Dred Scott's Argumentative Essay

“In 1847, Dred Scott first went to trial to sue for his freedom, (Dred Scott’s fight for freedom).” “While the immediate issue in this case was Dred Scott’s status, the court also had the opportunity to rule on the question of slavery in the territories, (Appleby et all, 446-447).” One of the main issues of this case was that the justices were trying to settle a political problem rather than being completely fair in their decisions. Dred lost the first trial but was granted a second trial. The next year the Missouri Supreme Court decided that the case should be retried, (Dred Scott’s fight for freedom). In 1850, the Circuit Court of St. Louis County

Dred Scott was born into slavery around 1800 in Virginia. He was owned by Dr. John Emerson a surgeon who worked for the army. Dr. Emerson 's career took him, along with his other slaves, to the free territories of Illinois and Wisconsin. While in Wisconsin, Dred Scott married Harriet Robinson, who became property of Dr. Emerson, who also married Eliza Irene Sanford in 1838. When Dr. Emerson died, his slaves were in charge of his wife. Scott tried to buy his freedom and his family’s for $300, but Mrs. Emerson refused, motivating him to sue for his freedom. On April 8, 1846, Dred and Harriet Scott sued for liberty in a court of St. Louis County, Missouri. There were some precedents in the local jurisdiction of Missouri according to which if a slave returned to the State after having been in a free territory, he could remain still free; those precedents had confirmed the principle of "once free, always free".

　　　　Slavery was at the root of the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. Dred Scott sued his master to obtain freedom for himself and his family. His argument was that he had lived in a territory where slavery was illegal; therefore he should be considered a free man. Dred Scott was born a slave in Virginia around 1800. Scott and his family were slaves owned by Peter Blow and his family. He moved to St. Louis with them in 1830 and was sold to John Emerson, a military doctor. They went to Illinois and the Wisconsin territory where the Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery. Dred Scott married and had two

Dred Scott was an enslaved African American man in the United States who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom and that of his wife and their two daughters in the Dred Scott v. Sanford case of 1857, popularly known as the "Dred Scott Decision." The case was based on the fact that although he and his wife Harriet Scott were slaves, they had lived with his slave owner, Dr. John Emerson, in states and territories where slavery was illegal according to both state laws and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, including Illinois and Minnesota. The United States Supreme Court decided 7–2 against Scott, finding that neither he nor any other person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States, and therefore Scott could not bring

Missouri state court declared Scott to be a free man in 1850. During the time that the

In April of 1846, Dred and Harriet Scott filed a suit for "freedom" against Irene Emerson in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, obviously under the jurisdiction of Missouri law. The established legal principle of Missouri at this time regarding slavery was "once free, always free". In other words, to the Missouri courts, what Scott was doing was perfectly acceptable due to the precedent of the Missouri case Rachael v. Walker (1837), which basically stated that if a slave was taken by his or her master to a free state that slave was then "entitled to freedom by virtue of residence in the free state or territory" [Oxford, 761]. On account of this alone, Scott and his wife would have been freed when the case came to trial in 1847, however there was a problem of hearsay evidence in the case and the judge declared it a mistrial. It was not until three years later in 1850 that the court was able to correct the problem and unfalteringly sided with the Scott's and ordered them freed, citing that once he had been in free territory, he was indirectly freed and remained freed. By this time Mrs. Emerson had married, moved to New England with her new husband, and left these affairs and ownership of the Scotts to her brother, John F. A. Sanford. After Scott was declared free by the courts, Sanford sought an appeal from the Missouri Supreme Court. In 1852 in, Scott v. Emerson, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed the decision by the lower court seeing this case now not as the

The Dred Scott Decision was a famous Supreme Court case, deciding over the decision of slavery was legal in the newly discovered territory. It debated over the decision of whether it was legal for slaveholders to take their property into the newly formed territory or whether their property should be freed in this process. The ruling concluded in 1857 and affirmed that slaveholders should have the right to take their slaves to the west . The decision took three attempts to finally reach a conclusion about whether an African American living in recently developed land should be considered free or not. Below I will discuss the life of Dred Scott, the Scott v. Emerson Case, the Scott v. Sandford Case, the eradicating of slavery, and the path to black citizenship in the proceeding decades.

