John McLean's Dissent in Dred Scott

Question

McLean's biographer called him a "moralist rather than a realist" and thought that he was a reformer. I believe that he was correct. "Reformers," as a personality type are: "Serious, Principled, Consistent, Fair, Moralist, Formalist, Persistent, Disciplined, Righteous, Responsible, Diligent, Reformist, Temperate Acting with plan." For example, McLean relied heavily on precedent which explains many of these inclinations and he used the word "right" (as opposed to wrong), sixty three times in his Dred Scott dissent reflecting his tendency to moralize.

Question??????????

How can I incorporate the NTTP, (previously Enneagram) personality type indicators into an explanation of John McLean's dissent in Dred Scott so that the resulting narrative does not turn into a psychology thesis rather than a history thesis?

My goal is to suggest that McLean's dissent reflected an appeal to precedent and was a protest against double jeopardy.

Historians have overlooked McLean's dissent in Fox v. Ohio in their analysis of Dred Scott. This unexplored connection would explain his need to discuss Slave Grace, and also contextualize the precedential impact of Somerset (1772). Even in Gamble v. US, (2019) where the dissenter mentions Dred Scott, he does not mention McLean.

This is a longer term project for which I am thinking I will need about 60 hours of help. Thesis proposal, (not literature review), chapter summary, abstract, proofing. Very flexible timing.

Answer 1

I would caution you against your use of NTTP as a lens through which to understand McLean's dissent. It's one thing to make biographical assertions (a moralist rather than a realist), but it's quite another to judge a person based upon a small corpus. You could certainly do a linguistic analysis of McLean's opinions on the Supreme Court: you could come up with basic statistical l data about usage frequencies, phrasal patterns, if certain topics before the court yielded categorizable syntax and diction patterns. However, to retroactively psychoanalyze him through this very small type of discourse (Supreme Court opinions) would be bad research.

As to this, "My goal is to suggest that McLean's dissent reflected an appeal to precedent and was a protest against double jeopardy," I think that's a very doable argument. However, to definitely or even persuasively argue it, you would need to immerse yourself in his opinions and do literary/ stylistic/ linguistic analysis of them rather than relying upon biographers alone. Message me if I can be of any more help.