The Slavery Of The United States

Slavery and the slave trade is rarely addressed as more than the Emancipation Proclamation or the shining moments of Abraham Lincoln in classroom textbooks these days. However, the debate over slavery vastly predates the Civil War and was found to be a consistent topic of deliberation amongst the leaders of our nation when drafting the Constitution. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, Chapter 3: The Silence, highlights the monumental political and economical debate over the tight-lipped issue of slavery while illuminating the Founding Fathers’ fear of disunity and emphasizing the nation’s glaring division between states.

　　　　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

The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories. And lastly, the Court declared that the rights of slave-owners were constitutionally protected by the Fifth Amendment because slaves were bought by owners, labeling them as property. In the North, antislavery supporters were outraged by the outcome of the Dred Scott case, strengthening the newly submitted Republican Party and helping ignite the violence between slave-owners and abolitionists on the frontier. The Missouri Compromise was declared unconstitutional under the laws made in the Dred Scott v. Stanford Supreme Court Case in 1857. The case gave Northerners a reason to fear Southern slave power. It left the nation indecisive on the actions it should take to replenish the nation of what it needs to settle the sectional tensions in which were causing our country to fall apart.

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

In the 1780s, there was a question of whether slavery would be tolerable in new territories to threaten the Union. Throughout the decades, many compromises were made to avoid disunion. But the Constitution was not clear on this subject which created quite the discussion nationwide when raised in 1857 before the Supreme Court in the form of the Dred Scott case. The Dred Scott decision was an eye-opener to Northerners that believed slavery was acceptable as long as it stayed in the South. If the decision took away any power Congress once had to regulate slavery in new territories, slavery could quickly expand into much of the western United States. Realizing that once slavery expanded into those territories, it could quickly spread into the once-free states. Many Northerners remained silent on the issue, this very possibility was too scary to ignore. Northerners who had not previously been against the South and against slavery began to realize that if they did not stop slavery now, they might never again have the chance. The growing fear in the North helped further contributed to an ongoing dispute between the two sides which eventually lead to the Civil War. A couple years after Chief Justice Taney read Scott v. Sandford decision, half of the Union had seceded and the nation was engaged in civil war. However, because of the passions it created on both sides, Taney 's decision certainly quickly accelerated the start of conflict. Even in 1865, as the long and bloody

As stated above, the rapid spread of abolitionists in the northern states and the pro-slavery activism in the southern states, the United States of America was soon torn apart. In the year of 1820, an act known as the Missouri Compromise was passed, and slavery was banned from all newly created western territories. This passing caused a lot of tension in the southern states because they believed it was going to eventually diminish their industrial success. A few decades later in 1857, the United States Supreme Court made a new legal principle known as the Dred Scott Decision, which stated that African slaves (in the slave

Scott was an African American slave who sued unsuccessfully for his freedom, because he believed that he should be free based on the territory he was living in. Congress examined this case and came to the conclusion that since Scott was not a citizen of the United States, he did not have the authority to sue the federal court. This case caused great tension within the nation because congress’ decision not only made it seem like they were accepting slavery but it contradicted original compromises such as the Missouri Compromise. The ruling of the Missouri compromise being unconstitutional was an extreme upset to the northerners, because this made way for a greater opportunity of slavery within the nation. The growing tensions between the north and south were increasing with every decision made involving the issue of slavery.

Dred Scott was an African-American who traveled to the North with his owners and when they attempted to sue his owners for slavery for it was not allowed in the free state that they went to. The case gained so much momentum that it was brought to the Supreme Court to rule upon. The court ruled in 7-2 deinging Dred Scott 's request and ruling against congress saying it was unconstitutional. The court’s rationale is that a black man no matter in the north or south “could never be considered citizens of the United States or be protected by the United States Constitution” The decision impacted the sectional crisis by outraging both Republicans and Abolitionist movements that were gaining momentum in the North. The argument about allowing slavery into new states also started radicals like John Brown to try and start a slave rebellion when he committed to raiding Harpers Ferry. The debate of allowing or getting rid of Slavery has stopped being diplomatic and started to turn violent.

