The Supreme Court was composed of nine justices; namely, Chief-Justice Taney and Associate Justices McLean, Wayne, Catron, Daniel, Nelson, Grier, Curtis, and Campbell. There was at once manifested among the judges not only a lively interest in the questions presented, but a wide difference of views as to the manner of treating them. Consultations of the Supreme Court are always shrouded in inviolable secrecy, but the opinions afterwards published indicate that the political aspects of slavery, which were then convulsing the country, from the very first found a certain sympathy and reflection in these grave judicial deliberations. The discussions yet turned upon certain merely technical rules to be applied to the pleadings under review; and ostensibly to give time for further examination, the case was postponed and a re-argument ordered for the next term. It may, however, be suspected that the nearness of the Presidential election had more to do with this postponement than did the exigencies of the law.[3] [Illustration: ROGER B. TANEY.] The Presidential election came, and Mr. Buchanan was chosen. Soon after, the court met to begin its long winter term; and about the middle of December, 1856, the Dred Scott case was once more elaborately argued. Again occupying the attention of the court for four successive days, as it had also done in the first hearing, the eminent counsel, after passing lightly over mere technical subtleties, discussed very fully what was acknowledged to be the leading point in the controversy; namely, whether Congress had power under the Constitution to prohibit slavery in the Federal Territories, as it had done by the Missouri Compromise act and various other laws. It was precisely the policy, or impolicy, of this and similar prohibitions which formed the subject of contention in party politics. The question of their constitutional validity was certain to take even a higher rank in public interest.