Dred Scott
Published on Nov 22, 2015
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
In March 1857, in one of the most controversial events preceding the American Civil War (1861-65), the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford. The case had been brought before the court by Dred Scott, a slave who had lived with his owner in a free state before returning to the slave state of Missouri.
Photo by Werner Kunz
Scott argued that his time spent in these locations entitled him to emancipation. In his decision, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, a staunch supporter of slavery, disagreed.
Photo by Kheel Center, Cornell University
The court found that no black, free or slave, could claim U.S. citizenship, and therefore blacks were unable to petition the court for their freedom.Dred Scott, a black slave, and his wife had once belonged to army surgeon John Emerson, who had bought him from the Peter Blow family of St. Louis.
Photo by House Divided Project
After Emerson died, the Blows apparently helped Scott sue Emerson’s widow for his freedom, but lost the case in state court. Because Mrs. Emerson left him with her brother John Sanford (misspelled Sandford in court papers), a New York citizen, Scott sued again in federal court, claiming Missouri citizenship.
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Scott’s lawyers eventually appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.Originally, Justice Samuel Nelson was to write a narrow opinion, arguing that the case belonged in the state, not a federal court.
Photo by Bob Linsdell
But northern antislavery justices John McLean of Ohio and Benjamin R. Curtis of Massuchtte planned to dissent, arguing that Scott should be freed under the Missouri Compromise because he had traveled north of the 36°30′ line, whereas the Court’s southerners wanted to rule the compromise unconstitutional. Among several opinions, Taney’s was both the most important and the most tortuous.
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