Reproduction courtesy of the Library of Congress Dred Scott v. Sandford In Dred Scott v. Sandford argued -- decided , the Supreme Court ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court.
The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U. Finally, the Court declared that the rights of slaveowners were constitutionally protected by the Fifth Amendment because slaves were categorized as property. The controversy began in , when Dr. John Emerson, a surgeon with the U. Army, purchased Dred Scott, a slave, and eventually moved Scott to a base in the Wisconsin Territory. Slavery was banned in the territory pursuant to the Missouri Compromise. Scott lived there for the next four years, hiring himself out for work during the long stretches when Emerson was away.
In , Scott, his new wife, and their young children moved to Louisiana and then to St. Louis with Emerson. Emerson died in , leaving the Scott family to his wife, Eliza Irene Sanford. In , after laboring and saving for years, the Scotts sought to buy their freedom from Sanford, but she refused. Dred Scott then sued Sanford in a state court, arguing that he was legally free because he and his family had lived in a territory where slavery was banned.
In , the state court finally declared Scott free. Scott died in about a year after he and his family had gained their freedom, when his owner under pressure from her husband sent the Scotts back to their original owners, who promptly freed them.
Taney passed away in A year later, a request to include a bust of Taney in a hall that recognized chief justices was blocked by Republicans. Sumner had been brutally beaten and almost killed on the Senate floor in when he made antislavery remarks. Toggle navigation. Link: Library of Congress resources The case had been in the court system for more than a decade. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. Dred Scott was a black slave who sued for his freedom in Missouri.
Scott had accompanied his late master to army postings in the free states of Illinois, Wisconsin and to the Minnesota Territory, areas where slavery was forbidden by state law governed by the Northwest Ordinance and the Missouri Compromise. Following decades of Missouri precedents holding that residence in a free jurisdiction led to the emancipation of a slave, the trial court freed Scott.
The Missouri Supreme Court, however, reversed the decision, and overturned earlier precedents. Scott then unsuccessfully brought claim in federal court, and appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roger Taney, writing for a majority, articulated three major conclusions: 1 the decision held that free blacks in the North could never be considered citizens of the United States, and thus were barred from the federal courts; 2 the decision declared that the ban in slavery in territories considered part of the Louisiana Purchase was unconstitutional; and 3 the decision held that neither the Congress nor territorial governments had the power to ban slavery.
Thus, the concept of popular sovereignty, that is, the right of the citizens of the territory to decide whether to be a free or slave territory, was rendered inoperative. The decision further polarized the American public on the question of slavery.
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