Emerson’s estate, refused. In response, Scott filed suit against the executor of Emerson’s estate, John Sandford.  The federal district court relied upon Missouri law, finding Scott remained a slave” (https://legaldictionary.net/dred-scott-v-sandford/).

Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that “people of African descent ‘are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States’; more specifically, that African Americans were not entitled to ‘full liberty of speech … to hold public meetings … and to keep and carry arms’ along with other constitutionally protected rights and privileges. Taney supported his ruling with an extended survey of American state and local laws from the time of the Constitution’s drafting in 1787 that purported to show that a ‘perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery’” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford).

One of the more interesting things that you may not have learned in school is the involvement of President James Buchanan in the Dred Scott decision. Buchanan, a Democrat, had won the presidency in 1856. At this point, the Dred Scott case, which had begun in 1846, was in front of the Supreme Court. Buchanan “consulted with Justice John Catron in January 1857, inquiring about the outcome of the case and suggesting that a broader decision, beyond the specifics of the case, would be more prudent. Buchanan hoped that a broad decision protecting slavery in the territories could lay the issue to rest, allowing him to focus on other issues.

“Catron replied on February 10, saying that the Supreme Court’s Southern majority would decide against Scott, but would likely have to publish the decision on narrow grounds unless Buchanan could convince his fellow Pennsylvanian, Justice Robert Cooper Grier, to join the majority of the court. Buchanan then wrote to Grier and prevailed upon him, providing the majority leverage to issue a broad-ranging decision sufficient to render the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEBaker200483%E2%80%9384_70-0).

Buchanan apparently thought that a broad decision in favor of slavery would put the issue to rest. Instead, it inflamed abolitionists around the country to work even hard to put an end to slavery. In his last address to Congress, Buchanan set the stage for the secession of the South. “He placed the blame for the crisis solely on ‘intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States,’ and suggested that if they did not ‘repeal their unconstitutional and obnoxious enactments … the injured States, after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union.’ Buchanan’s only suggestion to solve the crisis was ‘an explanatory amendment’ affirming the constitutionality of slavery in the states, the fugitive slave laws, and popular sovereignty in the territories” (ibid.).

Of course, the newly elected president in 1861 was Abraham Lincoln, and secession did occur.

But before that happened, Taylor Blow exhibited a certain kind of rectitude by freeing Dred Scott and his family from slavery just three months after Scott lost his case at the Supreme Court. Scott became a porter at a hotel in St. Louis, but sadly he died less than a year and a half later, in November of 1858 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford).

Today’s image is an uncredited, public domain picture of Dred Scott (https://www.discoverwalks.com/blog/united-states/20-intriguing-facts-about-dred-scott/).