Week 7 Critical Thinking - history

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Georgia Military College *

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Jan 9, 2024

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Effects of Dred Scott’s Case Harley Hill GMC Online HIS 121 Professor Johnson December 3, 2023

Effects of Dred Scott’s Case The United States Supreme Court surprised the country in 1857 when it ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, denied black citizenship in America, and upheld slavery in US territory. Scott's freedom case was typical and not very important at first. A Missouri statute that allowed anybody held in unjust servitude, regardless of race, to file a lawsuit to obtain their freedom allowed the cases to be heard. Dred Scott outlined his justifications for believing he should be free in the petition he signed. Owner of Scott was Dr. John Emerson, a surgeon in the US Army who served at several military positions in the free states of Wisconsin Territory and Illinois. As a result of their travels, Dred Scott lived in regions where slavery was outlawed. Slaves who were transferred to such locations were released, even if they returned to Missouri, the slave state, due to the long-standing "once free, always free" legal norm that governs freedom claims in Missouri. Due to his inability to provide evidence that Emerson's widow owned him and Harriet, Scott lost the first trial on a technicality. The Missouri Supreme Court determined that the case needed to be retried the following year. Scott and his family were declared free by the St. Louis circuit court in a retrial in 1850. At a time when white Americans were struggling with the political position of slavery and their feelings toward black people, slave or free, Dred Scott attempted to obtain his freedom. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was growing pressure on the US Supreme Court to provide a legal remedy for the slavery problem. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in this decision that those who were enslaved could not expect any protection from the federal government or the legal system since they were not citizens of the country. Additionally, the ruling determined that Congress lacked the power to outlaw slavery on any Federal territory. Abolitionists were outraged by the Dred Scott Decision because they believed the Supreme Court's decision would put an end to discussions over slavery in the territories. The Confederate States of America were established when southern states separated from the Union as a result of growing tensions between the North and South over slavery.

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