Frederick unveils new Dred Scott plaque

FREDERICK (AP) - More than 150 years after the U.S. Supreme Court issued the notorious Dred Scott decision affirming slavery, a Maryland city unveiled a plaque this week to educate visitors about the opinion and the local man who wrote it - and to quell a local controversy.

The rectangular bronze marker stands on a granite pedestal at Frederick City Hall about eight feet from a stern bust of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney that has occupied the plaza for nearly 80 years despite calls for its removal.

The plaque is a compromise between residents who wanted the Taney statue gone and those who consider him a great jurist whose...