John F.A Sandford. This case was one of the most controversial cases leading up to the Civil War. This decision was issued in March 1857 by the United States Supreme Court. The decision included a slave man named Dred Scott. Dred Scott was a slave who lived in a free-state along with his owner. In front of the Supreme Court, he argued that since he spent time in a free state, he had the right to have freedom. The court then overruled his argument and decided that no slave could claim a U.S citizenship. Since they decided that no slaves could claim a U.S citizenship, African Americans had no ability to argue for their freedom due to the Supreme Court refusing to give permission. This decision raised the tensions between the North and South, making the abolitionists of slavery furious. Not only did the Dred Scott decision raise the tensions between both sides, but the states rights did

On March 6, 1857, Dred Scott, a Missouri slave, sued for his freedom and lost. Scott’s owner, an army doctor, took him to Illinois and the Wisconsin territory, and in both places slavery was against the law. Scott took his case all the way to the Supreme Court, but he fell short because slaves were not considered a person. This

Dred Scott was an enslaved African American from Southampton, Virginia. Virginia at that time was a slave state. In 1843, Dred Scott traveled with his owner, John Emerson, who was an army surgeon, from a slave sate to Missouri. When John Emerson died in a slave state, Scott and his wife decided to sue to win their freedom in St. Louis federal Court. Because of his race, Dred Scott was denied to sue because he was stateless. The court case was argued on February 11-17th, 1856 and then reargued in December 15-17th. The case was then decided on March 6th, 1857 in the Missouri territory. The reasoning given by the Supreme Court for making their decision was that, enslaved African race were not intended to be included in the constitution, his racial background, and because slaves were considered as properties. So because

Dred Scott was a slave owned by an army surgeon in Missouri. “In 1836, Scott had been taken by his owner to Fort Snelling, in what is now Minnesota, then a territory in which slavery was explicitly forbidden according to the Missouri Compromise”(Oates 50). In 1846, he brought a suit in the state court on the grounds that residence in a free territory liberated him from slavery. The Supreme Court of Missouri, however, ruled that since he was brought back into a state where slavery was legal, the status of slavery was reattached to him and he had no standing before the court.

In the history of the United States Supreme Court, there are a multitude of cases that have left an indelible mark in the tapestry of American history, culture, and society. Among these landmark disputes may be found issues as divisive as reproductive health, fundamental economic freedoms, the power of the Supreme Court and, of course, race. Among these, Dred Scott v. Sanford occupies a special place. Often called as the “worst decision made by the Supreme Court”, Dred Scott v. Sanford provided an impetus for slavers to continue an injustice that had existed since the colonial era . By deciding the way it did, the United States Supreme Court also created a divide between the northern and southern states – a divide so great that it eventually led to the American Civil War. Such an enormous effect on the sentiment of the times warrants a closer look at the decisions of the justices involved in the Dred Scott decision. Doing so will also shed light into the intricate logic behind the justices’ decisions – essentially the reasons why they concurred or dissented from the main opinion written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. The process of interrogating the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution will also reveal the fundamental societal sentiment regarding slavery and African Americans at the time.

This was a landmark United States Supreme Court case, in 1846 a slave named Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, sued for their freedom in a St. Louis city court. They had lived with their owner, an army surgeon, at Fort Snelling, then in the free Territory of Wisconsin. The Scotts' freedom could be established on the grounds that they had been held in relationship for long time in a free territory and were then returned to a slave state. Courts had ruled this way in the past. However, what appeared to be a straightforward lawsuit between two private teams became an 11-year legal struggle that reach the highest point of an activity in one of the most well known decisions ever issued by the United States Supreme

decision on March 6, 1857. By a 7 - 2 vote, the court ruled against Scott. Of the seven opinions written by the members of the majority, Chief Justice Taney’s is considered to present the forma; view of the Court, and I think that these are the most damaging statements in the case. Taney first dealt with the issues of whether Dredd Scott or any slave or descendant of slaves could be a slave s could be a citizen under the US constitution. It was Taney’s opinion as the ! majority of the court that: "they (slaves) are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizen" in the US constitution, and can, therefore, claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United

It was the year of 1857 and a robust wind blew through the South as the air was filled with both victory and horrific disappointment. An ordinary man named Dred Scott began his journey for his rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Scott’s struggle for freedom would come to make him one of the most famous plaintiffs in American history and a worldwide symbol for emancipation. Scott happened to be of African descent which was an extremely difficult obstacle to live with in early America. The Dred Scott decision made by the supreme court in March of 1857 negatively impacted the United States by empowering the South, contributing to the secession, and expediting the Civil War.