Dredd Scott Decision Essay

Dred Scott was an African American man that went to trial to sue for his freedom in 1847. He was living in Missouri, which was a slave state. He was then taken to Illinois and Minnesota, they were both free states. Dred Scott was sold to Sandford in a free state and tried to sue for his freedom. The United States Supreme court said that “African ancestry whether you were free or not, will never become citizens of the United States and cannot sue in a federal court.” ( Taney, 1857) Sandford had him as a slave for a long period of time when Dred Scott finally chose to sue. The Declaration of Independence and the The Constitution had never included or mentioned slaves being treated equally.

The constitution details, “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state…and each senator shall have one vote.” This equal representation along with careful maintenance of regional balance in the Senate allowed for Southern states to retain their national veto over slavery. Lastly, the constitution’s allowance for the establishment of the Supreme Court that could, with a single decision, overturn years worth of legislation provided a monumental setback. In the court case Dred Scott v. Sandford, the court ruled that the federal government did not retain the power to prevent slavery in the territories. Although slavery was eventually abolished by the fourteenth amendment, the long struggle and numerous constitutional roadblocks demonstrate how a number of provisions within the constitution hindered the ability of the national government to efficiently overcome a national concern.

“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 a slave to Peter Blow family who suffered financial constraints then later sold Scott to a surgeon John Emerson. Emerson moved with Scott to Fort Snelling where slavery was not allowed by Missouri Compromise. During his period at Fort Snelling, Scott married Harriet Robinson a slave too with whom they had two children. Emerson and Scott’s family later moved back to St Louis in the year 1940 where they lived. In 1946 Dr. Emerson passed on, and Scott’s family was left behind with Emerson’s widow as their master. After Dr. Emerson demise, Scott sued Emerson’s family arguing that by him having stayed in Fort Snelling, he had attained his freedom while there and he was a free man. In sought of his freedom, the case was presented to State court, but unfortunately, he lost in case. The case was appealed, and in the year 1857, the case was ruled out by Chief Justice Roger Taney. In the ruling, the court ruled out that, Scotts was not allowed to claim any US citizenship as blacks who were salves or free were not allowed to do so. The ruling also claimed that Scotts had never been free as he was a slave and they were considered as personal property (Konig, Finkelman, & Bracey, 2010). The ruling led to consequences and effects in the US that affected the country politically, culturally and legally as outlined in the paper.

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

In 1846 Scott sued his master for his freedom, asserting that his sojourns in free jurisdictions made him free. After numerous delays, trials, and retrials, the case reached the Supreme Court in 1856. The court responded with nine separate opinions, and Chief Justice Roger Brook Taney delivered the deciding opinion. The ruling was both complex and controversial: the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress did not have authority to limit the expansion of slavery; slavery was found to be legal in the territories until the citizens voted for or against it; and Africans and their descendants were found to be ineligible for citizenship in the United States as the framers of the Constitution had not viewed Africans as citizens. Since African Americans were not viewed by the court as citizens, they could not file suit. Despite the finality of the court 's

Rachel vs. Walker Case which states that if a slave returns to Missouri and is not owned as Dred Scott did there

In 1838, Dr. Emerson moved to Fort Jesup in Louisiana and married Irene Sanford, and remained there for a decade. In 1842, Dr. Emerson retired from the army and moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he remained for the rest of his life. By that time, the state of Missouri had been a free state for twenty-one years. Thus, Dred Scott had been living within the boundaries of freedom for some time but was illegally enslaved. Dr. Emerson passed away in 1843 and his wife inherited his entire estate which included ownership of the Scott family. Because she inherited her husband’s fortune the Scotts were now her property – in a state where slavery had been outlawed. Three years later, Dred Scott attempted to buy the freedom congress granted those in the

In 1846, a slave living in Missouri named Dred Scott, sued for his freedom on the basis that he had lived for a total of seven years in territories that were closed to slavery. Scott's owner had been an army doctor named John Emerson. Emerson's position had required him to move several times in a relatively short amount of time. During his time with Emerson, Scott had lived in the state of Illinois, which was

Friction between the North and South had been steadily increasing since the Missouri compromise in 1820, which effectively divided the North and South into free and slave states, respectively. While this worked to delay further conflict, it merely postponed the conflict. The conflict was placed in the limelight yet again with Nat Turners slave rebellion in 1831, The failed WIlmot Proviso in 1846, and then later Henry Clay’s Compromise of 1850, which solely postponed violent confrontation yet again. The latest compromise successfully delayed confrontation for four more years, until “Bleeding Kansas”, which was, in fact, a direct result of the compromise of 1850. Three years after Bleeding Kansas, there was the horrible SCOTUS decision on the case of Dred Scott vs. Sanford, in which the supreme court essentially stated slaves were

Today I had the case of Dred Scott. Dred was a slave who had moved to free states with his owner, and when his owner died, he somehow managed to sue for his freedom, even though he has no right to do so because he doesn’t have American citizenship and he has no rights whatsoever. I’m told the foolishness went on for eleven years until it got to us. The ruling came very quickly to me. Of course, I immediately knew Dred was still a slave because he was property and the government has no right to take away property without due process of law. I also realized I could use this case to get rid of the Missouri Compromise. Since the government couldn’t take property and slaves were property, slavery is constitutional. Slavery is legal in every state

In the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sanford decision, the U.S. Supreme Court denied citizenship to all slaves, ex-slaves and descendants of slaves and denied Congress the right to prohibit slavery in the territories.

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.

Before the Civil War, slavery was a common staple in Supreme Court cases. Dred Scott v Sanford, 1857, was such a case. The Supreme Court ruled that slaves were not citizens of the United States, nor were they entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship. The Court also ruled that the Missouri Compromise, which banned slavery in the territories in the southern border of Missouri, was unconstitutional, thus invalidating it. (pg. 80)

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