Sanford was another hot political issue. Dred Scott and his wife were taken to a free state by their master, and the ruling on this case stated that Scott was still legally bound to his master and must remain a slave. This decision was based on three main factors. The first factor was that Scott was not a citizen and could not sue in Federal court. The second factor was that it was unconstitutional for Congress to outlaw slavery in a territory. The last factor stated that although Scott and his family were heading in and out of Free states, it did not affect their standing as slaves.

What is slavery? Slavery is forced labor and this forced labor is what built America and made them become more developed. “Africans peoples were captured and transported to the Americas to work. Most European colonial economies in the Americas from the 16th century through the 19th were dependant on enslaved African labor for their survival.” Many claim that enslavement was very necessary in order for America to thrive and not die off for it is now one of the best countries in the world. However, slavery was not necessary in the Americas it was just a mechanism that just stripped Africans of their human rights, giving the slave masters the “right” to abuse them. Slavery was not necessary in the Americas because without slavery America would

In a Court in St. Louis, Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, were slaves. They tried to sue to get their freedom on the ground that they lived on. Instead, the ignorance of the Court did not guarantee their freedom because according to the Constitution, they are their master's property. At the same time, the Court also ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. According to the Court's opinion, no slave had the right to be a citizen of the United States and could not expect or have any protection from the Federal Government or any of the courts and the opinion also stated that the Congress does not have any right to ban slavery. It was then considered by the legal scholars to be the worst ever provided by the Supreme Court ever.

The instance of Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford, honest to goodness case in which the U.S. Superior Court on March 6, 1857, decided that a slave who had stayed in a free state and area was not thusly fit the bill for his adaptability; that African Americans were not and could never be subjects of the United States; and that the Missouri Compromise, which had declared free all areas west of Missouri and north of degree, was unlawful. The decision added fuel to the sectional dispute and drove the country closer to regular war.

One of the ways Southerners defended slavery was through legal means. Although the economic and religious aspects of slavery helped to directly support the moral argument of pro-slavery Southerners, the legal aspects of slavery served as visible victories and defending events in Southern philosophy. In 1831-1832, Virginia legislature debated and eventually defeated various emancipation proposals. This legislation was a turning point in the pro-slavery fight. An example of is is the Dred Scott Decision. An excellent example of the legal side to the Southern arguments and the Southern definition of popular sovereignty. With the Dred Scott Decision, the courts declared that the whole African American race had no legal standing as persons in courts also that all blacks were seen as property, and the Constitution protected property rights of the people, which includes slave owners. Moreover, pro-slavery Southerners

President James Buchanan and pro-slavery forces tried to enforce this constitution through Congress for acceptance, but Congress send it back for Kansas voters to vote upon but the voters rejected the Constitution therefore Kansas became a free state. John Brown was an abolitionist that led an anti-slavery violent group. He led a group of seventeenth on October 16,1859 and tried starting a slave uprising but failed after capturing several buildings he was hung and the rest of his men if not captured then killed. After his dead someone in the southern newspaper said "To hang a fanatic is to make a martyr of him and fledge another brood of the same sort" (pg.501) This called abolitionist attention and build of anger. The Dred Scott Case build even more tension between the north and south when a slave tried to sue for his freedom after his owner died claiming he had been moved to a free state and then back to a slave state. He was denied his freedom and remained a slave. The fugitive slave act caused a great commotion since it was a law that fine any reliable official who didn't arrest run-away slaves. This increased underground railroad activity and slaves who fled to Canada. Overall those events caused a great deal of tension between the northern states and southern states.

In an effort to keep slavery alive with the Atlantic slave trade, the south threatened disunion immediately should the slave trade in the Atlantic be banned. The reason that the Atlantic slave trade would have been banished was the high amount of native-born slaves in New England and Virginia were demanding it so. The threats of disunion swayed many of the delegates’ minds, one in particular, Foner notes, is Governor Morris, one of Pennsylvania’s delegates. Morris said he was being forced to decide between offending the southern states and doing injustice to “human nature.” For the sake of unity amongst the nation, he chose the latter. The two laws demonstrated here shows that while as a nation we were expanding and making as accessible a nation as humanly possible, the slaves were still held back into slavery, yet making up for part of the population with the three fifths clause and having a more official return to their owners