The case compelled the United States legal system to acknowledge that it could not deny him access to a basic protection against unlawful imprisonment.

The distinction changes the moral center of the story.

Standing Bear is not important because a judge rescued him from nonpersonhood.

He is important because he confronted a legal system that attempted to make his rights disappear inside a category of federal control.

He won.

And then the limits of that victory became part of the story too.