Dred Scott V. Sanford 1858

Julien Mercier and Kendal Kulp

Background

• Dred Scott was born a slave in Missouri

• His owner, John Emerson, moved with him to Illinois and what is now Minnesota.

• John Emerson dies and Dred Scott sues for his freedom

First attempt

• Dred Scott first tried to buy his freedom with abolitionist help

• He won a suit for his freedom in a Missouri court against Emerson’s widow

• The decision was then overturned in the Missouri supreme court

New suit

• Dred Scott files a second suit in federal district court; Mrs. Emerson’s brother, John Sanford of New York acted as her attorney

• The federal district court ruled that Scott was still a slave

• He appealed to the US supreme court

Supreme Court justices

• 5 of the justices were slave owners, another 2 supported the south

• Chief justice Rodger B. Taney was a flaming racist

• “The African in the United States even when free, are everywhere a degraded class and exercise no political influence. The privileges they are allowed to enjoy are accorded to them as a matter of kindness and benevolence rather than right…”

The case in SCOTUS

• Three issues- Whether Scott was a citizen, whether he had gained freedom by moving to free land, whether the Missouri Compromise applied to where he lived

• First ruling was that Dred Scott was not a citizen because he was black

• Taney went on to say that congress had no power to regulate slavery anyway

Aftermath• Northerners decided that

slavery was not nearly as tolerable now that congress had no power to regulate it

• The north feared that slavery would expand into all the western territories

• The case brought both the north and south to the point where they would be willing fight over slavery

Sources

• Primary Chief justice Robert B. Taney- Opinion of the court in Dred Scott, plantiff in error v. John F. A. Sanford March 6,1857

• Secondary Supreme court case studies by McGraw-hill companies, inc.

• Cozzens, L. (1999, October 31). Impact of dred scott. Retrieved from http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/scott/impact.html